a Friday March 19, 2004 arts.michigandaily.com artseditor@michigandaiiy.com iftAd#q=J9Wv RTS 8 'Cabaret' titillates 'U' audience By Dawn L Low For the Daily FINEAT Is it possible to reinvent a show that's seen two Broadway revivals, an iconic film and countless college stagings? If you ask the directors of MUSKET's pro- duction of "Cabaret," they'll answer yes. If you're looking for blindly happy musical theater, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a story with depth, "Cabaret" has it in spades. Imagine Berlin, in 1930. The Third Reich is rising and the country is deteri- orating, but in a cabaret called the Kit Kat Kiub, citizens _._..._..__ can elude the out- Cabaret side world 4 s o m e t i m e s. Searching for writ- ing inspiration, American Cliff Bradshaw visits the German capital Friday andSaturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. $8 Students $13 Adults At the Power Center Courtesy of MUSKET Robin! What are you doing looking at me for? Courtesy of Focus Features Remember that time, when she was on that boat, and she got naked ... that was pretty cool. ETERNALLY GRATEFUL MUSIC VIDEO DIRECTOR TURNS STARS INTO 'SUNSHINE' and stumbles upon the club, where he meets Sally Bowles, a bewitching night- club performer. They fall in love, as does his landlady and a widower, Herr Schultz. The problem: Schultz is Jewish and the Nazis are gaining status. Issues of power, race and culture are set against a backdrop of eccentric characters rang- ing from an idealistic politician to the bizarre entertainers of the Kit Kat Klub. Director Meghan Randolph and assis- tant director Ricky DeNardis have want- ed to produce this show for a year. "It's our baby," says Randolph, who was drawn to the play's emotion. The two are borrowing features from four major adaptations, including the 1972 film directed by Bob Fosse, which has proba- bly influenced every production since. Although the directors and the choreog- rapher were drawn to the dark elements of the most recent revival in 1998, they believed that much of the sexual content was purely for shock value and inappro- priate for Ann Arbor audiences. Thus they've chosen to use the script from the 1987 remake. Unlike most musicals, in "Cabaret" the orchestra isn't relegated to the pit; they're onstage and in costume. Although it might be tempting to use only musical theater students in such a dance-reliant show, the cast comes from a diverse set of disciplines. Vocal and musical theater students who join law, business and nursing students. Each of the 18 cast members has key moments in the production. "It was important that they under- stand this period, understand why there was this abandon, this sexual freedom," Randolph says. But it would be a shame to over- whelm the poignant scenes at the heart of the musical with sexual glitz. Integral to the play is the jux- taposition of life - what is outside of the cabaret - with what happens inside the club. Both worlds reflect and merge into each other. "It's a historical piece," says DeNardis, "and it's ambiguous in a way that will leave you thinking as you walk out of the theater." By Todd Weiser Daily Arts Writer BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Even though they're two of the world's biggest superstars, Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet sure have a lot of trouble talking about themselves. Gath- ered in a Beverly Hills hotel along with the director, screenwriter and other stars of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," a film released today in theater across the country, the two leads can't help but hide their celebrity status as they are too busy gushing over what a great time they had making the film. A more dramatic departure for the comedic giant, Carrey scoffs at the idea that he needs to be funny all the time, "For me the story's the star. It doesn't matter whether it's funny or not." If Carrey was looking for an imaginative, smart story that demanded none of the usual Carrey showmanship, he certainly found the right men for the job in acclaimed screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, the unorthodox mind behind "Being John Malkovich" and "Adaptation," and music video filmmaker Michel Gondry, a second-time director also responsible for videos for The White Stripes and Bjork. A romance with a sci-fi twist, "Eternal Sunshine" finds Joel (Carrey) and Clementine (Winslet) as one-time lovers who now wish to erase all memories of their relationship from their brains thanks to an operation devised by Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson, "In the Bedroom"). The film combines Kaufman's eccentric storytelling with Gondry's visual magic, but never lets the technical overcome the emotional. Winslet noted her attraction to the film, "Whilst the story is told in this kind of crazy, unorthodox way, it's actually a very simple love story about two people who are really meant to be together despite this horrendous thing that they do." Carrey eagerly added, "It's romantic and yet it's not romanticized. It's a real love full of compromise and every- thing else that love comes with." With a story they believed in drawing the actors to the project, Gondry's high-wire-act filming style never disap- pointed Carrey and Winslet on the set. Winslet explained, "I think that so much of what we ended up shooting was not only brilliantly written by Charlie but was in Michel's mind and that, for all of us, was the thing that was so inspiring and challenging and spontaneous about making this film, that every day there was something new." "Michel definitely flouts convention," Carrey echoed. "(It was) different than anything I think any of us has ever experienced. At a certain point he didn't want to say action or anything. He just wanted to completely rewrite the whole rulebook." Gondry's bizarre approach confused Carrey at first, as he explains, "I argued with him a couple of times about that I didn't think that I could accomplish certain things like a scene in (Dr. Mierzwiak's office) where I'm in two different places in the scene and I have to run around the camera." Winslet adds, "And you never thought it was gonna work." But Carrey could not argue with the results, "It looks so clunky. You just go, 'This is a student film right here,' and then you see it and you go, 'Wow. It's magic man."' From Elijah Wood to Kirsten Dunst, the entire room sang the praises of Kaufman and Gondry. Moreover, from their stories it appeared the entire crew fell in love with the project. Carrey recounted, "When (we) were done in the scene, (everybody) would run down the hall to the video monitors to see if we pulled it off and then this cheer would go up at the end of it." And with that trademark Carrey grin he added, "It was like old-time show business again." "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" is now playing at the Quality 16, Madstone and Showcase. FOX's 'Wonderfails simply wonderful By Abby Stotz w..f x Daily Arts Writer. v4'