Were the Bob Fosse and Sam Mendes Versions of ‘Cabaret’ Insufficiently Over-the-Top?

“Cabaret” could never be mistaken for a sunny musical, or a wholesome one. Since having its premiere on Broadway in 1966 — and particularly since Bob Fosse’s masterful screen adaptation arrived, six years later — Kander and Ebb’s darkly glittering portrait of Weimar-era Berlin, based on the play “I Am A Camera” and stories by Christopher Isherwood, has been inspiring saucy and dystopian visions on both sides of the Atlantic.The acclaimed English director Sam Mendes saw fit to revisit it twice, with Rob Marshall co-directing and choreographing his take for Broadway; both productions featured a marvelously sly, spry Alan Cumming as the master of ceremonies who oversees giddy debauchery at the Kit Kat Club. Mr. Mendes cast a series of famous actresses — the late Natasha Richardson, Michelle Williams, Emma Stone — as the London-bred showgirl Sally Bowles, whose aspiration and desperation form a prism through which we view Germany’s descent into madness.Now another Brit, Rebecca Frecknall, is having a stab at the musical; her staging, like Mr. Mendes’s first, had its premiere in the U.K. and lands on Broadway after winning lavish praise on the West End. Here the main attraction for movie fans will be the actor cast as the Emcee: the Oscar winner Eddie Redmayne, who returns to the American theater capital for the first time in 14 years.Alas, like the other talented performers Ms. Frecknall has recruited, Mr. Redmayne is hamstrung by the director’s apparent determination to outdo Fosse, Mr. Mendes, and anyone else who has tackled the musical by banging her audience over the head. “Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club,” as this immersive production has been named, offers vulgarity in lieu of seedy decadence, and its brooding can veer into near-hysteria.Attendees are primed for the action with a “prologue”: At a recent preview, we were offered cherry schnapps and led down a winding hall to a room with a bar and a sprinkling of racially diverse dancers and musicians, wearing diaphanous costumes (designed by Tom Scutt) and acting naughty to an electronically enhanced soundtrack. The message is screamingly clear: This would have been Hitler’s nightmare of the 21st century.The main section of the August Wilson Theatre has also been transformed, into a cavernous nightclub; little tables seat two and are furnished with replicas of old-fashioned phone receivers and lamps that will light up when the Kit Kat girls and boys strut their stuff. In between numbers, they’ll prowl among us, even inviting game audience members onstage during the entr’acte.Mr. Redmayne’s Emcee makes his entrance in a cone-shaped party hat — or perhaps a dunce cap — and launches into the most mannered “Wilkommen” I’ve ever experienced, his arms weaving as the rest of his body jerks and thrusts. The choreography, by Julia Cheng, continues in this vein, as Mr. Scutt’s costumes, Guy Common’s makeup, and Isabella Byrd’s lighting alternately evoke a circus freak show and a horror movie.Gayle Rankin as Sally Bowles in ‘Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club.’ Marc BrennerNeedless to say, the carnality informing production numbers presented at the club is underlined, boldfaced, and accompanied by numerous exclamation points. During “Two Ladies,” the Emcee’s ode to sexual freedom, the dancers assume such flagrantly raunchy positions that even my 16-year-old daughter sat with her mouth open. The glorious score notwithstanding, in fact, this “Cabaret” is most compelling when the characters stop singing and dancing. Gayle Rankin, who appeared in a supporting role in Mr. Mendes’s second production of “Cabaret,” proves a witty and affecting Sally; she also brings a clear, strong mezzo to the part — though under Ms. Frecknall’s guidance, she turns the show’s title song into a nervous breakdown, chewing it up and spitting it out.Bebe Neuwirth and Steven Skybell, who delivered a memorable performance in original Emcee Joel Grey’s Yiddish production of “Fiddler in the Roof” several years back, prove predictably charming as Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz, the older couple whose budding romance is undone by the festering antisemitism surrounding them. And Henry Gottfried is convincingly chilling as the Nazi advocate Ernst Ludwig. The company’s standout is Ato Blankson-Wood, who as Sally’s American lover Clifford Bradshaw brings a throbbing, nuanced humanity to this “Cabaret,” reminding us — as the show’s better interpreters always have — that style should never overwhelm soul. And that, with material this strong, it doesn’t have to.

Were the Bob Fosse and Sam Mendes Versions of ‘Cabaret’ Insufficiently Over-the-Top?

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