Storefront 'Cabaret' Serves-Up Some Spicy Goods

The no-holds-barred production of the classic stage musical Cabaret, which has been running at the No Exit Café in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood, deserves many kudos for bringing this show to life.  And what a life!  Figuratively if not literally a "tits and balls in your face" sort of gritty, sexy and earthy production, this Cabaret takes place in a fun nightclub setting evocative of the "Kit Kat Klub" in which much of the show's action takes place.  There is no nudity in this uneven but ultimately rewarding production, but you sure would swear that there was.  And the cast members who act as servers to the audience/nightclub-goers walk the fine line between theater and the restaurant industry with easy aplomb, to the delight of the packed Café on a recent Sunday night.

The Theo Ubique Theatre Co. and director Fred Anzevino have taken the now 40-year-old script and score (albeit as adapted for the long-running "Donmar Warehouse" 1998 Broadway revival originally starring Natasha Richardson, Alan Cumming and Denis O'Hare) and mined many wonderful and rich things out of it.  Indeed, they have also added to it some bits of dialogue which I would swear have never been heard in any previous "Cabaret" production—of the sort which drive licensing houses and bookwriters crazy, but which could certainly be passed off as rehearsal ad libs which somehow got "frozen" into performance.

It is too bad that the 1998 script, which added in the song "Mein Herr" from the 1972 Bob Fosse film (starring Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey and Michael York) and also added "I Don't Care Much" from an earlier stage revival, had to drop the sweet song "Meeskite" and the fun "Telephone Song" from the 1966 Broadway original starring Jill Haworth, Joel Grey and Bert Convy.  The script also substitutes the film's "Money Song" ("Money makes the world go around…") for the one from the stage original ("…I've got all the money I need.").  And neither that revival nor this current production really answers the conceptual question of whether or not the show's conventional "book scenes" are also occurring in the nightclub as performed by nightclub employees, or are they external, somehow witnessed by the audience but taking place elsewhere.

But such is the way of such unbeatable stage properties, that almost nothing can damage their audience appeal and their way to drive home both frightening and reassuring universal truths.  Not even tinkering by their original creators (notably composer John Kander, lyricist Fred Ebb and director Hal Prince), reconsiderations by subsequent non-profit and commercial artists, and now a bare bones but rich production by a group of mostly young, mostly talented Chicago actors let loose in a gymnasium of storefront musical theater, haunted by sex and tragedy and politics.

It is in the performance of this relatively small cast that the virtues and drawbacks of Theo Ubique's production are revealed.  Indeed, the musical direction of the cast and two-person orchestra by Joshua Stephen Kartes is fine.  (Kartes gave himself the first incarnation of the lovely "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," and percussionist Kevin Brown lends excellent support to Kartes's piano and to the singer/dancers).  Also good is the choreography by excellent cast member Maggie Portman (Fritzy) and the sets (Nate Crawford) and lighting (Maggie Fullilove-Nugent and Justin Wardell).  The costumes by Jared Kassof are lovely and evocative, with the exception of the weird pair of pin-stripe cut-off overalls with one shoulder unhooked, worn by Mike Harnichar as a fun version of Bobby—what WAS that?

But the highlight of the production, and one that fascinatingly puts the emphasis of the show where it should be, is the performance of Eric Martin as Clifford Bradshaw, the young American writer loosely based on the real-life Christopher Isherwood, the camera of "I Am a Camera" and the one whose trip to Berlin and back is told in this show.  Believably bisexual in a role that calls for it, Martin brings a lovely light baritone voice and killer WASP looks to bear in a performance solidly grounded in the reality of the moment, and in the unfolding and unimaginable horror of the atrocities he witnesses and fears.  Without him, the show would lack an honest, quiet center, and with him, the audience feels the oncoming Nazi menance in real terms, not just in the shortsightedness of the girl Bradshaw becomes involved with, or the ditzy employees of the nightclub where he meets 1930s Berlin (literally) head-on.

The Sally Bowles of the production, Dana Tretta, plays Sally as if she were a little, sarcastic Italian spitfire of a girl, crossed with equal parts Fanny Brice and Paula Abdul.  No, there has never been a Sally Bowles like this one—totally original!  Tretta is so physically surprising as the English waif Sally, curly brown hair piled high upon her head, that one is forced to throw out all preconceptions of the role and just accept it as it comes—this is a wonderful thing to behold.  She is not, however, the best singer or dancer on the stage.  But she is a very talented, compelling and committed actor, and the production took great strides into fun, sadness and creativity by casting her.  Her final moment is gut-wrenching in its sweetness.

The "Master of Ceremonies (Emcee)" of the show, Jeremy Trager, is an attractive, set-eating performer who to his credit seems equal parts Joel Grey and Alan Cumming, a difficult and respectable balancing act.  However, saddled with makeup resembling Cesar Romero's as the television Batman's Joker, he is never likeable, even in the early going, and this is problematic.  He works very hard and hits every intellectual mark, but there is an emotional distance between him and the audience that renders his portrayal less effective than he hopes.

Excellent performances are turned in by Sean Effinger-Dean as a really likeable but still smarmy Ernst Ludwig, and by Jenny Lamb as a Broadway-ready S & M Lulu (she obliged an audience member's request for a backside whack from her riding crop during intermission!).  And Michael Hershberg as Victor turned his quite-obviously gay male gorilla in the "If You Could See Her" number into the single most brilliant piece of theater in the evening or in many other evenings.  Even if you know what is coming, you are gob-smacked by the moment.  Rus Rainer (Herr Schultz) and Colleen Buckley (Rosie) were fine, if understated.  But Bethany Thomas, confusingly double-cast as both Fraulein Kost and a Kit Kat Girl, was overdone and somewhat unfocused in her acting and demeanor.  She displayed a big singing voice, but was too often a one-note performer emotionally and physically.

Last but certainly not least, Danielle Brothers as Fraulein Schneider, the heartbreaking landlady originally portrayed by Lotte Lenya, was a powerful presence, and an emotional one.  But the emotions came at the expense of her singing voice, which seemed to rob her of one of her tools as a performer.  Without a reliable voice to carry her important numbers, Brothers fell back on her considerable talent as a tragedienne as the evening wore on, earning her healthy applause from the appreciative, moved audience.  If Martin's Bradshaw is the center of this show, Brothers's Fraulein Schneider is its heart.  That heart breaks, and it will never recover.

Berlin and Bradshaw will live again, albeit changed forever.  But the others we meet are heading into a horrible fate, one that neither they nor we will ever understand.  Such is the brilliance of this Cabaret.  Even in a storefront café, the tragedy is universal once more.