Review: COLUMBUS CHILDREN'S THEATRE'S CABARET at Riffe Center

In the Columbus Children’s Theatre production of CABARET, nothing is what it appears to be. A line can be repeated but cast a completely different meaning and things that are commonplace in the first act take on a darker symbolic meaning by the second.

Set in 1930s Berlin, CABARET bursts with some of Broadway’s most iconic songs — yet beneath the glittering lights, its second act plunges into one of the genre’s darkest corners. Its warning about the dangers of ignoring political storms remains chillingly relevant.

Columbus Children’s Theatre presents the musical Feb. 20 – March 1 at the Riffe Center Studio 2 (77 S. High Street in downtown Columbus). Director SMJ delivers an immersive experience where actors interact with the audience as if they were patrons at the Kit Kat Club. Yet the result at the end of the show is both breathtaking and haunting, and completely different than its start.

Created by John Kander (music), Fred Ebb (lyrics) and Joe Masteroff (book), CABARET is like a prism. When the lights go on, the show reflects sparkles of different plotlines across the stage.

The two-act musical centers around Clifford Bradshaw (Aaron Turnbull), a struggling American writer who moves to Berlin to breathe in new surroundings in an attempt to snap out of his writer’s block. Bradshaw’s role is not unlike Nick Caraway in THE GREAT GATSBY: an observer who exposes his audience to an unfamiliar landscape as he reluctantly interacts with it.

The Kit Kat Club, a seductive, lurid nightclub on the fringes of German society, is the hub of the action. The story branches out into subplots. Fraulein Schneider (Nancy Chappell), Bradshaw’s landlord, develops a relationship with a Jewish fruit vendor Herr Schultz (Scott Landis-Wilson). Then you have Bradshaw’s courtship of Sally Bowles (Julia E. Walters), a featured performer at the Kit Kat Club. The Emcee (Juliette Marcella) serves as the conductor of the lives of her Kit Kat Club performers.

While introducing the audience to the performance space, the Emcee states, “Leave your troubles outside! In here, life is beautiful! The girls are beautiful! Even the orchestra is beautiful!”

Only two of those proclamations turn out to be true. The performers and the orchestra are exquisite, but life is far from it. While the opening numbers, “Wilkommen,” “Two Ladies,” and “Mein Herr” paint a decadent portrait of Berlin, they also hint at the darkness lurking in the corners as Germany drifts toward World War II.

At the heart of CABARET are its characters. Turnbull’s Bradshaw begins as an observer but is pulled into the undercurrent, emerging bruised and disillusioned. Walters captures Bowles’ reckless charm and her vulnerability.

Marchella is glorious in their portrayal of the dark, gender-bending Emcee. They are part jester/part commentator. Marchella does more with an arched eyebrow than most could do with a four-page aside.

Chappell captures the world-weary character’s reluctance to believe she has found true love and then shifts to defeated resignation as she watches it get pulled away by religion and politics. Wilson displays his character’s naivety that “things will pass,” even as a Hitler Youth member hurls a brick through his shop window.

Such a strong group of actors could easily overshadow the ensemble, but Brit Bordner (Bobby), Kyle Roby (Ernst Ludwig), and Cindy Tran Nguyen (Fraulein Kost) refuse to fade into the background.

The production’s most chilling moment comes with the Act I reprise of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” After Ludwig reveals his Nazi allegiance, he and Kost transform a pastoral melody into a chilling nationalist anthem: “Now Fatherland, Fatherland, show us the sign/Your children have waited to see …When the world is mine.”

How each cast member relates to this bombastic national hymn with disgust, embarrassment, worry, or pride is a master class in presentation.

Music director Emerson Slicer and his nine-piece orchestra pivots from lush decadence to brittle menace to this show while choreographer Cindy Straub contributes motion to the emotion.

The line – “What good’s permitting some prophet of doom to wipe every smile away?” -- comes full circle. When Bowles delivers it at the beginning of the show, it reads as an invitation to misbehave. She delivers the same line near the end of the show, but her forced smile is betrayed by her mascara-streaked tears.

The danger isn’t the prophet of doom. It’s in humming along with the mob that creates it.

As the actors exit, they leave behind only their soles, a silent testament to the lives swept away. While the notes of the orchestra fade, a white spotlight centers on the collection of discarded boots, loafers, and high heels on the stage.

Never has a pile of shoes said so much.

Photo credit: Kyle Long Photography