Cabaret Finale

How have you seen the finale done?

Ours was an especially scary one. The lights were set so you couldn't see the Emcee's clothes. We had the characters say lines they had said before, like in the '66 production. Then they lined up in front of the Emcee.

After Sally sang her first 'Life is a Cabaret, old chum', the Emcee took her hand and led her to the front of the line.
He said 'Auf weidersehen. A Bientot.'

Then the lights came on him and he was dressed in Nazi clothes. At the drumroll, he used his cane like a rifle and gunned everyone down.

I've seen the show 7 times now, in 5 different productions. Most of them have taken the ending where the entire cast (or just the emcee) is in a concentration camp and is (for lack of a better word) gassed on the final beat of the show. This is by far the most powerful version I've seen (especially when you have a really good friend playing the emcee). The one production I saw that I didn't like the finale for was played with the entire cast in white power costumes (that were really cheesy and didn't fit the rest of the show). It didn't pack the same kind of power as the emcee in concentration camp garb being "killed."

At Kalliope they had the characters come out of doors and say their lines. But they overlapped, so you couldn't tell what they were saying. They grew more and more desperate as the music became discordant.

Hans, an evil mime (though he did laugh after Tomorrow Belongs to Me) in the production, painted a red swastika on a black wall. The paint was thin and dripped like blood. The Emcee was sitting on a platform in the middle of the stage, just staring.

At the cymbal clash, Nazi propaganda fell from the sky. I collected a poster and it is now in my dresser drawer as a reminder. It says 'Bread and work through the NSDP.'

Updated On: 9/24/06 at 07:59 PM

This is another show that I think is awful and shouldn't be on Broadway (I am refering to my post on the 5th Preview of A Chorus Line thread)

Check your PM's

I designed a regional production a few years ago where the director was *very* attached to the Studio 54 revival, and it took a lot of tap-dancing to get him away from it and on his own track. We did have the wall with three doors (I gave him that much), but everything else was this layered collage of 30s German artwork, some painted on the wall, some painted on hanging scrims, all of which gave the stage a vaguely circus-like atmosphere. The emcee's costume had elements of a ringmaster mixed with the traditional tux, but with a seedy overlay to it all by some odd detailing. (Our costumes, BTW, were more along the lines of the original production than the revival, but much seedier and lower-class -- we took the approach that this was the German equivalent of a blue-collar honky-tonk)

When it came time for the end, we did the trick of having the orchestra pre-recorded so they could make an invisible exit before the emcee's final speech, but we went one better: our acting company was now on the upper level, in virtual down light. No costume changes, just this very strange greyish light. Then, as the wall itself began to rise, we had all this strong side lighting at deck level that trapped the emcee while two spotlight operators let their lights wander all over the stage.

By now, the wall had cleared the scaffolding, and the company, like the orchestra was gone. Just the emcee, trapped in his lights. It was very, very cool. Not a single swastika on stage, but none was needed.

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How did the '87 revival end? That's the only one I don't know about.

Updated On: 9/24/06 at 09:21 AM

The 87 revival ended exactly like the original. It was the Harold Prince staging.

How does the London revival end? The one that just started?

Each of the principals appears in a spotlight and repeats one opf their lines from the play. The Emcee appears in a spotlight - in the same tuxedop he has worn the whole show, and says "Auf wiedersehn... a bien tot...", there is a drum roll and a cymbal crash, and the light go out.

Thanks Jon,

That's the way my college did it and it was quite powerful.

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Because they were pretty much screwed.

I'm really curious about how the new London production is going to handle the end. It opens tonight, I think.

Why do all the Cabaret finales have to basically say, "Yeah, we're pretty much screwed"?

A good portion of the plot is allegory for the downfall; you're watching a representation of everything that would be destroyed, which is far from a happy ending. It's showing you what would happen as a result.

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