Cabaret
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METRO STAGE COMPANY
CAST
| CABARET Directed by JAMES TALLACH Music Direction by JURI PANDA JONES Choreography by LINDA SUGHRUE Fri. & Sat., Sept. 7 & 8 , 2007 at 8pm Sunday, Sept. 9, 2007 at 2pm Thurs. - Sat., Sept. 13 - 15, 2007 at 8pm Cambridge Family YMCA Theatre Central Square, Cambridge Tickets are $20 for Adults and $17 for Sr. Citizens/Students and may be purchased online through our online ticketing center or by calling (617) 524-5013. |
The time is Berlin 1929. Trouble is brewing. A new patriotic wave is sweeping the country.
Life marches on. Love blossoms in unexpected places. Conversation ensues over the smallest of pleasures.
And in a tiny club tucked away on a small street, there is music, an emcee with an eye for the libidinous, dancers,
a beautiful orchestra, and furtive phone calls in the middle of the night. It is fun, and everyday folks are oblivious to
the goings-on just outside the doors of the Cabaret. But why should they worry? Life is good.
Or is it?
Germany is awash in Nationalistic pride, and the populace buys easily into placing blame for the plummeting
economy, immigration, and industrialization of the workforce, and is easily sold on the idea of saving the country
from itself.
So, there is this Cabaret in Berlin, and pleasures can be had, and pleasures are available for the price of a drink
and some laughs. And it is the boys who provide the drink, the emcee who provides the laughs, and British
chanteuse Sally Bowles who provides the pleasures.
As love stories go, there's a little of everything - the sweet, the sordid, the uncertain, the unrequited. As musicals
go, it's heart-rending bittersweet memory, foot-stomping über-catchy song, and searing, soaring irony. As history,
it's the ultimate in stories unlearned.
So don't be afraid, meine Herr und Fraulein! Bienvenue, come sit in our little dive, smile at a dancer, laugh and
sing along, and be prepared for a little trip through history.
Life marches on. Love blossoms in unexpected places. Conversation ensues over the smallest of pleasures.
And in a tiny club tucked away on a small street, there is music, an emcee with an eye for the libidinous, dancers,
a beautiful orchestra, and furtive phone calls in the middle of the night. It is fun, and everyday folks are oblivious to
the goings-on just outside the doors of the Cabaret. But why should they worry? Life is good.
Or is it?
Germany is awash in Nationalistic pride, and the populace buys easily into placing blame for the plummeting
economy, immigration, and industrialization of the workforce, and is easily sold on the idea of saving the country
from itself.
So, there is this Cabaret in Berlin, and pleasures can be had, and pleasures are available for the price of a drink
and some laughs. And it is the boys who provide the drink, the emcee who provides the laughs, and British
chanteuse Sally Bowles who provides the pleasures.
As love stories go, there's a little of everything - the sweet, the sordid, the uncertain, the unrequited. As musicals
go, it's heart-rending bittersweet memory, foot-stomping über-catchy song, and searing, soaring irony. As history,
it's the ultimate in stories unlearned.
So don't be afraid, meine Herr und Fraulein! Bienvenue, come sit in our little dive, smile at a dancer, laugh and
sing along, and be prepared for a little trip through history.
Michael Letch (Emcee)
Tracy Nygard (Sally Bowles)
Robert Case (Clifford Bradshaw)
Mary O'Donnell (Fraulein Schneider)
Harry Rothman (Herr Shultz)
Adam Riccio (Ernst Ludwig)
Meredith Stypinski (Fraulein Kost)
Donald Gregorio (Kit Kat Boy, Co-Dance Captain)
Lauren Hall (Kit Kat Girl)
Gary Ryan (Kit Kat Boy)
Monica Stein (Kit Kat Girl)
Rydia Q Vielehr (Kit Kat Girl)
Kerri Nichole Wilson (Kit Kat Girl)
Julie Ann Silverman (Kit Kat Girl, Co-Dance Captain)
John Farchione (Kit Kat Boy)
Kimberly Suskind (Kit Kat Girl)
The Reviews Are In!!!
Fen you go to the Cambridge YMCA's Durrell Hall, MeDamen und Herren [TRANS: Ladiess und Chentlemen], leaf your
preconceptions Outside! Forget Liza's movie, forget Lotte Lenya, forget every happy-time "Cabaret" you have effer seen. In here, all is
Zerious! The characters are Zerious. Effen the Zex, is Zerious. You don't be-leaf me? Just ask Herr Tallach the Director! And if you
don't zink these Girls are zerious --- Chust ask ze Boys!!!
In here, it is Berlin, the 1930s are beginning, and the world is falling apart. Nazis are winning elections, and a man who wrote a book
in prison is standing on soap-boxes trying to make his fiction a reality. In the Kit-Kat-Club maybe all is glitter and giggling and girls
and songs dropped in so Kander & Ebb can let Joe Masteroff's (and Christopher Isherwood's) people express their hopes for the
candle of love in tornadoes of time.
Two different couples get engaged here. (Maybe two and a fraction; It's true that Meredith Stypinski's Fraulein Kost may never marry a
sailor, though she does "get engaged" to several --- every evening!) Two of them are born in Germany but unmarried for years --- but
would Fraulein Schneider (a self-proclaimed "survivor") actually marry a Jew at this time? Love, and pineapples, are one thing, but....
And then there's that English girl, singing in her scanties at the Kit-Kat-Club and keeping an American novellist from his typewriter.
They may not have planned to marry, or to start a family, but she's been living in his one-bed room longer than she has with anyone
else (except maybe Elsie), and it Is the early '30s and love and sex seem to start at different times these days. But they'd probably
have to leave Berlin, wouldn't they, and she'd have to leave the Kit-Kat-Club almost certainly...
James Tallach --- he's that director, remember? --- has made these, and others, people you can Care about. Mary O'Donnell's
Fraulein Schneider and Harry Rothman's Herr Shultz make a hesitantly hoping couple, Adam Riccio in Ernst Ludwig's long-lapelled
suit (Thank you Kimmerlie H.O. Jones!) seems a serious, prosperous, busily smuggling businessman, till the swastika appears. And
they aren't singers who act occasionally; these are actors who continue to act when they sing. It makes a difference. (And there are
lots of quick cameo-roles. Gary Ryan in quick new costumes must play three of them in the first five minutes of the show!) And
choristers of either sex are sizzlingly wicked in Linda Sughrue's dances.
Much of the acting centers on three people. First, Robert Case as the novelist is point-of-view character --- new to the city, ready to be
swept along with the bubbly good-time crowd his singer/girlfriend introduces him to. However he has the moral center for the play,
he's the only one aware that to ignore the Nazis is to join them. His arguments with Sally, his growing contempt for Ernst Ludwig,
grow more heated throughout the play.
Then there is the bouncy, wickedly witty Encee, played by Michael Letch in breakaway trousers and (sorry for the pun) lecherous
face-paint. He is not just an Emcee, but what was called in the American Katskills about that time a "tummler" --- a person paid to
create tumult, to shake everything up and make things happen, a pied-piper of fun. [Danny Kaye started as a tummler. Honest!] His
songs and jokes and comments pepper the action with sardonic glee, and whoever his follow-spot operator is certainly has talent.
Lighting is by John MacKenzie i.e., flawless; and Waker von Berg has designed a set that opens like a book of memories --- on
stage-left to make a cramped bedroom, on stage-right to make a living-room, on both sides to make a party, and folded up to make
The Kit-Kat-Club!
Ah, but of course it's Fraulein Sally Bowles everyone reall comes to see, and hear, isn't it? Tracy Nygard can make you forget every
Sally Bowles you've ever seen. She's not as young an agile as the Kit-Kat Cuties, but her Sally is clinging to the only life that has ever
made her happy --- even, as the narration points out, as the world is falling apart all around it, and around her. The finale-number
"Come to the Cabaret!" in this production is not a joyous paean of praise for triumphant glitter and tinsel, but a trembling admission
that, for all its hollowness, she has nothing else.
It's hard to believe that anyone could kick the beJesus out of this old warhorse and make it new again, but that's exactly what The
Metro Stage Company has done. There are only two week-ends for you to get tickets, but they'll go fast --- and you can't sit in half the
balcony because Juri Panda Jones put the damn BAND up there, where its rhythms are insidious! Get your order in now, before this
whole damned Weimar world falls to flinders.
Love,
===Anon.
( a k a larry stark)
preconceptions Outside! Forget Liza's movie, forget Lotte Lenya, forget every happy-time "Cabaret" you have effer seen. In here, all is
Zerious! The characters are Zerious. Effen the Zex, is Zerious. You don't be-leaf me? Just ask Herr Tallach the Director! And if you
don't zink these Girls are zerious --- Chust ask ze Boys!!!
In here, it is Berlin, the 1930s are beginning, and the world is falling apart. Nazis are winning elections, and a man who wrote a book
in prison is standing on soap-boxes trying to make his fiction a reality. In the Kit-Kat-Club maybe all is glitter and giggling and girls
and songs dropped in so Kander & Ebb can let Joe Masteroff's (and Christopher Isherwood's) people express their hopes for the
candle of love in tornadoes of time.
Two different couples get engaged here. (Maybe two and a fraction; It's true that Meredith Stypinski's Fraulein Kost may never marry a
sailor, though she does "get engaged" to several --- every evening!) Two of them are born in Germany but unmarried for years --- but
would Fraulein Schneider (a self-proclaimed "survivor") actually marry a Jew at this time? Love, and pineapples, are one thing, but....
And then there's that English girl, singing in her scanties at the Kit-Kat-Club and keeping an American novellist from his typewriter.
They may not have planned to marry, or to start a family, but she's been living in his one-bed room longer than she has with anyone
else (except maybe Elsie), and it Is the early '30s and love and sex seem to start at different times these days. But they'd probably
have to leave Berlin, wouldn't they, and she'd have to leave the Kit-Kat-Club almost certainly...
James Tallach --- he's that director, remember? --- has made these, and others, people you can Care about. Mary O'Donnell's
Fraulein Schneider and Harry Rothman's Herr Shultz make a hesitantly hoping couple, Adam Riccio in Ernst Ludwig's long-lapelled
suit (Thank you Kimmerlie H.O. Jones!) seems a serious, prosperous, busily smuggling businessman, till the swastika appears. And
they aren't singers who act occasionally; these are actors who continue to act when they sing. It makes a difference. (And there are
lots of quick cameo-roles. Gary Ryan in quick new costumes must play three of them in the first five minutes of the show!) And
choristers of either sex are sizzlingly wicked in Linda Sughrue's dances.
Much of the acting centers on three people. First, Robert Case as the novelist is point-of-view character --- new to the city, ready to be
swept along with the bubbly good-time crowd his singer/girlfriend introduces him to. However he has the moral center for the play,
he's the only one aware that to ignore the Nazis is to join them. His arguments with Sally, his growing contempt for Ernst Ludwig,
grow more heated throughout the play.
Then there is the bouncy, wickedly witty Encee, played by Michael Letch in breakaway trousers and (sorry for the pun) lecherous
face-paint. He is not just an Emcee, but what was called in the American Katskills about that time a "tummler" --- a person paid to
create tumult, to shake everything up and make things happen, a pied-piper of fun. [Danny Kaye started as a tummler. Honest!] His
songs and jokes and comments pepper the action with sardonic glee, and whoever his follow-spot operator is certainly has talent.
Lighting is by John MacKenzie i.e., flawless; and Waker von Berg has designed a set that opens like a book of memories --- on
stage-left to make a cramped bedroom, on stage-right to make a living-room, on both sides to make a party, and folded up to make
The Kit-Kat-Club!
Ah, but of course it's Fraulein Sally Bowles everyone reall comes to see, and hear, isn't it? Tracy Nygard can make you forget every
Sally Bowles you've ever seen. She's not as young an agile as the Kit-Kat Cuties, but her Sally is clinging to the only life that has ever
made her happy --- even, as the narration points out, as the world is falling apart all around it, and around her. The finale-number
"Come to the Cabaret!" in this production is not a joyous paean of praise for triumphant glitter and tinsel, but a trembling admission
that, for all its hollowness, she has nothing else.
It's hard to believe that anyone could kick the beJesus out of this old warhorse and make it new again, but that's exactly what The
Metro Stage Company has done. There are only two week-ends for you to get tickets, but they'll go fast --- and you can't sit in half the
balcony because Juri Panda Jones put the damn BAND up there, where its rhythms are insidious! Get your order in now, before this
whole damned Weimar world falls to flinders.
Love,
===Anon.
( a k a larry stark)
METRO Makes CABARET Sting
By Beverly Creasey
So here comes another revival of Kander and Ebb’s CABARET. It’s a striking musical, of course, but you might think
its anti-Nazi message a bit dated. You’d be wrong and if you were a minority citizen of Berlin today, you might be
dead wrong. The DISCOVERY Channel just aired a report of present day, unified Germany and the rise of the new
“National” Party. The new Nazis have been winning the support of the lower and middle classes, not only the
skinheads who target immigrants for taking away jobs from the “real” Germans.
The Metro Stage Company’s surprising production nails the singing and the sexy, decadent choreography---but
director James Tallach delivers a definite chill along with the smart and sassy songs. He places the (faux) Nazi
anthem center stage and you will never hear a more gorgeous rendition of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” You will be
stunned by how moving it is and just in case you’re not horrified enough at how beautiful evil can be, they do it twice.
I never realized it before, but the star-crossed older lovers, Fraulein Schneider (Mary O’Donnell) and her Jewish
intended (Harry Rothman) get a lot more songs than Sally Bowles (Tracy Nygard) and Clifford Bradshaw (Robert
Case). In Metro’s powerful, dangerous take on the story, the older couple’s troubles seem more substantial. Herr
Schultz, who thinks “governments come and governments go,” will be amazed when he’s carted off to a
concentration camp after Clifford and Sally’s brief love affair, and the musical, ends. O’Donnell and Rothman make
their urgency and heart break as important as Clifford and Sally’s.
Michael Letch as the creepy, cynical Kit Kat Club Emcee creates a riveting spokesperson for “the end of the world.”
Tallach and choreographer Linda Sugrue get extra laughs by introducing Gary Ryan as one of Letch’s “Two
Ladies.” Meredith Stypinski brings a lovely vulnerability to the philandering Fraulein Kost and Adam Riccio will make
your blood run cold in the second “Tomorrow” (exquisitely arranged and conducted by Juri Panda Jones).
John Farchione and Donald Gregorio dance the pants off their roles (not really, but almost) and Julie Ann
Silverman, Monica Stein, Kimberly Suskind, Rydia Q. Vielehr, Kerri Nichole Wilson and LaurenHall make each Kit
Kat girl unique.
Prosit, Metro, for a timely, chilling CABARET.
By Beverly Creasey
So here comes another revival of Kander and Ebb’s CABARET. It’s a striking musical, of course, but you might think
its anti-Nazi message a bit dated. You’d be wrong and if you were a minority citizen of Berlin today, you might be
dead wrong. The DISCOVERY Channel just aired a report of present day, unified Germany and the rise of the new
“National” Party. The new Nazis have been winning the support of the lower and middle classes, not only the
skinheads who target immigrants for taking away jobs from the “real” Germans.
The Metro Stage Company’s surprising production nails the singing and the sexy, decadent choreography---but
director James Tallach delivers a definite chill along with the smart and sassy songs. He places the (faux) Nazi
anthem center stage and you will never hear a more gorgeous rendition of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” You will be
stunned by how moving it is and just in case you’re not horrified enough at how beautiful evil can be, they do it twice.
I never realized it before, but the star-crossed older lovers, Fraulein Schneider (Mary O’Donnell) and her Jewish
intended (Harry Rothman) get a lot more songs than Sally Bowles (Tracy Nygard) and Clifford Bradshaw (Robert
Case). In Metro’s powerful, dangerous take on the story, the older couple’s troubles seem more substantial. Herr
Schultz, who thinks “governments come and governments go,” will be amazed when he’s carted off to a
concentration camp after Clifford and Sally’s brief love affair, and the musical, ends. O’Donnell and Rothman make
their urgency and heart break as important as Clifford and Sally’s.
Michael Letch as the creepy, cynical Kit Kat Club Emcee creates a riveting spokesperson for “the end of the world.”
Tallach and choreographer Linda Sugrue get extra laughs by introducing Gary Ryan as one of Letch’s “Two
Ladies.” Meredith Stypinski brings a lovely vulnerability to the philandering Fraulein Kost and Adam Riccio will make
your blood run cold in the second “Tomorrow” (exquisitely arranged and conducted by Juri Panda Jones).
John Farchione and Donald Gregorio dance the pants off their roles (not really, but almost) and Julie Ann
Silverman, Monica Stein, Kimberly Suskind, Rydia Q. Vielehr, Kerri Nichole Wilson and LaurenHall make each Kit
Kat girl unique.
Prosit, Metro, for a timely, chilling CABARET.
Cabaret Photos
© R. Distler Photography 2007
www.racheldistler.com
© R. Distler Photography 2007
www.racheldistler.com
2008 IRENE AWARD Winner -
BEST CHOREOGRAPHY
(Small Company)
BEST CHOREOGRAPHY
(Small Company)