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64
Friday, June 26, 1987
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Political Message Potent
In Grey't 'Cabaret' Revival
MICHAEL ELKIN
Special to The Jewish News
,
Cabaret represented, for
many, a coming of age for con-
temporary musical theater,
what with its serious look at
pre-World War II Berlin as a
harbinger of the Holocaust.
Indeed, the show, which earn-
ed eight Tony Awards, in-
cluding "best musical," is
celebrating yet another coming
of age this year, its 21st
anniversary.
Much like Cabaret, the
public's perception of the
musical's topics — chief among
them the Holocaust and tyran-
ny of Nazism — has matured
and grown too.
Interviews with those
associated with Cabaret and
knowledgeable about the era it
depicts paint an interesting
and distinctive picture of the
show. Cabaret in many ways
can be seen as a landmark
musical, a production dealing
realistically with a time period
generally shunted aside by
theater.
"This Cabaret shows a darker
time. We are looking at the
period a little more darkly than
we did in 1966," says star Joel
Grey, recreating his Tony
Award-winning role as the
cabaret's decadent master of
ceremonies.
There is a definite reason for
that. "In '66, we all believed we
could change the world; there
was a hell of a lot of optimism,"
adds Grey. "I do feel we are liv-
ing in more dangerous times
now!'
How so? "Our confidence in
our government is shaken; ter-
rorists make us feel helpless as
people. These are just different
times?'
So were the '20s of pre-war
Berlin and its Weimar
Republic. "Cabaret was a
marvelous rendition of a very
decadent type of society," says
Bernard Wax, director of the
American Jewish Historical
Society, in Waltham, Mass.
"Through the makeup and Joel
Grey's performance, the show
had a tremendous impact (on
audiences), dealing with a most
unpleasant episode.
"The show provided a good
deal of information — why it
took place, how it took place —
what led to the destruction of
six million people. Yes, it had
an enormous impact."
Survivor Ellen Norman
Stern, biographer of Elie
Wiesel (Witness for Life), agrees
to an extent. "Cabaret had
more of an impact on other
writers and musicians than the
general public," she says of the
show.
Stern admits she "was a lit-
tle too young to get the impact"
Decadent master of ceremonies Joel Grey leads eye-opening
revival of 'Cabaret.'
of the era and its pre-war at-
mosphere as a child living in
Berlin, but she does recall an
"extremely sophisticated time.
At cabarets people were allow-
ed to say things with political
meaning?'
And Cabaret, says Stern,
caught the era right on, ac-
complishing what no other
show had tried. After all, she
says, the show's producers were
dealing with a complicated
political theme. "It was an at-
mosphere (they were depicting)
quite diffeent from a Carousel,"
she says.
American musical theater
had been, for the most part, on
a merry-go-round of happy
tunes and times. The Sound of
Music dealt with the Holocaust,
albeit in a sweeter and lighter
way. Cabaret, maintains Stern,
"widened American sophistica-
tion. It opened up horizons for
the American musical theater:"
Prof. Nora Levin of Gratz Col-
lege, author of The Holocaust:
The Destruction of European
Jewry, 1933-45, also talks about
the proliferation of cabarets in
pre-war Germany. "They mock-
ed and caricatured Hitler," says
Levin.
"Cabaret is not so much a
political statement but an ex-
pression of the tawdriness and
rootlessness and even grotes-
queness of the period."
What kind of legacy has
Cabaret left? "I don't know
what American audiences
glean from it," she says. Au-
diences need some understand-
ing of German political history
to get all the show's ramifica-
tions, she adds.
"What is very disturbing
about the Weimar Republic is
not just its rootlessness but also
a frightening viciousness of
crimes committed — even can-
nibalism. These are things peo-
ple may not be aware_ hap-
pened. Christopher Isherwood,"
upon whose work the musical
was based, in addition to John
van Druten's play I Am a
Camera, was shattered by what
he saw, what we would call sex-
ual perversion."
And yet . . . the "new"
Cabaret, which reportedly
mixes in some elements of the
movie, which was later made
with Grey and Liza Minnelli
(both earned Oscars), may hint
at that grotesqueness even
more than the '66 production.
Audiences, says Grey, are bet-
ter able to accept truths than
before. "Certainly there is more
attention being paid to the
Holocaust today," he says,
especially in light of revi-
sionists trying to write their
own history of World War II.
"I'm not saying we are living
in a world where the Holocaust
is around the corner, but today's
society is much more me-
oriented;' less socially con-
cerned. "People are not paying
attention to their fellow man. It
represents a real danger," cau-
tions Grey.