#welcome to cabaret

[redlips-blooddrops-deux]

"Come to Thorn Rose we got a wonderful dance night ~"

[ms-dlish]

[droughtofapathy]

2023-2024 Broadway Season Ranked

I saw every new show that opened on Broadway in the 2023-2024 season. Once more, perfectly normal and not at all cost-prohibitive. Compared to seasons' past, this one was plentiful in new musicals and utterly bereft of quality. Usually I have at least four shows that rewire my entire circuitry, but not this time.

Do you have strong opinions on any of these new shows? Are you filled with unstoppable rage at this list? Do you agree wholeheartedly? Discuss.

[charliesarchivee]

This is where i blog from btw

[eddie-redmayne-italian-blog]

Tony Award Nomineeee!!!

Eddie Redmayne is a genius!!!

Source (Katarzyna_luszczyk) on IG

[yellow-as-an-ear-of-corn]

It's been two weeks since I got home and I'm still incredibly in my feelings about the Posthuman Cabaret (more thoughts below, photos by Nora Bellamy and Lauren Jennings).

For a week I got to live the very best version of my life; working and laughing with some of the kindest, warmest, most talented people I've ever had the privilege to call my friends. Returning to the stage to be a part of something much bigger than myself. Meeting people who told me they were so affected by some songs I sang in my apartment a few years ago that they flew all the way out to hear me sing them in person. It was a week of doing the things I love with people I love, and it was beautiful.

Now, I'm home. My new friends are all far away, as are most of my old ones, and I've never been particularly adept at keeping in contact across distances. I'm chipping away at my novel, haphazardly plunking away at joanna newsom songs on the piano, all to keep myself sane through dealing with the Plymouth public in my retail job. I'm surviving. But for that one week, my lord, I was living.

I missed theater. I missed singing. I missed performing. But really I missed working together with a community of people I connected with to build art together. That's what's truly special to me. It's hard to not know when that feeling will arrive again.

But it will someday, and when it does, it'll be magical.

[dujourslavemix]

i have so many cabaret posts in the queue, i'm going thru it rn 😔

[eddieredmayneargentinablog]

Amazing illustrated "Welcome Card" for Cabaret made by Artist Kat Kon!

Take a look at all her wonderful illustrations on her Instagram account and follow her (Link below 👇🏻)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kat Kon💋⚡️🎶🎨🎬 (@kat.kon)

[theywontletmebeprincipal]

hi

[inga-don-studio]

Welp one step closer to seriously considering getting into burlesque & drag as a hobby

[redlips-blooddrops-deux]

“What… What are the monkeys for?”

"Easy to explain my dear redhead patron! These little guys are very handy when it comes to searching our guests for any hidden weapons we dont want in this fine establishment. I hope you are not carrying anything dangerous~"

[minionwater]

the rare emcee slip dress I swear there’s only like one bit of footage of this thing

[droughtofapathy]

"Welcome to the Theatre": Diary of a Broadway Baby

Cabaret

April 24, 2024 | Broadway | August Wilson Theatre | Evening | Musical | Original | 2H 45M + 1H preshow

I am kicking my feet and twirling my hair as I lovingly, tenderly, reverently carve Bebe Neuwirth's name into the Tony personally.

Bebe Neuwirth Verdict: My Soul Transcended Space and Time

A Note on Ratings

Oh. The rest of the show. Right.

Cabaret is one of the greatest pieces of musical theatre to exist. I have seen four productions of this show on multiple "levels" of production (Broadway, community, regional, etc.) The show being what it is, it seems inconceivable to ever stage a poor production of a show with such rich material. Even if the talent pool came from a small town, the music, the lyrics, the story would be so strong, so moving, so timeless, that nothing coupled possibly ruin it.

I was wrong.

The fifth Broadway revival of this beloved Kander and Ebb musical is a stagnant spectacle whose price tag seems to actively encourage its potential audience to pick up their knitting, their book, and their broom, because the holiday of the Kit Kat Club is only meant for the rich denizens of society. Helmed by a director with no prior experience in musical theatre, the show fundamentally mistrusts its audience's intelligence and the once-masterful subtext is now about as subtle as a brick through a fruit shop window.

It's a bad sign when the security staffer at the entrance line tells you the design is excellent, the visuals are excellent, "the show is...good," with pointed hesitation and eyebrow raising. What would we do without New York honesty?

Under this new "immersive" direction, patrons enter through a seedy back alley door (with too many steps, which granted, they did warn me about before and I should have listened) and into a massive three-story club design with pre-show entertainment and drinks galore. With limited seating and rather underwhelming acts, my disabled ass went to my seat in the theatre instead where the whole auditorium has been gutted and renovated to create a theatre-in-the-round setup that ultimately does not suit the staging. Instead, actors play primarily to the "east" side, leaving the "west" to see a lot of backs throughout.

As characters, the Emcee and Sally are deranged, clownish, and utterly devoid of layers and complexity. They are exactly what their outlandish costumes, garish makeup, and overwrought performances say they are: too much. Eddie Redmayne is going for some kind of demonic muppet clown portrayal. This interpretation fails to do what the character is meant to do. Seduce, entice, enchant, all of which can be done in a morbid or even unsettling way, but Redmayne only ever irritates and repels. Similarly, Sally is an easy character to misunderstand. She's seemingly vapid, ignorant, and concerned with nothing more than having a good time. She's a character on the verge, but only ever on the verge. Too often I have seen performers act out the titular song as a full-blown breakdown. It is not. It is a triumph. It is a discordant celebration as the rest of the show falls into despair. In directing all of Sally's numbers to be as hysterical, unhinged, and off-putting as they are, it's clear the director, the producers, and to an extent, the actress who went along with it, do not understand this character, this story, this world. Less is more. Trust the material. Trust the audience.

Cabaret is a racy show with plenty of lewd and lascivious content. But this production takes the graphic nature to an extreme that ultimately misses the mark. Instead of a seductive coaxing, or even a morbid eroticism, we're granted such overt choreography (a man jerks off a giant black phallus into a woman's mouth, a woman mimes raining her tit milk all over a man's face, a woman graphically masturbates to Mein Kampf) that it becomes a juvenile display. Like children who make sexual jokes to be edgy, but only ever sound immature. It's off-putting, it's annoying, it's dull. There are multiple rewrites to the "Willkommen" introduction schtick, and the new lines are such a downgrade.

There are moments of relief amidst the spectacle that somehow still lacks spectacle. Bebe Neuwirth is a wonder of wonders, and her chemistry with Steven Skybell as Herr Schultz is a miracle of miracles. They are the saving grace of this monstrosity. Age, experience, and deep connection to the writers and the show give their performances a joyous, heartbreaking, beautiful tone. They are real, they are grounded, and they will shatter your heart. These scenes are the only places the director shows she's capable, perhaps because she has only ever done dramatic straight plays. The decision to stage "Married" as a trio with Kost spot-lit and singing in tandem was simple and brilliant and poignant. The way this show is meant to be. "What Would You Do?" is staged perhaps a little oddly, given the director's inability to remember she's doing an in-the-round show, but Bebe's rendition is the best I've ever experienced. I have heard this song sung beautiful by stronger singers, many who still grasp the acting well, but none hold a candle to her. This is a woman who has torn out her own beating heart from her chest as she chooses safety and self-preservation, even if it breaks her. This is a woman who is old and tired and not brave. Who has been given this one moment of happiness in her life and she has no choice but to saw it off like a gangrened limb before it poisons her entire body. Schultz and Schneider are the heart of this show. They deserve better.

It's been said by others, but the issues with this production seems to stem from its creative team's fundamental misunderstanding of Jewish culture. The show was written by three Jewish men who understood what was at stake. They had all lived through WWII. This is a production with a distinctly English tone, directed by gentiles, for gentiles. Broadway and New York, more familiar with Judaism than perhaps the West End, clearly received this revival differently.

Final Verdict: A Long Slog to Curtains

A Note on Ratings

[petrarocks]

uhh fuck it, for days where i can't decide what to post, i'll just do a random song recommendation

Song Name: Welcome to Lady Hell

Album: The Raven Locks Act 3

Artist: Dirt Poor Robins

Genre: Steampunk/Dark Cabaret

My Favourite Lyrics: "We theorised that the greatest form of torture / Was to keep her here and endlessly ignore her / Took it to market and we did obtain / Loneliness is our darkest brand of pain."

Notes: I love this song so much, and singing it gives me so much gender euphoria (: In uni, I'm planning on performing it for my Singing 2 final (as well as planning on upstaging everyone by showing up in full fem cabaret demon costume, i'll update you on how that goes lol)

[thefreaklovesmusic]

Skittish - Welcome to the Circus

[nyxluxe]

Oh did anyone miss me?