50 years of cabaret: The surprisingly transformative journey of a classic

Fifty years ago a Broadway classic was born to John Kanter, Fred Ebband Joe Masteroff‘ Cabaret Opened on Broadway. But which opened in 1966 on Broadway is for many different from the Cabaret We are used to seeing today. Other than shows like Gypsy or Okaa Oklahoma!classical musicals that have been repeatedly revived with more or less unchanged books and scores, Cabaret saw several dramatic transformations in both its book, score and plays as adapted to the screen and then revived three times on Broadway. Each incarnation was pioneering for its time, but each new review also pushed the envelope further and further in terms of the authenticity of Weimar Germany in the 1930s.

Cabaret First opened on Broadway November 20, 1966. It started his life as Goodbye from Berlina semi-autobiographical novel by Christopher Isherwood who tells his time in the 1930s Pre-Nazi Berlin. The novel is adapted in a play, I’m a cameraby John van Druten in 1951; Julie Harris won her first of five career Tony Awards that arose the role of Sally Bowles in this play. The production was also famous (or rather notorious) for receiving a New York Times review by Walter Kerr with the heading “Ms No Leica.”

Sandy Wilson – Author of The boy friend It introduced Broadway to Julie Andrews in the 1950s-worked on a musical adjustment of the Van Druten play when he learned that Harold Prince, fresh, was producing the mega hit Fiddler on the roofbought the rights to both the Isherwood novel and that of Druten Play. Prince was planning his own musical version of the story, and he hired Joe Masteroff (She loves me) To pin the book. It was initially thought that Wilson’s existing score would be used, but eventually Prince and Masteroff John Kander and Fred Ebb asked to come on board, in the hope that they would be better able to fit the musical style of Weimar Germany.

With Prince as producer and director, the original Broadway production of Cabaret Opened at the Broadhurst Theater on November 20, 1966. This was especially broken with a lot of time -testing music theatrical conventions of its time, both in terms of content and form. Apart from a refrain of barely dressed Kit girls and an plot that deals honestly about anti-Semitism and abortion, production also has a traditional overtors and show curtain for a sudden opening number (‘will be’) and an exposed stage with a large mirror, which reflects the audience on themselves. The show was a hit with eight 1967 Tony Awards, including best musical, score, director, choreographer, and hosted actor awards for Joel Gray and Peg Murray.

For director and choreographer Bob Fosse’s 1972 film adjustment, he encouraged writers Jay Allen and Hugh Wheeler to go back to Isherwood’s original stories, and they ended with a screenplay that looks more like the source material than Masteroff’s stage book. Isherwood’s actual homosexuality was included in the character modeled on him (Brian, changed from Cliff in the stage adjustment), which became bisexual. Fosses also deviated from the stage version by wiping out all but one of the non-the-ieThetic songs that took place outside the Kit Kat Club, such as “perfectly wonderful” and “So what?” Then he added three new sides and EBB songs, ‘Mein Herr’, ‘Money’ and ‘Maybe this time’.

The film was financially and with critics a huge success. It won eight 1973 Academy Awards, including the best director for Bob Fosse, the best actress for Liza Minnelli, and the best actor for Joel Gray, who made him one of only eight actors to win Tony and Oscar awards for the same role.

Cabaret In 1987 back to Broadway, in a production that was largely a reaffirmation of the original Broadway production, complete with its original Tony-winning star, Joel Gray. But Prince and Masteroff tackled the show a bit. As in the film adjustment, the isherwood-inspired character has become openly bisexual. The song “Why Should I Wake Up” was replaced with “Don’t Go”, while the movie’s “Money” was put together with the stage’s “sitting pretty.” Prince also cut “Mosskite” and added “I don’t care much”, a song cut from the original production.

In 1993, director Sam Mendes put his mark on the piece with a radically re-resemblance revival at the Donmar warehouse in London. Mendes’ production brought the entire show on stage on the Kit Kat Club, and he transformed Joel Gray’s Tuxedo-carrier ceremonies into the cunning, hyper-sexualized and partially dressed Alan Cumming. Cliff remained bisexual as in the Broadway revival in 1987, but scenes were added that made it even more explicit.

Mendes also continued to think of the song list. He retained the 1987 revival’s “money/sitting pretty” mash-up and “I don’t care much”, but also introduced the film’s “Mein Herr” (the replacement of “The Phone Song”) for the first time in a stage production. “Tomorrow belongs to me,” previously sung by a group of Kit Kat Waiters, a recording of a boy soprano played on a gramophone by the emcee.

The most dramatic change was perhaps how Mendes’ darker took the piece at the end of the end. While the original version ends the production with a mere stage after the final rules of the Emcee, Mendes removed the emcee to remove his coat to reveal a concentration camp uniform with badges to indicate his Judaism and homosexuality.

Roundabout Theater Company brought Mendes’s production to Broadway in 1998, housed in the former Henry Miller Theater who was a real nightclub at the time. (Protectors leave evening actions of Cabaret Concurrent ropes of people waiting to get to the post-performacne club space.) Mendes expanded his concept past what he could do at the Donmar, giving Broadway audiences a fully exciting experience of a Weimar cabaret in the 1930s. Alan Cumming recreated his actions as the Emcee, with Natasha Richardson adopting Sally Bowles, winning both Tony Awards.

However, it was not a direct copy of Donmar production. Rob Marshall was brought as a co-director and choreographer, and he brought a fosse-influenced dance style to the music numbers of the piece. ‘Money’ was performed in itself without ‘sitting’ nicely ‘, and’ maybe this time ‘from the film adjustment was also added.

This production has become a huge hit for roundabouts. Just less than a year after the opening, production moved to Studio 54, where it continued for almost six years. In fact, production was so well received that the roundabout brought it back to Broadway in 2014, again with Alan Cumming. This production was CabaretThird Broadway revival, and especially the second reaffirmed revival production.

Because Cabaret has been so strongly revised for the past 50 years, there is no definitive version of the piece; The original Broadway Production, Revival of 1987 and 1998 Revival versions of the book and score are currently available for execution by inventory and amateur businesses, a distinction held by no other modern Broadway musical except Bernstein’s Candid (which actually has four Different reviews of the piece available for execution).

CabaretThe powerful story remains strikingly timely almost 80 years after the original stories of Isherwood were published, which is probably why the piece is 50 years after it debuted. Only the time will know if one of these revisions will become the definite version of this Broadway Classic, but we can probably count on seeing your productions of Cabaret Continue all over the world for new generations of theater lovers to discover.

Logan Culwell-Block is a musical theater historian, Playbill’s manager of research and curator of Playbill Vault. Please visit Loganculwellblock.com.