"Futuristic 'Cabaret' "

[fashionguru_23]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 11:27am

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Boston-Conservatory-at-Berklee-To-Stage-Futuristic-CABARET-Next-Year-20180829

This production seems to be bringing Cabaret to the "not so distance future". I assume that they would have had to get permission from Kander/Ebb/Masteroff. But this seems like that production of "Hair" that tried to make it about G. W. Bush and the Iraq War.

I just don't understand how you take a story, and change the time period, and its the same show. Like, do we take Ragtime, and set in the 1980's? I guess I just don't understand the difference of the idea of a concept, and placing that on a show versus changing the location place/time of a show when that is integrated into the story

[BroadwayBeebe]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 11:51am

This sounds absolutely terrible.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 11:53am

I'm down with this, I'll take a silly regietheater interpretation over another bland clone.

[ABitOnTheSide]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 12:17pm

This sounds like a horrible idea.

First of all, I am fed up with everyone comparing every year since 9/11 to be the new uprising of the Nazi. We live in one of the most coddled, comfortable civilizations in world history. There is nothing in our world as horrible as the rise of the Nazis and World War II. Just because we've had a couple crappy presidents, it is selfish and foolish to compare today's petty complaints to the absolute horror that millions of innocent people experienced. I saw a production of Cabaret at the Arden in Philadelphia and the Emcee during the intermission came out and talked about Trump's stance on transgenders in the military. I admired the sentiment, but it completely removed us from the world they spent so long creating in act I.

Second, I'm fed up with amateurs trying to improve upon a perfect piece of art that works. We may as well paint earbuds on the Mona Lisa. Or add hashtags to the Sistine Chapel.

The arrogance of these artists really churns my stomach.

 

[Kad]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 12:21pm

ABitOnTheSide said: "First of all, I am fed up with everyone comparing every year since 9/11 to be the new uprising of the Nazi. We live in one of the most coddled, comfortable civilizations in world history. There is nothing in our world as horrible as the rise of the Nazis and World War II. Just because we've had a couple crappy presidents, it is selfish and foolish to compare today's petty complaints to the absolute horror that millions of innocent people experienced..."

Nearly 3k dead in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and hundreds of thousands of immigrants held in detention camps and separated from their families.

 

[ABitOnTheSide]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 12:31pm

Nearly 3k dead in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria and hundreds of thousands of immigrants held in detention camps and separated from their families.

60 to 80 million killed in a global conflict that changed the face of the 20th century until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

Nobody will ever convince me that we are living in the same sort of story as the people who died before us 70 something years ago. It is arrogant to believe otherwise.

Cabaret is a cautionary tale concerning true events, not some dystopian fantasy like the Handmaid's Tale.

If you can't work with the materials given to you to get your point across, create your OWN work. Don't rape someone else's.

[newintown]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 12:35pm

just another example of 1) a director who thinks their brilliance is of greater import than the piece; and 2) dilettantes who can't write their own piece, and so try to make someone else's work say what they want to say.

Although personally I find this sort of genre to be lower on the ladder of integrity than collage or mime, there will still be some who will celebrate it as genius.

[John Adams]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 12:39pm

fashionguru_23 said: "I just don't understand how you take a story, and change the time period, and its the same show."

IMO, when something like this is done, it devalues the both the show and the audience. When an audience can view any artistic work, in its original form, and still find and make connections to its current relevance, that demonstrates that the work has the quality of being 'timeless'. 

To bring the show into "the future" devalues it because it implies that in order to retain its relevance, its original setting needs to be altered or erased. I don't believe that to be true for Cabaret. 

To do so seems to me to demonstrate a lack of faith in an audience that they can't make the connections on their own; that "spelling it out" for them would show them something they would have missed had the setting not been changed.

Changing the setting could end up being an interesting experiment, but for my tastes, and without the benefit of seeing the final production, I feel like it would be more of an insult to the integrity of the original work and the audience, rather than demonstrating a revelation of something new, 'more', or interesting. 

[Kad]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 12:49pm

ABitOnTheSide said: "Nobody will ever convince me that we are living in the same sort of story as the people who died before us 70 something years ago. It is arrogant to believe otherwise."

And Cabaret is literally about people unwilling and unable to believe they are living on the precipice of what you've described.

 

[The Distinctive Baritone]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 1:00pm

The comparisons between America in 2018 and 1930's Germany have been made, and are obvious, and there is no way to do this without changing the script. What are they going to do, have the Germans wear red hats instead of fedoras?

Also, it is now pretty common for productions of Cabaret to have POC as the Emcee or Kit Kat Klub girls or boys. That's nothing new. And in this concept, the Germans would still have to be white. And how is hip-hop choreography going to work with the score? Are they going to rap "Money Makes the World Go Round?"

They are a big university with lots of money. How about they commission a new musical about the current American political turmoil instead?

Sounds like this professor is really gunning for tenure or something.

[ABitOnTheSide]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 1:01pm

Please stop being over-dramatic Kad. It's an insult to survivors. 

[ABitOnTheSide]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 1:03pm

And how is hip-hop choreography going to work with the score? Are they going to rap "Money Makes the World Go Round?"

Wait...what??? I missed that part.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 1:26pm

My initial thought is that it sounds like a bad idea, but I'm reminded of the countless opera, Shakespeare, Brecht and ancient text productions that are celebrated for doing precisely this.  It really all boils down to the execution of the concept.  The book and score are overtly politically charged with issues that have recently surfaced as legitimate concerns in today's society.  It's not like they're trying to leverage the slighter reference to Nazis by updating Sound of Music or go completely off-target by setting The Happy Time in some Orwellian dystopian universe or attempt to change the tone and intent of the piece like turning Flora, the Red Menace into a bleak and cynical McCarthism doomsday cautionary tale.

[Gizmo6]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 1:42pm

It’s funny to hear people discribe theatre practitioners as ‘amateur’ for doing what directors do.

Theatre would be dead if the people who frequent these boards had their way.

Theatre is more than broadway and it’s defintiely more than maintaining replicas as if it’s some theatre grace yard.

Also, you don’t get to declare the holocaust is worse than whatever contemporary human tragedy. You haven’t lived either.

[binau]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 1:44pm

Trump isn’t legally killing gays, atheists, adulterers or those critical of his administration. There are governments today that look like Nazi germany but ironically the people that love to compare Trump to Nazi Germany would never acknowledge this. I feel embarrassed for people that think Trump is like Hitler, but of course I understand why people would love to use that narrative to suit their own agenda.

[Charley Kringas Inc]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 1:51pm

jesus christ you people

[Gizmo6]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 2:03pm

I don’t think anyone is saying Trump is Hitler but there has to a recognition that ideologies begin somewhere.

[ABitOnTheSide]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 2:21pm

I don’t think anyone is saying Trump is Hitler but there has to a recognition that ideologies begin somewhere.

Does Cabaret as it is not succeed in making this point?

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 2:39pm

Making the audience work to make the connection between an earlier time and now is what's most essential about theater like this.  

And it's how you remind audiences that Nazi Germany, WWII and the Holocaust were the horrible end point of fascism.  But that's not how it began.  It began by a bit of propaganda about 'the other.'  Blaming 'the other' for all your problems.  And how one wants to have pride in 'their' country again.  If you don't see the beginnings of fascism in our current administration and the 30+ percent of citizens who support them, well...you're paying attention.  

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 2:47pm

Are they going to rap "Money Makes the World Go Round?"

This song was written for and only used in the 1972 film adaptation.  It was not part of the original 1966 Broadway production nor ever included in any of the stage revisions.   

[Kad]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 2:50pm

BrodyFosse123 said: "Are they going to rap "Money Makes the World Go Round?"

This song was written for and only used in the 1972 film adaptation. It was not part of the original 1966 Broadway production nor ever included in any of the stage revisions."

It's in the Mendes revival.

 

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 2:50pm

That's...not correct.  Money Makes the World Go Round was definitely in the Roundabout revival.  The Money Song (from 1966) most assuredly was not.

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 2:53pm

SonofRobbieJ said: "And it's how you remind audiences that Nazi Germany, WWII and the Holocaust were the horrible end point of fascism. But that's not how it began. It began by a bit of propaganda about 'the other.' Blaming 'the other' for all your problems. And how one wants to have pride in 'their' country again. If you don't see the beginnings of fascism in our current administration and the 30+ percent of citizens who support them, well...you're paying attention."

As Joseph Goebbels famously said, there are good people on both sides.

[JSquared2]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 2:53pm

BrodyFosse123 said: "Are they going to rap "Money Makes the World Go Round?"

This song was written for and only used in the 1972 film adaptation. It was not part of the original 1966 Broadway production nor ever included in any of the stage revisions."

 

Huh??   It was used in the 1987 revival, and also n the 1998 and 2014 revivals.

#factsmatter

 

[Kad]

Posted: 8/29/18 at 2:54pm

ABitOnTheSide said: "Please stop being over-dramatic Kad. It's an insult to survivors."

Says the one who declared their stomach churns at the arrogance of these artists.. after writing a paragraph about how fed up you are.