Liam O'Dell

★★★★

Rebecca Frecknall’s Cabaret, the hit West End musical which has turned the Playhouse Theatre into the Kit Kat Club, has cast its first non-binary Emcee (the queer-coded lead who Eddie Redmayne got criticised for playing first) in the form of The Sandman and Hedwig and the Angry Inch actor Mason Alexander Park. Their take on the character snaps back and forth between the effervescent and the eerie – much like Frecknall’s gloomy and creeping production as a whole.

For those who, like me, are unfamiliar with John Masteroff’s book (based on works by John Van Druten and Christopher Isherwood), the musical follows the lives of those working in a Berlin nightclub and some folks who pass through it, amid the rise of the Nazi Party. Emcee is our tonal motif amid the country’s devastating political shift, while English performer Sally Bowles (Euphoria’s Maude Apatow) falls in love with American novelist Clifford Bradshaw (Nathan Ives-Moiba), and sweethearts Fraulein Schneider (Beverley Klein) and Herr Schultz (Teddy Kempner) get together. You’ll almost certainly recognise the title number, as well as the song “Money” (makes the world go round)…

What’s definitely unrecognisable, though, is the Playhouse, which hasn’t just been set designed by Tom Scutt, but completely renovated into the Kit Kat Club. We enter via stage door into a glittery, pearled nightclub where dancers dance above us, with the circular stage itself placed in-the-round. The commitment and attention to detail from Scutt and the theatre to effectively rebrand is impressive, going as far as to change name badges and repainting the walls and doors with both English and German signage. Circular lighting and the wooden tables means the environment fits easily into Frecknall’s go-to bronze aesthetic visible in other works such as Summer and Smoke and her take on A Streetcar Named Desire.

It’s glazed by Isabella Byrd’s sharply focussed lighting design, vignette-like in nature, and often confined to a single spotlight, save for moments of warm hues (pastel, like Scutt’s vivid costumes) which offer bursts of colour, but hardly ever in a way which is imposing. It speaks to Frecknall’s artistic vision with this Cabaret, in that there is an air of timidity to many elements of the production.

The lighting is more gentle than it is bright, and as one event unfolds centre-stage, Emcee and/or the ensemble twist and clamber around on the sidelines. There’s a desire there, but something ominous and unaddressed – referred to often and dismissively as ‘politics’ – which is holding them back. It soon becomes pretty apparent to us, long before it does to some of the characters on-stage, making it all the more tragic.

The difficulty in many elements being subdued, however, is that it extends to Apatow’s take on Bowles. For a performer so lackadaisical and unserious, one would expect her to be loud and unpredictable, and yet, in comparison to other cast members, Apatow comes across softer and with a lack of gravitas. Her narrative arc is supposed to be one of finding purpose, and although such a quietness would match the expected uncertainty that comes with that (“Maybe This Time” is beautifully delicate, in fairness), it would produce an added complexity to Bowles if she was far more charismatic on-stage than off it.

“Don’t Tell Mama”, her much-hyped debut number, isn’t pronounced or loud (even when she’s meant to be playing in a very camp nightclub), which sadly suggests a lack of confidence on Apatow’s part. It also means that when she is faced with heartbreaking choices towards the end of the musical, her decisions don’t exactly come across all that resolute. If she didn’t have a purpose before, she definitely should have one when Germany is on the brink of war.

It’s Klein who steals the show as Schneider – particularly in respect to her giddiness, which dissipates abruptly and tragically when the politics forces itself onto the stage. Her performance is complemented perfectly by Kemper’s big-hearted and gentle Schulz – their duet on “It Couldn’t Please Me More”, a number all about a pineapple, is charming and sweet in every sense of the word. What’s completely devastating and chilling is how suddenly the calmer moments are cut short for Park to remind us of the bleak, broader picture. Their fluidity in making us laugh at the campness and then out of unease is smart and seamless, Park playing Emcee to the character’s full clowning capacity.

Much like her take on Streetcar (where a drummer hovered above the set and intervened in the play’s violent and discordant scenes), Frecknall’s Cabaret is rigorously rhythmical and well-paced. The cacophonous and jubilant notes in the pre-show entertainment, all so liberal in nature, soon get controlled to the extent that the finale, the big crescendo, is no longer in the hands of the orchestra. The loss of control and how painfully aware the audience comes to be of that is what delivers the show’s gut punch, but Frecknall has things under control here as director. As Cabaret and her other previous successful productions demonstrate, she always has.

Cabaret is now playing at the Kit Kat Club (The Playhouse Theatre) until 16 December. No access performances are currently scheduled.

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Production Images: Marc Brenner.