Review: THE END OF THE WORLD CABARET at Upstream Theater

THIS IS A PLAY YOU MUST SEE!

If you can only attend one play this year, this is the one.

The Upstream Theater has opened The End of the World Cabaret.  It is a powerful fantasy-satire translated and adapted by artistic director Philip Boehm from a 1936 Austrian work by Jura Soyfer. 

This is perhaps the finest production I’ve ever seen out of the dozens of very fine shows Upstream has given us in the past twenty years.  The audience leapt to its feet cheering as the glowing cast returned for the curtain call.  And the lobby, after the show was filled for a long while with joyous excitement and praise (and a bit of champagne).

This play is in the wonderful tradition of highly stylized political satire—very like works by Čapek (The Insect Comedy) or Gogol (The Inspector General) or Brecht (The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui).  It’s close-kindred to the film Don’t Look Up.  It’s not unlike Dr. Strangelove.  Catastrophe looms!  Nobody really cares!  (Does this have any contemporary application?)

But this play is graced with music, with songs, with dance.  It’s not really a “musical”, but it’s rich, rich!  Rich in all the arts of theater.  And, fulfilling Upstream’s charter, it makes you think!

We begin with a conclave of the Sun and the planets to address the problem of Earth.  Earth seems to be disturbing the “harmony of the spheres”.  They summon the Moon, who explains that the real problem is these tiny little things, “humans”.  (He shows them one between his fingers like a flea.)  It is agreed that to restore celestial order such vermin must be eliminated, so they recruit a passing Comet to do the job.

We jump to Earth.  The Comet has been detected.  The End-of-the World is predicted.  That news fills the papers and the air-waves.  An idealistic scientist discovers a way to divert the comet—but nobody will listen to him.  Around the world governments are saying, “yes, the comet will destroy everything—except us!”  The poor scientist knocks on governmental doors from London to Paris to Berlin to Moscow, but nobody will listen.  Nobody cares!  End-of-the-World Bonds are being advertised for sale.  Consumer spending skyrockets.  The stock-markets surge.  The Comet will arrive in two weeks!  In one week!  In twelve hours!!!  Nobody cares.  Well, some billionaires care.  They hire a rocket ship to take them away to safety.  (This was actually in Soyfer’s 1936 script—long before Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and their friends.)

Does the world survive?   Well, you have to come and see!

The cast is the largest I recall seeing at Upstream.  And, as usual, it includes some of the very best St. Louis actors.  Nine in all (and most are, of course, Equity).  Each actor plays multiple roles:  a celestial body (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Saturn, Pluto, and a Comet) plus various human-beings.

Chris Tipp appears initially as simply the guitarist in the band.  But shortly he joins the cast on stage and becomes (A) the Comet contracted to destroy humanity, and (B) the scientist who offers to save humanity.  In the latter role he is the moral center of the piece.  Tipp is not only a gifted musician, but also a compelling actor.  

St. Louis veteran Jane Paradise gives us a commanding Sun and charmingly varied humans. 

Isaiah DiLorenzo is so flexible an actor.  Here he manages to be Venus (in a long, flowing skirt) despite his most attractive masculinity.  Then—hey, presto!—he’s five other folks, ending in a morose fellow off to drown himself in the Danube hours before the Earth explodes.

I’ve admired John Flack on St. Louis stages for thirty-five years.  He just gets better and better.  Here he plays the Moon, a couple of humans—and a wonderfully comic dog.  Flack is bright and crisp and funny.  And despite the calendar he can dance and sing with the best of them.

The lovely Caitlin Mickey appears as Mercury and other folks.  At one point she sings an utterly delicious lied by Brahms.

Patrick Blindauer plays Mars, a journalist, a preacher, and a grumpy old spinster chatting with her parrot.  Lovely work.

Singer/dancer Amarachi Kalu fills Saturn (and others) with a bright energy and power.

Ashwini Arora is Pluto, a journalist, a robber, etc.  And a spritely comic dog! 

A very bright point in this show is its youngest member—Sarah Wilkinson.  She’s an actress/dancer and even her graceful writhing as the troubled Earth is lovely to watch.  She also plays a very comic parrot.  And, as Hitler she gives Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator a good run for his money.  Riotously funny!   

Original music was composed by Paige Brubeck.   Choreography (which makes the entire production flow) is by Dawn Karlovsky.  Joe Schoen is music director.

These talents are backed by top-notch design and technical support. The set by Patrick Huber is simple, flexible and beautiful.  Costumes by Meredith LaBounty and Anabel Weiland range from the exotic fantasia of the celestial orbs to the rough togs of street-sweepers.  Steven Carmichael’s lighting is just so!  Busy, flexible, lovely.  Properties are by Maria Straub and Gus Kickham.  Patrick Siler, as Stage Manager, oversaw the very complex and flawless handling of the evening. 

Special praise must go to sound designer Aiden Siliceo-Roman.  The evening is full of cosmic rumblings, weird space noises, dizzying scraps of radio broadcasts from around the world.  It’s an outstanding sound plot that embraces and enchants us all.

But the greatest gift—the gift that makes all this wonderful production possible—is that of its director, Lizi Watt.  Hers is an amazing accomplishment!  

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