Cabaret Finale

[Emcee4ever]

Posted: 9/22/06 at 10:59pm

How have you seen the finale done?

Ours was an especially scary one. The lights were set so you couldn't see the Emcee's clothes. We had the characters say lines they had said before, like in the '66 production. Then they lined up in front of the Emcee.

After Sally sang her first 'Life is a Cabaret, old chum', the Emcee took her hand and led her to the front of the line.
He said 'Auf weidersehen. A Bientot.'

Then the lights came on him and he was dressed in Nazi clothes. At the drumroll, he used his cane like a rifle and gunned everyone down.

[anotherhundredpeople]

Posted: 9/22/06 at 11:03pm

When I did the show, we did it so just the Emcee was left onstage in a trenchcoat. He did the "auf wiedersehn..." and as the drumroll went, he unbuttoned his coat. On the symbol crash, he threw his coat off revealing a concentration camp suit and two huge Nazi flags flew down from the flies. It was pretty powerful.

When I saw the revival, it was very similar minus the flags. But they did have almost blinding lights on the crash.

Updated On: 9/22/06 at 11:03 PM

[dancnqn5]

Posted: 9/23/06 at 3:25pm

I've seen the show 7 times now, in 5 different productions. Most of them have taken the ending where the entire cast (or just the emcee) is in a concentration camp and is (for lack of a better word) gassed on the final beat of the show. This is by far the most powerful version I've seen (especially when you have a really good friend playing the emcee). The one production I saw that I didn't like the finale for was played with the entire cast in white power costumes (that were really cheesy and didn't fit the rest of the show). It didn't pack the same kind of power as the emcee in concentration camp garb being "killed."

[Jon]

Posted: 9/23/06 at 3:32pm

i don't understand why people can't just do the thing as written in the script. It worked for Harold Prince on stage and for Bob Fosse in the movie.

Now it seems like a game of "who can come up with the most shocking ending?"

[Emcee4ever]

Posted: 9/23/06 at 7:59pm

At Kalliope they had the characters come out of doors and say their lines. But they overlapped, so you couldn't tell what they were saying. They grew more and more desperate as the music became discordant.

Hans, an evil mime (though he did laugh after Tomorrow Belongs to Me) in the production, painted a red swastika on a black wall. The paint was thin and dripped like blood. The Emcee was sitting on a platform in the middle of the stage, just staring.

At the cymbal clash, Nazi propaganda fell from the sky. I collected a poster and it is now in my dresser drawer as a reminder. It says 'Bread and work through the NSDP.'

Updated On: 9/24/06 at 07:59 PM

[dancingthrulife04]

Posted: 9/23/06 at 8:10pm

When we did the show, we had the entire ensemble dressed in ragged coats, boaridng the train to a concentraiton camp. Our Emcee stood on the side of the stage, and sang his "Auf Wiedersehen..." bit. He touched his face as though he were thinking, and when he remove dhis hand he had a Hitler-esque mustache in his palce. He finished his part, and the house went black.

[Coolkid123]

Posted: 9/23/06 at 8:12pm

This is another show that I think is awful and shouldn't be on Broadway (I am refering to my post on the 5th Preview of A Chorus Line thread)

[dancingthrulife04]

Posted: 9/23/06 at 8:15pm

And on my thread about Merwin Foard. Are there any shows you do like?

[Coolkid123]

Posted: 9/23/06 at 8:21pm

Check your PM's

[EganFan2]

Posted: 9/23/06 at 11:06pm

Geez, I thought I read that (at least originally) the Emcee ended up dressed as a Nazi, not as a concentration camp prisoner. Talk about dark.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 9/23/06 at 11:10pm

I designed a regional production a few years ago where the director was *very* attached to the Studio 54 revival, and it took a lot of tap-dancing to get him away from it and on his own track. We did have the wall with three doors (I gave him that much), but everything else was this layered collage of 30s German artwork, some painted on the wall, some painted on hanging scrims, all of which gave the stage a vaguely circus-like atmosphere. The emcee's costume had elements of a ringmaster mixed with the traditional tux, but with a seedy overlay to it all by some odd detailing. (Our costumes, BTW, were more along the lines of the original production than the revival, but much seedier and lower-class -- we took the approach that this was the German equivalent of a blue-collar honky-tonk)

When it came time for the end, we did the trick of having the orchestra pre-recorded so they could make an invisible exit before the emcee's final speech, but we went one better: our acting company was now on the upper level, in virtual down light. No costume changes, just this very strange greyish light. Then, as the wall itself began to rise, we had all this strong side lighting at deck level that trapped the emcee while two spotlight operators let their lights wander all over the stage.

By now, the wall had cleared the scaffolding, and the company, like the orchestra was gone. Just the emcee, trapped in his lights. It was very, very cool. Not a single swastika on stage, but none was needed.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 12:50am

I saw the original when I was a kid (progressive parents) and for some reason, I have mixed it up in my mind with one of the regional versions I must have subsequently seen. In one of the bersions, the MC sang most of his numbers in a bery strong garish blue pinspot DSL. At the end, when Sally Bowles sings the reprise of Cabaret and gets to the line "I made my mind up back in Chelsae" she crossed the stage and sang the rest in the blue spot - as if she had accepted the fate that we all know befell her. That was a chilling piece of staging.

[Emcee4ever]

Posted: 9/24/06 at 9:21am

How did the '87 revival end? That's the only one I don't know about.
Updated On: 9/24/06 at 09:21 AM

[Emcee4ever]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 6:16pm

Anyone? I'm curious and I can't find it online!

[Jon]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 9:02pm

The 87 revival ended exactly like the original. It was the Harold Prince staging.

[Emcee4ever]

Posted: 9/25/06 at 9:15pm

Oh, OK. :)

[Emcee4ever]

Posted: 10/6/06 at 4:41pm

How does the London revival end? The one that just started?

[bare_nakedlady]

Posted: 10/6/06 at 4:45pm

Jon - If I may ask, What was the Original Staging? I feel sheepish asking, but I'm curious.

[Jon]

Posted: 10/6/06 at 7:36pm

Each of the principals appears in a spotlight and repeats one opf their lines from the play. The Emcee appears in a spotlight - in the same tuxedop he has worn the whole show, and says "Auf wiedersehn... a bien tot...", there is a drum roll and a cymbal crash, and the light go out.

Posted: 10/6/06 at 7:46pm

"When it came time for the end, we did the trick of having the orchestra pre-recorded so they could make an invisible exit before the emcee's final speech, but we went one better: our acting company was now on the upper level, in virtual down light. No costume changes, just this very strange greyish light. Then, as the wall itself began to rise, we had all this strong side lighting at deck level that trapped the emcee while two spotlight operators let their lights wander all over the stage.

By now, the wall had cleared the scaffolding, and the company, like the orchestra was gone. Just the emcee, trapped in his lights. It was very, very cool. Not a single swastika on stage, but none was needed."

I don't get it.

[bare_nakedlady]

Posted: 10/6/06 at 8:50pm

Thanks Jon,

That's the way my college did it and it was quite powerful.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 10/7/06 at 2:03pm

Why do all the Cabaret finales have to basically say, "Yeah, we're pretty much screwed"?

Updated On: 10/7/06 at 02:03 PM

[Emcee4ever]

Posted: 10/8/06 at 12:45pm

Because they were pretty much screwed.

[QueenS]

Posted: 10/10/06 at 1:44pm

As powerful as the final moments of the recent revival were, they do skip several years of history. It's a pretty big jump from the Nazis just coming into power to the concentration camps.

The great impact of the show is how well it shows that the decadence of the Weimar period blinded the entire country as to what was happening until it was too late.
Updated On: 10/10/06 at 01:44 PM

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 10/10/06 at 1:48pm

I'm really curious about how the new London production is going to handle the end. It opens tonight, I think.

Why do all the Cabaret finales have to basically say, "Yeah, we're pretty much screwed"?

A good portion of the plot is allegory for the downfall; you're watching a representation of everything that would be destroyed, which is far from a happy ending. It's showing you what would happen as a result.