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- [00:00]
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- [00:31]
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- [01:00]
Mickey Jo
What I think I'm going to take a long time to recover from is the audacity of this production of Cabaret to spend perhaps two hours just being like a very sleek and sexy version of the show before ending with the most nightmarish, terrifying, chilling and fantastic ending that I could possibly have conceived of. I couldn't have conceived of. I did not see this coming and I loved it. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre. I am a theatre critic and content creator here on social media and earlier this month I flew to Madrid, Spain in order to see a handful of musicals in Spanish in spite of the fact that I do not speak a lot of Spanish. In fact I speak hardly any Spanish beyond the words that I am able to understand thanks to, you guessed it, GCSC Latin. Don't laugh, it's incredibly applicable. And during this trip, which you can already join us vicariously on Viavlog, which I have shared here on YouTube. We saw four different shows. You will hear about the other three in due course in a full roundup video. But I wanted to talk about this one by itself because it surprised me. And this was a production of Cabaret, an original production of Cabaret situated as many other Revivals have been previously within the context of a KitKat club, and this is one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to travel to Spain in the first place to spend this weekend seeing theatre. I'm a big fan of Cabaret as a show. I have seen the current West End and recent Broadway revival many, many times. At this point it is a musical that I have seen. I think this was my fifth different production. I saw the Rufus Norris UK tour. I have seen the Rebecca Frecknell version something like 15 times maybe at this point I also saw a Parisian production at the Lido Theatre in Paris. So fourth, maybe this is my fourth different Cabaret. But perhaps I have seen the show in total around 20 times, four countries, two languages, more MCs than I. And from what I had seen about this production beforehand online, I could immediately tell that it was very, very different to the staging currently playing at the KitKat Club aka the Playhouse Theatre here in the West End. And that intrigued me. And true enough, this production was kind of a revelation. It surprised me in a handful of different ways, different structural choices, different song choices, things that were completely different to any version of Cabaret that I had seen before in my lifetime. A question that I get asked very often is, do you not get bored seeing hundreds of shows every year theater night after night? Does it not lose its impact? And the truth is that genuinely it doesn't. I enjoy being in that space and being told stories and participating in an audience so, so much. I would do it every night of my life and I pretty much do. The one detail of it that I find that becomes a little bit more scarce, especially when I see a lot of shows in succession is the genuine sensation of surprise. My emotional response to theatre I don't think has been dulled, but I find myself being surprised less frequently. And so when it happens, I'm delighted. And that is the detail about this production of Cabaret that I'm very excited to share with you. I'm not saying it's necessarily the best production of Cabaret I have ever seen. I've seen some really great versions of the show. It is perhaps the most shocking. So let me tell you a little bit more about it. If anyone is watching or listening to this and has seen this production for themselves or has any questions about it, feel free to leave those comments down below. And of course, if you're looking forward to hearing my thoughts about the other three musicals that we saw in Madrid, make sure that you're subscribed here on YouTube or following me on podcast platforms. Those reviews will Be coming very soon. In the meantime, there is so much for me to tell you about Cabaret, El Musical and El Kitkat Club in Madrid. So let's talk a little bit about the general atmosphere of this production. I mentioned that, like other iterations of the show going back years, they situate the audience in the KitKat club and they are telling the story within the context of the KitKat Club. I don't know when this was first done. There's something inherently within the DNA of the material that really speaks to this, because Cabaret, being a Pre World War II Berlin set musical cuts between these book scenes of various different characters dealing with the years leading up to the Second World War and the shifts in society, and these increasingly dark satirical musical numbers being performed in the KitKat club. And what you do dramaturgically when you put the audience in the club and have them watch the show from that perspective, is you keep them within the cozy and warm confines of that entertaining, stylish, boozy surrounding, in spite of the literal and figurative chill that lies beyond its safe walls. Which means that you have a crowd of people who are perhaps predisposed to having a stylish and fun time, seeing fun, sexy musical numbers, who may not be prepared for the harrowing story that is going to unfold. This production, I think, understands that better than most because when the difficult reality of it all does emerg, especially towards the end, it does so as a real gut punch and a real pulling out of the rug from underneath this audience. There also, I think, is something to be said for the perception of Cabaret being sort of out of alignment with the actual tone and the actual themes of the show. I blame Chicago for this. And I think people hear Cabaret and see Cabaret and they remember some of the songs and they're like, like, there's a cabaret. And they forget that it is actually about fascism. But oh boy, are they gonna remember by the end. Anyway, this production, which has been directed by Federico Bologne and features set and costume design by Philippe de Lima, goes further than most in terms of establishing that Kitkat Club setting. Because it's taking place in Teatro Albanese, which I gather used to be a theater and was then subsequently renovated. It is situated within the Umusic Hotel, as in Universal Music, making it one of very few theaters in the world to be located entirely inside of a hotel building. It also happens to be the hotel where we stayed. But for Cabaret, even though it is a reason historic looking, traditional proscenium setup, they have ripped out all of the usual Stalls, orchestra seating, and put in an entire section of cabaret tables. No, like front few rows of cabaret tables, but cabaret tables throughout. And it's not as in traverse as the current production, where it's sort of a stage in the middle playing to both sides. It's more like it gradually ascends up into a playing space. And there are some people who get to be sat amongst the playing space. It's kind of like they're at the top table at a wedding. And top table is a really valuable metaphor here because many of the show's book scenes actually take place on a couple of tables in the middle of that space. The musical numbers, everything happening in the KitKat club is sort of more sprawling and expands out because we are in the literal KitKat club, so it can. And they can move through the audience. But when we cut to the book scenes and the sort of very intimate, almost claustrophobic residences of Fraulein Schneider, we are playing it just on a couple of large tables. And to take all of the scenes within the book of Cabaret, written, of course, by Joe Masteroff, and to put them across a couple tables represents a really interesting challenge. There aren't particularly large set pieces, nothing being brought on or off. It's entirely about the hugely immersive setup that they have designed for the show as a blank slate. And there are gorgeous details. There is this large Cabaret neon sign that descends. There are these windows that appear to allow you to glance out to the street beyond with a sign that says like a hotel. The Spanish word for either like hotel or accommodations. Basically, the table setups are stylish. There's lamps, of course, there are telephones. There are little KitKat club branded napkins. I'm not suggesting that you can take them away as souvenirs, but perhaps there are six in my lounge. There's also a circle or mezzanine level with more traditional seating. But to really experience this production in a unique way, you're going to want to be sitting in one of the cabaret tables. And all of this may not sound a million miles from productions of Cabaret that you might have seen before. But since we're talking about costumes, let's continue talking about Philippe's design work. And this is sort of the first way in which this production becomes identifiably unique, because certainly the KitKat club performance outfits are significantly more risque, in some ways a little bit anachronistic and more modern. I don't know the history of when exactly we started making red latex dresses, but when Sally Bowles arrives in one of those. It looks a little less 1930s Weimar Germany and, you know, a little more. Well, to my mind, a little more the red latex top that Erika Jayne wore in Amsterdam on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, which shows you where my fashion references are coming from. But we had a lot of harnesses going on like the one I'm wearing right now. We had KitKat club performers in sort of flesh tone harnesses and underwear, very revealing with like fur coats over the top. We had the MC in sort of flesh tone undergarments, lingerie harnesses happening as well with like red bejeweled bedazzled pasties happening. Very sexy. Very different than Tom Scutt's designs in London, which tell a very meaningful gradual story of assimilation. I think, if anything, what was being highlighted here was again the stark difference between inside the club and beyond its doors. Sally singing the Cabaret, the title song, towards the end of the show in this long, lacy, sheer black slip of a dress that was sort of like what you might imagine she would wear to her own funeral, which you know, very much the vibe of the song. While the characters in all of the book scenes, Cliff and Ernst and Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz, are all attired as they would usually be in a regular production of the show and in the spirit of atmosphere. Another thing this production does which is also happening in London, is an atmospheric pre show with music and pre show performances. It happens a little differently here because there isn't a separate prologue company. Instead, Kick Cat Club performers take turns sort of like it's an open mic night, or perhaps a little more like they're singing waiters at a theme restaurant heading up to where the band sits at the back of the playing space. And they take in turns singing songs which, from the couple that I heard were cut numbers from the original production, which leads us beautifully into the structural and material changes that they made to the show, which blew my mind. So in spite of the fact that I had been warned a couple hours in advance that there were sort of changes to the songs in the show, I thought I had grasped by the interval where all of those had happened because already there had been some interesting choices, like hearing cut numbers from the original production ahead of the show, beginning as part of the atmospheric prologue. But one of the first really interesting changes, and there have been multiple iterations of Cabaret, so I'm not completely unprepared for this, was a song sung by Cliff in the scene when Sally first suggests to him, after having decided that she was going to move in, that it might be time for her to leave. And she says, you know, I'm sure you've had better offers. And he lies and pretends that he has. And she does the same thing before they eventually come to the confession that they both enjoy each other other's company. And there is a really perfect song here, which I gather used to be a part of the show and was since cut, where Cliff sings a song to her, asking her to stay. In fact, the song in English is titled Don't Go. It comes during a section of the show that has been reworked so many different times, because occasionally this is also around about this point where you will find the song maybe this Time, which was written for the film adaptation starring Liza Minnelli and has since been inserted frequently into the show. I assumed once we got this point that maybe this Time was cut, but, oh, are we gonna get to it? Cliff around this time also occasionally sings a song called why Should I Wake up? That was present in the first version of the show I ever saw, but it wasn't in this one. We lead after this into the MC singing either Sitting Pretty or Money, which are songs that achieve the same idea. Basically reworked versions of the same material. This one did Money, but as with other incarnations, Sally Bowles, unlike in the film, not involved in the performance. And already by this point, Sally had sung Don't Tell Mama rather than Mine Hair, which was the reworking of that song again for Liza Minnelli in the film adaptation, though both of those songs feature in the current Rebecca Frecknell directed revival in the West End. So we get to the interval and I'm thinking, okay, we did Don't Tell Mama instead of Mein Hair. We're just not doing maybe this time. Interesting. We're resurrecting songs from original Broadway. Fascinating. Intriguing. I sort of thought, because that's the area of the show that has seen so much change, that we were beyond all of the reworking, but we. The second act, which is sort of a difficult place for us to come back in the end of the first act having been very harrowing and very politically clear with the direction in which everything is heading. It's difficult to take us back in from, you know, a stylish intermission in the KitKat club. So they add in another KitKat club performance. And this is where Sally sang Mein Hair. So they still used both numbers, but they just created a little bit more space in between them. And I think this achieves good things for the character. Of Sally, because as all of this is developing, we see Cliff having to reckon with his realization of what is really going on around him, and we see Sally remaining puzzlingly indifferent to all of that. As she tells him earlier in the show, why should we care about politics? I'm British, you're an American, etc. Sally has often been characterized with a certain amount of naivety in that way. What's interesting, and obviously I don't speak fluent Spanish, so I'm not entirely sure how this was reworked, is by this point, very. Sally has confided that she is pregnant and is no longer working at the Kitkat club because they have an argument about it later. So I'm not sure how this exactly fits into that idea within the script, but in terms of how it brings us back in as an audience, I think it's a solid choice. Now, thereafter, everything sort of plays out as you would expect, until we get to the very end of the show. And Sally has sung Life is a Cabaret, Come to the Cabaret, and had an entire breakdown on stage, the details of which I will tell you a little bit more about when we talk about the performance of the actress playing Sally Bowles. But by this point, I'm thinking, you know, other than a little vilkam and reprise, we are on the downhill slope. We're going to be heading out the doors in the next five minutes. How wrong I was. Because Sally and Cliff have their usual emotional exchange, in which she reveals to him that she isn't going to accompany him to Paris and further to America. She is going to stay behind, he's going to leave without her, and she and Boleyn will be just a memory for him. And in the usual dialogue here, Sally tell Cliff that for her, it always seems to end this way. Even when she loves someone quite dearly for the first time, it always ends like this. Which is why it works so well that at this point, as sort of the finale of the show, having just sung Cabaret, now she sings maybe this time I. My jaw was on the floor where it would remain for the following 10 minutes because of everything that was going to happen afterwards. But I. I had given up on maybe this time. I thought, oh, we're just not doing maybe this time to do it. It as the finale is so poignant. And I don't know if the lyrics are a direct translation, because often when English language musicals are translated into other languages, it's not a direct translation. And I'm so curious about what the translation of this lyric in Spanish actually is because the idea of Sally singing maybe this time not in a moment of genuine hope, but after this man who she genuinely loved has left her amidst what she has to realize by this point is an increasingly bleak personal circumstance that is devastating. And I think the fact that we have some kind of familiarity with the songs and audience perhaps beforehand and by this point we can all see what her circumstances are. I think, you know, it works on a level, but there's also a painful irony and a sense of disconnect to it as well, where we can tell that it's a feigned false sense of optimism with which she is singing here as she's singing it's gotta happen happen sometime. You get the sense that this Sally singing it at this moment at the end of their relationship, doesn't actually believe what she's saying, but desperately needs to, after which we arrive at my favourite moment of this production, the chilling final sequence. Obviously this is going to be a substantial spoiler for this production. I think it is best enjoyed as something of a shock. But if for whatever reason you have a strong cultural connection to the themes of this material, then there are aspects of this I think probably might want to know about before.
- [18:21]
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- [18:51]
Mickey Jo
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Mickey Jo
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Mickey Jo
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- [19:20]
Mickey Jo
Promote your business with podcast ads on Acast. Get started at go acast.com advertise forehand. And generally speaking, the tone and the aesthetic of this production is pretty light and pretty sleek and pretty sexy is a quality of bleakness and creeping despair in the current London recent Broadway revival which is not present in this one. So when the dark, chilling arrival of fascism begins and sort of pierces through different moments of the show, it's all the more abrupt. The throwing of a brick through Herr Schultz's window is done in a stylistic way in the London production with falling paper and a lighting cue and a sound effect here. Here a brick is literally released from the rafters above and falls amongst all of the cabaret table seating in the audience. It is abrupt, it is stark reality. Which is also where the ending takes us. If you don't want these spoilers, skip ahead to the next section. But this begins as a version of the ending that I have seen before, in which it is the MC who is styled as the train conductor, conversing with Cliff as he leaves the country of Germany, saying, you did not find our City Beautiful, etc. Etc. Before turning and singing a little reprise of Vilkomen. At which point we hear the echoed voices of different characters repeating some of their most impactful lines from throughout the show. At which time, once again, I thought we were, you know, moments away from tying a nice little ribbon on the whole thing. But the next thing that happens, and I can't remember exactly what it is that triggers this, but those characters each produce World War II era Gas masks and put them over their heads. Except for the mc, who does not have one, and begins to frantically scramble between cabaret tables in the audience, desperately and feverishly asking audience members if anyone has a gas mask that she can use, looking utterly terrified with this completely manic energy. And this goes on for an uncomfortably long amount of time. It's very difficult to watch. It becomes even more harrowing when we see her gradually come to the realization that she doesn't have one. But the consequence is not what you might, might expect, because instead of something denoting a bomb dropping, as the MC grows more sorrowful, we see her fully disrobing to a state of absolute nudity. She moves to the back of the stage where in a sort of a half lighting, she is joined by a couple of other members of the company, other KitKat club performers who have also removed their clothing. This is an ending that I've seen before in the Rufus Norris version, whereupon a smoke cue is released, released from high, high above the playing space, rapidly, this just descent of gas over those characters, but also over a decent chunk of cabaret table seating on stage as well, sort of everything within the elevated playing space upon which the entire show has been performed. There was also a lovely moment in which the MC turns and the band is suddenly missing. And you know, there is is no music, there is no distraction, there is no charm. It is just the harsh cold light of day. But yeah, to end it in this way and for that to be the final beat with the release of gas and the implication of the gas chambers, unmistakably, is so dark and so blisteringly painful and a bold choice that I really celebrate. Because, you know, why are we staging new productions of Cabaret right now in this current global political climate if we are not talking frankly and honestly about the disturbing impact of fascism and reminding people of the horrors and the atrocities of that time and what the consequences would have been for these characters? And that's not a criticism of the Frecknel directed production in London, which does not as directly or explicitly invoke that finale for the MC and the KitKat club. I think that's telling a different sort of more intellectually conceived story about assimilation and everyone being on a road ultimately to the same fate. But there are other productions previously that have made it a little bit more explicit, and this is by far the most explicit and the most hard hitting version of that, to the point that I think it's almost detrimental to the show overall as a piece of evening entertainment because the audience aren't sure how to applaud after that moment. Which I guess is a tricky thing to try and court. But at the end of the day, I think I would always prefer a devastatingly honest performance that leaves us feeling a little bit uncomfortable than one that, you know, seeks to placate us when it's dealing with such increasingly important things.
- [24:37]
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- [24:39]
Mickey Jo
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- [24:42]
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- [25:21]
Mickey Jo
So the MC in this production is played by Abril Zamora. She is credited, I believe, as like the principal mc. And there is perhaps an alternate mc. What's interesting is they have different gender presentations and she is a female mc, is obviously done far less frequently than a male presenting mc. What's even more interesting though, is how quickly I stopped noticing or how little it became a necessary aspect of her character because, and we've talked about the MC so many times from Eddie Redmayne to Adam Lambert to Mason Alexander park to Alan Cumming. Like, there's been so many discussions about different ways you can portray and interpret the role of the MC and the extent to which they are an individual with an identity or perhaps representative of something bigger. The spirit of Berlin, the idea of countercultural rebellion, the very essence of a shifting Germany. But because they have so few sort of genuine personal connections with other characters, because they don't really portray anything beyond sort of feeling pseudo Parental to the KitKat club characters and being sort of playful and suggestive with the audience and satirizing what going on and unfolding politically, gender doesn't really come into the MC's character, and there is really no reason why it can't be portrayed by a woman. And it changes staggeringly little. What I think has a little more consequence is to be a trans performer in the role and to infuse a little more meaning into the dialogue. Towards the end of the song, if they could see her when the MC is asking the audience, why is it that people can't Leben und Leben Larson. Live and let live. That actually got a small round of applause at this performance, amidst a performance, I might add, of if they could see her staged very differently to any I have ever seen before. Usually it starts as a bit of a comedy number with a performer in a gorilla suit dancing around with the mc, the joke being like, this is the gorilla. I am in love with the gorilla. Why don't people take our relationship seriously with the uncomfortable revelation at the end of the thing? This being the entire concept of. Of cabaret, we lead with charm and guile and playfulness before sort of ripping the mask off of it, essentially. That revelation being the punchline of the song. If they could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all. Only this one is a little more tender and very different because instead of having a performer in a gorilla costume, the MC is puppeteering a small monkey held like a child. So it feels a little more vulnerable and by the end, I think all the more sort of sad as well. Well, there is a mechanism by which the MC is able to turn the head of the monkey to look out into the audience alongside the delivery of that final line. That's very impactful. Abril Zamora, I believe, is something of a Spanish celebrity not necessarily known for musical theater. I thought she was a masterfully commanding mc. I thought the essence of the character was brilliantly understood. And one of the most important things to be able to convey in that role role is this commanding, controlling quality over the KitKat club space and over this family of performers. You need utter confidence and charisma in that role, which I think she delivered brilliantly, transcending even language barriers. And as a quick note about the language, you may be wondering how I got on with this and how you might get on with this if you don't speak Spanish. And I have seen Cabaret enough times and I know the show well enough to be able to have innately understood the roadmap of where it was that we were going.
- [29:01]
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- [29:01]
Mickey Jo
Even if certain scenes seemed a little different sometimes I was following line for line and thinking, this is slightly reworked and we've gone a little off piste here. Or this is an earlier version of the book than the one I am more familiar with. What is very charming is the fact that the show is set in Germany and features German characters in conversation with British and American characters who speak about language. When Cliff and Sally first speak over one of the telephones in the KitKat club, she asks him to continue speaking English because she's been so starved of the sound of it. And so it's charming to hear them having that conversation, but in Spanish. Spanish is sort of not at all connected to the various different languages that are happening within Cabaret. And there's always a lot of German in the show. There was, I think, a moment where we heard a more extended passage of German between two characters, but I couldn't quite be sure what at this point I'd be very interested to see is a truly language accurate production. Maybe in Germany where the German characters speak to each other in German. Fraulein Schneider and Hirsch Schulz, Herr Ludwig and Fraulein Cost, but the English characters speak in English to each other, or characters speak in English to Cliff, etc. Because I don't think I've ever seen a version of the show where I'm actually hearing the authentic language the entire time. And I only just realized that. Anyway, carrying on, Amanda De Gone played Sally Bolt. Apologies, by the way, if I am butchering the pronunciation of all of these names, but what a star turn. This was already sensational in Sally's cabaret number numbers for her first entrance for Don't Tell Mama when she comes down in the sort of red latex interpretation of a schoolgirl outfit, she descends on a giant red swing from above among audience members. And at one point, as she's swinging backwards and forwards, she has to stand up onto it in such a precise way so that she doesn't shift the momentum of the thing, because it very easily could swing back and hit somebody in the face. You've heard of immersive theater, but you did not expect, expect to get struck in the face by flying Sally Bowles. And honestly, we should all be so lucky. But later in the show, the performances that she gave of Cabaret, which in the middle gets entirely stopped and interrupted by this utter breakdown as she moves away from the microphone stand and everything collapses into silence. And she has to find the strength to continue the number, to continue to embark on this song and this story and this life. It was very, very powerful. I've seen a lot of performers have to utterly give themselves over to this number, and this was no exception. It was raw, it was vulnerable, but it also wasn't whatsoever contrived. There was no sense of sort of ambiguous contemporary movement. It was just honest and exposing and implicitly understood and also sensationally sung. I mean, she looked a star. This was one of Sally Bowles, very close to Liza, actually, in the movie, where she could be a star. And she was wildly talented and there was this magical, charismatic, special quality about her, but she also became this heartbreakingly tragic figure as well. Pepe Noufrio was playing Clifford Bradshaw the entire time. I'm thinking, I have seen this performer on stage before and I have. He was in the UK tour and the Regents park production of Jesus Christ Superstar. He was a fantastic Cliff. Brilliant chemistry between him and Sally, but also a really interesting choice that arrived in the second act in this production because in spite of Cliff growing more openly disdainful of the Nazi party, he has this moment where he encounters a fascist in uniform who asks him if he can light a cigarette. And there is this sort of instant of recognition between the two of them that devolve evolves into an indication from the, we realize, gay Nazi that he's inviting Cliff to go off with him, to have a little tryst. And this brilliant moment where Cliff is wordlessly wrestling with the guilt of this decision and whether or not he is going to do it, his sexuality being something he has already struggled to admit over the course of the show. But add in this layer of massive political guilt as well, and it becomes even more loaded. He eventually does decide to go off with him, and when they return, it's the fact that they have been spotted by two other fascist colleagues that causes the closeted gay Nazi to strike Cliff and be like, ugh, get away from me. At which point they beat him up, triggering, you know, the final few scenes of the show. But for that to come out of a gay Nazi hookup with Cliff. What a choice. What an absolute choice. The entire company, I thought, were fantastic in their roles, particularly the Kit Kat Club ensemble. Playful and sexy, brilliantly executing Gillian Bruce's choreography. Carmen Connoisseur and Tony river did a lovely job of playing the scenes between Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz at a slightly faster pace than I have seen previously. Generally, the whole show felt, you know, by a couple verses and a couple of lines, slightly more streamlined than longer productions, but with all of the familiar warmth and charm of this couple finding each other later in life. The revelation to my mind, though, was Peppa Lucas as Frulein Kost. And Kost always has some really great material, material, if you want to find it, as a performer and as a director, because the sort of neighbourly tension that she has as one of the renters of Fraulein Schneider's rooms and a fairly indiscreet prostitute begins as comedy. But it's also the first indication of unrest between individuals living in the same place of division between different Germans. We find out later on about her political affiliations between. But before that, there's a moment where she delightedly has discovered Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schulz enjoying the aftermath of an evening of passion together. This amidst Fraulein Schneider's complaints that Fraulein Cost ought not to be bringing sailors around as her customers. This, she believes, is going to get her entirely off the hook and allow her to, like, hold this above Schneider's head for the rest of the their lives. When Schulz, you know, comes to Fraulein Schneider's aid and defends her by saying, that's not what's happening here. He lies and says, she's actually agreed to become my wife. And in doing this, they have bested Frulein Cost and she usually heads back to her room with her tail between her legs. Only in this production, she is utterly devastated. And at this point, we do sort of dwell on a moment here, and there's a lot of space made for this as she slowly, slowly, miserably crosses the stage while the two of them celebrate and decide whether this is something that they could actually do, they begin to sing the song Married or Marriage, I can't remember. This is. This is one of the songs I pay the least attention to. I'll be completely honest, every time I see Cabaret, it's the skip track we all know it is. It makes the Pineapple song seem like Don't Cry for Me, Argentina. Anyway, since I believe the Sam Mendes production in the 1990s. Frulein Cost has sung the second verse of this song, SONG IN German that still happens in the current West End revival. Only historically, in productions that I've seen, she sort of does it for the vibes, whereas in this she has impetus, she has a little bit of business to conduct. As she is singing the song back in her room, reflecting on the idea of marriage for herself, and from that arises a new idea and a personal connection for her to the material, she is not just thinking, thinking generally about the concept of marriage. She is not even thinking about Frulein Schneider and Herr Schultz. Instead, we see her wrapping something around her arm, readying to assuage her sorrows with drugs, because it seems as though she is reflecting on some prior marriage of her own, or perhaps the lost opportunity thereof. This moment for her in the song is newly infused with this really palpable, painful sorrow. And it means when she then comes back in the party scene, subsequently, this engagement party celebration, her destructive actions are all the more understood. And there are other little moments and little choices like this that I could tell you about that just sort of shifted different facets of the show. But I think you get the idea of why this was exciting and surprising to me. And also the thrill of reviving something where you're going to really dig into the material, where you're going to go as far as resurrecting cut songs from the past to take this real overview look at Cabaret and be like. Like, what if this song, which has always been placed there, instead happens in a completely different place? What if we take those songs from the film and reappropriate them for different purposes? What if we achieve different outcomes? What if we reflect different ideas? I love this so much more than, you know, a cheap, generic remounting of a previous production or something that might be in line with expectations based on a film, based on a particularly iconic staging. I love that directors and creatives are continuing, continuing to reinterpret things through their own unique vision. As you can probably tell, I was delighted by this production. I was thrilled to be so surprised by it, to have had that experience. And truly, I think it is doing the immersive KitKat Club cabaret table seating aspect better than any production of Cabaret that I've seen before. I truly celebrate the artistry and the energy that has gone into designing and building and performing this production in Madrid, where it is due to play a little longer in 2026, before, I believe, heading off on a tour around other parts of Spain. I think it's going to Valencia. It may be the ambition of the production to return at some point to the venue where it is currently playing. I think that's as of yet unconfirmed. Maybe I'm just personally manifesting it. I would love to see this happen. I think for that very stylish setting of this theater inside of a hotel with the circle level opening out onto a gorgeous piano bar. There can't be that many shows that would work there as brilliantly as Cabaret does. For now though, that is everything that I have to say about this revival. Like I said, if you have had the opportunity to see it for yourself, or if you have any questions about the show, let me know in the comments section down below. And stay tuned for my reviews of the other three musicals which I saw in Spanish. I'll be sharing a roundup of all of those very soon here on YouTube or on podcast platforms. Make sure you are subscribed or follow me. Do whatever you have to do to make sure you don't miss my upcoming content. Thank you so much for listening to my thoughts. I have been Mickey Jo and as always, I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Mickey Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.
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