You can’t experience Moonbox’s stunning version of Kander
& Ebb’s CABARET (@ BCA through April 29th) without thinking of
the neo-nazis who marched in Charlottesville.
The current president and his nationalist (that’s nazionalist auf
Deutsch) followers are fanning the flames of white supremacy with every other
tweet. CABARET was shocking in 1966 for its dark eroticism but director/choreographer
Rachel Bertone creates a chilling resonance in the Moonbox production which is “take-your-breath-away”
devastating.
Bertone’s juggernaut marries action and dance so seamlessly
that the choreography becomes tactical in her taut reimagining of Christopher
Isherwood’s Berlin
stories. Even ze costumes (Marian Bertone) and “zey are beautiful” reveal the
storyline, to paraphrase the master of ceremonies.
A palpable desperation introduces the Moonbox version, as the
emcee (a formidable, alarming Phil Tayler) enters, running, terrified (by what
we don’t know), to find safety (perhaps) behind a jagged, distorted triangular
door. Janie E. Howland’s off kilter sightlines for the Kit Kat Klub are
repeated even in the kick line number. Every element of Bertone’s production suggests
despair: It dogs the characters and we, watching, can’t shake it off.
Dan Rodriguez’ perceptive musical direction makes the wildly
jazzy entr’acte overture pop and his singers make this CABARET downright unstoppable.
Tayler’s frightening “Willkommen” sets the tone for the show. If you haven’t
been shaken to your boots by the time “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” comes around
again, then Dan Prior’s gorgeous tenor, soaring over Joy Clark and company’s horrifyingly
affecting aryan anthem, will put you away.
Aimee Doherty makes Sally Bowles as tragic as any operatic
heroine. Doherty shows Sally’s doubts and needs through the manic delivery of a
lyric as well as through her canny portrayal of urgency. Jared Troilo, too, as
her deluded promise of salvation, carries the weight of conflict on his shoulders.
Maryann Zschau deftly delivers the conscience of the musical as the temporarily
happy bride-to-be “of a certain age” when the Jewish greengrocer (Ray O’Hare)
proposes. Can she marry him and risk certain arrest if the nationalists take
over the government? Zschau’s “What Would You Do” is directed, of course, in
this production, at us.
Two more performances must be noted: ASL interpreters Rachel
Judson and Michael Herschberg bring grace and emotional intensity to the drama
through their gestural sign language, depicting what is transpiring behind them
on stage. Lucky me, I was seated near the section where they were signing. I
could see them and the actors on stage, simultaneously. I don’t understand ASL,
but their performances added immensely to my theatrical experience.
Bertone ramps up the energy for everyone on stage, especially
in the production numbers: They’re erotic, still, but raw and macabre, with the
dancers brazenly inviting us in to a sordid world where a president can grab a
woman … by the crotch, perhaps? Most of Isherwood’s characters, like the
greengrocer, think the nationalists will go away … that the “unpleasantness”
against non-aryans “will pass.” Well, it didn’t then and it’s here now. And our
very own supremacist wants immigrants from Norway,
not Mexico.
How did this happen?