Another Play Review
Nov. 16th, 2006 11:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravens_nestI've done another play review for Drama class so I'll post it here. Have fun:
As seen at the Arena Stage (Fichandler Stage) on October 28, 2006; 2PM.
Set in 1930’s Berlin, just as Hitler and his Nazis rose to power in Germany, Cabaret presents aspiring American author Clifford Bradshaw who has arrived in Berlin to work on his new book as his inspiration has run dry. While on the train from Paris Cliff runs into political smuggler Ernst Ludwig who, because of Cliff’s help, offers Cliff smuggling jobs and recommends Cliff to a local boardinghouse run by the widow Fräulein Schneider and the resident night club called the Kit Kat Klub. While visiting the club, Cliff meets the beautiful club songstress Sally Bowles. That next day Sally moves in with Cliff. Months later they realize Sally’s pregnant and Cliff asks Sally to marry him and go back to America in order to avoid the war he sees coming to Germany. Sally must decide whether to leave with Cliff or stay to perform in the Kit Kat Klub for the rest of her life. As a side plot, Fräulein Schneider falls for the local Jewish fruit seller Herr Schultz and is affianced to him, but when the Nazi’s gain power she must decide whether to go through with the marriage or not.
The exposition, once they got around to it, was clear in establishing the setting. After maybe five to ten minutes of half naked people frolicking on stage you see the main character Cliff in the train car and he is introduced. Because of the effusive use of accents you understand you’re in Germany even before they actually say, “Welcome to Berlin.” They repeat it several times in case you didn’t catch it in the opening song, which I didn’t. It was a little confusing at first trying to understand who exactly the main character would be, because the Cabaret singers start the play off and you might get the impression that the action will take place in the Kit Kat Klub, which is wrong. But by scene two you see who your main character is.
The story was engaging when you looked back on it. The play took a really round-about approach to the plot so that you don’t really get what that plot is until the first act is almost done. The songs were a little expected and were to long. You immediately knew where they’d put a song and some of them should have been cut in half; instead of repeating the chorus five times, twice would suffice. There was too much of an attempt to shock and awe you with the half-naked humping that they left the plot underdeveloped. I felt that the Fräulein Schneider sub-plot could have been a co-plot instead and allowed more time on stage. It was hard to get exactly what the club stood for until after the play ended and you where trying to analyze what you saw. The story had great potential but they left the audience hanging without any real feeling of resolution.
The acting was good. The two main characters, Sally and Cliff, where very convincing as young lovers for the short time we saw them as such. I felt like Sally was better than Cliff. Especially when you se her trying to convince Cliff to let her move in and she’s already unpacking in his room. She wanders the room nervously, straightening and re-straightening the things she lays out. That was really convincing. I especially liked the actor who played Herr Shultz, the fruit seller. He seemed very believable as a hesitant suitor of the Fräulein. He was appropriately fidgety while asking her to marry him and his utter dejection when Fräulein Schneider canceled the engagement was really touching. You really felt for the guy then and later when you see him lined up by the Nazi’s to go to the concentration camps.
The set and props were nearly non-existent. This really hurt the production as I felt this was a play that needed more set work. Because the stage is in the round they tried to indicate scene changes by raising and lowering specific parts of the stage floor; this didn’t work very well. It was really hard to know where exactly the action was taking place unless it was referenced directly in the dialogue or half-naked girls and boys were running about, which indicated that you were in the Kit Kat Klub. The tables and their placement were the same for each scene, but sometimes the table items changed according to scene setting. That helped establish setting and scene change somewhat. The attempt to make the piano Cliff’s bed was a little much. I really felt like the play needed more props and scenery. That might have cleared up the plot a little and made the story easier to follow.
The lighting was very well done. They darkened when the characters where in the Kit Kat Klub, and lightened some in the boardinghouse. I especially liked the scene in the Kit Kat Klub where the club workers took the cloths off the tables to reveal reflective tops and whirled the tables around to create a disco ball affect with the lights. Though, occasionally the lights would nearly blind me when they ran across my face. The spot lights where used effectively, such as in the beginning when the Kit Kat Klub turns into the train car. They dimmed the lights on the main part of the stage and put a spot light on the smaller area where the train car was meant to be.
The costumes where very well done. The club workers were all dressed in rich, colorful ensembles that leant to their general function as carefree party animals. The personification of the world’s currencies’ costumes where especially rich. Sally’s overly expensive dresses and the fur coat really emphasized her gold-digger qualities. The Fräulein and Herr Shultz’ costumes where appropriately old fashioned and more conservative to indicate their age. The only problem was that the first few characters had on normal suits or lingerie, both of which transcend time so at first I wasn’t sure of the time period. It wasn’t until they started throwing out old phrases and we met Fräulein Schneider that I realized the time period.
I felt that this play should have been done on a stage that allowed for more scenery. But they did make the best of the stage space they had with a liberal use of the trap doors to enter the stage. I liked how they used the trap door in the center to hand in the umbrella props for the club workers. Also placing the doors to each boarder’s room at the different stage entrances was nice.
The play seemed to be trying to highlight man’s tendency to “burry his head in the sand” when faced with conflict. The cabaret was that imaginary world to which we escape our problems and while that’s alright sometimes, but the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality can become detrimental because the problem is still there and nothing has changed when you come back from that imaginary world. All of these people were living in a dream, when the horrifying reality of the Nazi uprising was happening under their noses. Sally with her job at the club, Cliff with his dreams of a long-term relationship with Sally, the Fräulein with her decision to break off the engagement with Herr Schultz and run her boardinghouse the same as always, and Herr Schultz in his belief that the Nazi’s would still consider him a German even though he was a Jew. And it was the ending scene of the Nazi’s invading the club and the boardinghouse, taking Herr Shultz to the concentration camps, and roughing up Cliff that completely destroyed the illusion that each character was living in. Ignoring something won’t make it go away. You have to face your problems and fix them in order to leave them behind and move on with your life.
The conclusion was unsatisfying in that I felt like the plot could have been explored more, especially the Fräulein and Herr Schultz plotline. However, it did end where I thought it should have. It ended with either people deciding to continue living in that dream world, Fräulein Schneider and Sally, or people coming face to face with the consequences of ignoring their problems for too long, Cliff and Herr Shultz. The end left you with that uncomfortable feeling when you feel like you should maybe examine your own actions to ensure that you aren‘t making the same mistakes as the characters did.
This play was worth producing because it did send a profound human message; I just didn’t like this production of it. Arena Stage probably produced this because the Broadway production garnered such fame and so many trophies that they thought it would be a hit here too. I wouldn’t recommend this production to anyone, but maybe a different one.
Cabaret
Joe Masteroff
Joe Masteroff
As seen at the Arena Stage (Fichandler Stage) on October 28, 2006; 2PM.
Set in 1930’s Berlin, just as Hitler and his Nazis rose to power in Germany, Cabaret presents aspiring American author Clifford Bradshaw who has arrived in Berlin to work on his new book as his inspiration has run dry. While on the train from Paris Cliff runs into political smuggler Ernst Ludwig who, because of Cliff’s help, offers Cliff smuggling jobs and recommends Cliff to a local boardinghouse run by the widow Fräulein Schneider and the resident night club called the Kit Kat Klub. While visiting the club, Cliff meets the beautiful club songstress Sally Bowles. That next day Sally moves in with Cliff. Months later they realize Sally’s pregnant and Cliff asks Sally to marry him and go back to America in order to avoid the war he sees coming to Germany. Sally must decide whether to leave with Cliff or stay to perform in the Kit Kat Klub for the rest of her life. As a side plot, Fräulein Schneider falls for the local Jewish fruit seller Herr Schultz and is affianced to him, but when the Nazi’s gain power she must decide whether to go through with the marriage or not.
The exposition, once they got around to it, was clear in establishing the setting. After maybe five to ten minutes of half naked people frolicking on stage you see the main character Cliff in the train car and he is introduced. Because of the effusive use of accents you understand you’re in Germany even before they actually say, “Welcome to Berlin.” They repeat it several times in case you didn’t catch it in the opening song, which I didn’t. It was a little confusing at first trying to understand who exactly the main character would be, because the Cabaret singers start the play off and you might get the impression that the action will take place in the Kit Kat Klub, which is wrong. But by scene two you see who your main character is.
The story was engaging when you looked back on it. The play took a really round-about approach to the plot so that you don’t really get what that plot is until the first act is almost done. The songs were a little expected and were to long. You immediately knew where they’d put a song and some of them should have been cut in half; instead of repeating the chorus five times, twice would suffice. There was too much of an attempt to shock and awe you with the half-naked humping that they left the plot underdeveloped. I felt that the Fräulein Schneider sub-plot could have been a co-plot instead and allowed more time on stage. It was hard to get exactly what the club stood for until after the play ended and you where trying to analyze what you saw. The story had great potential but they left the audience hanging without any real feeling of resolution.
The acting was good. The two main characters, Sally and Cliff, where very convincing as young lovers for the short time we saw them as such. I felt like Sally was better than Cliff. Especially when you se her trying to convince Cliff to let her move in and she’s already unpacking in his room. She wanders the room nervously, straightening and re-straightening the things she lays out. That was really convincing. I especially liked the actor who played Herr Shultz, the fruit seller. He seemed very believable as a hesitant suitor of the Fräulein. He was appropriately fidgety while asking her to marry him and his utter dejection when Fräulein Schneider canceled the engagement was really touching. You really felt for the guy then and later when you see him lined up by the Nazi’s to go to the concentration camps.
The set and props were nearly non-existent. This really hurt the production as I felt this was a play that needed more set work. Because the stage is in the round they tried to indicate scene changes by raising and lowering specific parts of the stage floor; this didn’t work very well. It was really hard to know where exactly the action was taking place unless it was referenced directly in the dialogue or half-naked girls and boys were running about, which indicated that you were in the Kit Kat Klub. The tables and their placement were the same for each scene, but sometimes the table items changed according to scene setting. That helped establish setting and scene change somewhat. The attempt to make the piano Cliff’s bed was a little much. I really felt like the play needed more props and scenery. That might have cleared up the plot a little and made the story easier to follow.
The lighting was very well done. They darkened when the characters where in the Kit Kat Klub, and lightened some in the boardinghouse. I especially liked the scene in the Kit Kat Klub where the club workers took the cloths off the tables to reveal reflective tops and whirled the tables around to create a disco ball affect with the lights. Though, occasionally the lights would nearly blind me when they ran across my face. The spot lights where used effectively, such as in the beginning when the Kit Kat Klub turns into the train car. They dimmed the lights on the main part of the stage and put a spot light on the smaller area where the train car was meant to be.
The costumes where very well done. The club workers were all dressed in rich, colorful ensembles that leant to their general function as carefree party animals. The personification of the world’s currencies’ costumes where especially rich. Sally’s overly expensive dresses and the fur coat really emphasized her gold-digger qualities. The Fräulein and Herr Shultz’ costumes where appropriately old fashioned and more conservative to indicate their age. The only problem was that the first few characters had on normal suits or lingerie, both of which transcend time so at first I wasn’t sure of the time period. It wasn’t until they started throwing out old phrases and we met Fräulein Schneider that I realized the time period.
I felt that this play should have been done on a stage that allowed for more scenery. But they did make the best of the stage space they had with a liberal use of the trap doors to enter the stage. I liked how they used the trap door in the center to hand in the umbrella props for the club workers. Also placing the doors to each boarder’s room at the different stage entrances was nice.
The play seemed to be trying to highlight man’s tendency to “burry his head in the sand” when faced with conflict. The cabaret was that imaginary world to which we escape our problems and while that’s alright sometimes, but the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality can become detrimental because the problem is still there and nothing has changed when you come back from that imaginary world. All of these people were living in a dream, when the horrifying reality of the Nazi uprising was happening under their noses. Sally with her job at the club, Cliff with his dreams of a long-term relationship with Sally, the Fräulein with her decision to break off the engagement with Herr Schultz and run her boardinghouse the same as always, and Herr Schultz in his belief that the Nazi’s would still consider him a German even though he was a Jew. And it was the ending scene of the Nazi’s invading the club and the boardinghouse, taking Herr Shultz to the concentration camps, and roughing up Cliff that completely destroyed the illusion that each character was living in. Ignoring something won’t make it go away. You have to face your problems and fix them in order to leave them behind and move on with your life.
The conclusion was unsatisfying in that I felt like the plot could have been explored more, especially the Fräulein and Herr Schultz plotline. However, it did end where I thought it should have. It ended with either people deciding to continue living in that dream world, Fräulein Schneider and Sally, or people coming face to face with the consequences of ignoring their problems for too long, Cliff and Herr Shultz. The end left you with that uncomfortable feeling when you feel like you should maybe examine your own actions to ensure that you aren‘t making the same mistakes as the characters did.
This play was worth producing because it did send a profound human message; I just didn’t like this production of it. Arena Stage probably produced this because the Broadway production garnered such fame and so many trophies that they thought it would be a hit here too. I wouldn’t recommend this production to anyone, but maybe a different one.
