Cabaret Finale — Page 2

I saw the new London version last week.In my opinion it still needs a hell of a lot of work. In the ending all the chorus members and the emcee are totally nude and huddle outside the gas chambers with fake ash dropping onto the stage. As the curtain falls down a huge yellow swostika is beamed onto the stage.

Quite effective, but by that time i had had enough. It opens officially tonight so it will be interesting to see what the London critics think.

i'd hold that thought until you see the rest of the show. Its directed by Rufus Thomas who bought his amazing version of Festen to Broadway recently. He also directed another play over here called Marketboy at the National Theatre which is one of the best plays i've ever seen.

His version of Cabaret left me cold. The acting and singing left alot to be desired

They're huddling outside the chambers? I guess that's one way to keep warm.

That sounds really shocking.

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There's a local theater group putting on Carabet and I saw it for the second time last night. There's a twofold reason for that: I really liked it and wanted to see it again, and I'm still trying to understand some of the intricacies.

Their finale goes like this: After Cliff and the Emcee have their scene, the Emcee goes upstage and opens a door. All the principals come out (Herr Shultz has a star on his coat). They take their marks and the Emcee does his "Here life is beautiful" bit and the male chorus boys, dressed as Nazis, move the back wall away to reveal a blank scrim with a rickety staircase.

The female chorus, wearing overcoats and clearly meant to be Jews, come out and join the rest of the cast. One of the Nazi men takes the Emcee's coat to reveal that he's wearing a camp uniform, with an inverted triangle pinned to his shirt. He turns to the audience and does the "Auf wiedersehn" bit. After "au bientot" the lights begin to go down, showing the cast only in silhouette. As it gets darker, gas can be seen blanketing the stage and the Emcee whispers "Goodbye." What do you think of that?

The London ending sounds like it's trying to bludgeon the audience with its point, which always makes me mad. It shows a lack of trust from the director: They don't believe you'll get it on your own and have to beat you senseless with the message.

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It sounds a little "much." Like I said, I hate it when a play tries to hammer the point home so there's no way you can intrepret except for one. I lose respect for directors who have to resort to that tactic.

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Amen Rose_MacShane.

Audience members aren't given enough credit. They know what's happening.

It really does.

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Here are two of the ending I saw that stood out the most.

1) The Emcee turns around and shoots all the cast memebers and then shoots himself, the show blacks out with them all laying on the floor dead.

2) The Emcee resembles a broken puppet being controlled and then finally collapses.


How did the recent revival end?

Can I just say, that I did a presentation the other day on Cabaret in my writing class and at the end I told about all the different endings different productions have done. Yeah. My professor was quite impressed.

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Shooting or beating anyone to death at the end of this show would come under the heading of 'Heavy Handed'.

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COOOOLkid- I'm guessing that the emcee in those productions is supposed to represent Hitler, or the Nazi regime in general.

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