Cabaret question (contains a spoiler)

[JBroadway]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 2:54pm

I'm writing a paper for school which includes a section on Cabaret, and I want to reference the end of the current revival, when the emcee is wearing the striped pajamas of the concentration camps. This revival is the only production of Cabaret that I've seen, so I don't know whether this was a direction choice, or whether the book calls for it. In other words, I don't know whether to credit Sam Mendes or Joe Masteroff. My guess is that it was Mendes' decision, but since this is for a paper I'd like to know for sure. Can anyone confirm that?

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 3:00pm

Yes, Sam Mendes.

[Fantod]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 3:04pm

Well, that's a difficult question to answer. The 1998 production uses a new book that includes the stage directions for the ending, as well as including many songs from the movie like the 1980's revival, though it was not included in the original production. I can't find my copy of the 1998 script, so I don't remember how in detail the ending is written, but I know that they do describe the pajama sequence.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 3:06pm

Right...Sam Mendes.

[rjm516]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 5:39pm

This revival is also the only version I have seen. So how did it end in the movie and in the original if not with the Emcee in the pajamas?

[Fantod]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 5:42pm

SuttonRoss, saying that it was Sam Mendes implies that it isn't in the stage directions, and directors aren't allowed to change a book of a musical without permission of the playwright.

In the original script, the beginning of the show is just mirrored, with the Emcee singing the goodbye lyrics and the whole Kit Kat Klub being harsh and angry.

[JBroadway]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 5:55pm

SuttonRoss was probably responding to the part where I said "I don't know whether to credit Sam Mendes or Joe Masteroff." Despite the fact that the pajama ending made it into the stage-directions of the new version of the show, it was in fact Sam Mendes who conceived it and not Joe Masteroff. Is that correct?

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 6:14pm

Yes, I was obviously answering your Joe or Sam question. Yes, Sam.

[Smaxie]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 6:16pm

The original production began with the audience facing itself in a mirror. It tilted up during 'Wilkommen'. It ended much as it began, with the mirror dropping down and the audience facing itself again. (Fosse uses this same approach in the movie, but you see some Nazi armbands mixed among the crowd in the final shot).

In a number of ways, it's a more sophisticated approach than the blunt version in the Mendes production. Cabaret is set in 1929/1930, as the National Socialist Party is first moving from a lunatic fringe group to gaining traction in the Reichstag. The show, for me at any rate, is about a civilized society's descent into a national insanity, as characters discover the Nazis among them, and Herr Schultz finds that even though he is German, he is seen as a Jew first, German second.

I think the ending in the Prince production, by having the audience face themselves, is a way of saying not much separates the group of us from Berlin in 1930. We've willingly gone along with the Emcee on the cabaret's hellish journey and looking in the mirror is a bit of facing the harsh reality of the morning after, and perhaps we enjoyed ourselves a little too much. I suppose in 1966, 21 years after the end of World War II, it was possible to end the show with a more diffuse and suggestive ending than going full on Holocaust, as in the Mendes revival. I've also been at performances of the Mendes production where audience members have laughed at the ending, as if it's just one more jape from the Emcee, or have no idea what the Emcee's striped uniform even represents, so I've often wondered if it is truly effective for general audiences.

[rjm516]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 6:24pm

I thought the new ending was extremely effective, and I gasped. But it's horrifying to think that people don't understand it so much that they much laugh. Yikes. The mirror approach sounds wonderful.

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 6:34pm

Yes, everyone was silent in the theater at the end, I think everyone understands that now. It's always really awkward when people laugh at inappropriate times.

[Alix]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 6:42pm

Definitely Sam. The same ending was in Mendes's first production, in London, in 1993. Joe Masteroff went to see Sam's production in London and loved it (and was actually the one who first brought it to Todd Haimes's attention, suggesting that Roundabout bring it to New York). But Joe was not involved with that production, so Sam was the one who conceived of the concentration camp ending.

[trpguyy]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 6:46pm

Stage directions aren't part of the script, and they're typically not even written by the playwright; rather, they're notes from the original production written by the production stage manager.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/14/14 at 8:27pm

trpguyy, stage directions are VERY MUCH a part of the script and more or less binding on the director.

You are confusing the author's stage directions with those added for Samuel French editions of a play or musical. The latter are frequently augmented with notes from the original production stage manager's notes, as you point out. (This is done for amateur directors who need the extra help.)

How can you tell the difference? Very few experienced playwrights will add a purely mechanical description such as "Crosses to couch DSC." That sort of note usually comes from the PSM's notes.

But Wilders' stage directions for OUR TOWN are absolutely binding on the director. If Wilder had wanted a naturalistic production of the play, he would have written one.

This has been tested in court (see injunction against the stock production of MAN OF LA MANCHA set in Nicaragua during the latter's guerrilla war) and may be confirmed with a telephone call to the Dramatist's Guild.

Updated On: 12/14/14 at 08:27 PM

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 12/15/14 at 11:46am

I telephoned the Dramatists Guild and they said Gaveston was a liar, liar, pants on fire.

[luvtheEmcee]

Posted: 12/15/14 at 1:05pm

In many cases, stage directions are published/printed largely for the benefit of the reader in the play's lifetime as a piece of on-the-page literature. They're taken from the original stage manager's notes, and are a record of what was done in the original production. Largely. They're not necessarily binding for subsequent directors, though of course there are exceptions.

That said, I've seen productions of the new script of Cabaret that stage the ending completely differently than Mendes did. I've seen images that evoke the gas chamber much more, and stuff that stays more in the club, too.

One of my favorite things about seeing different productions of Cabaret is to find out how each director is going to do the ending.

Updated On: 12/15/14 at 01:05 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/15/14 at 6:04pm

Once again...

The stage directions printed in editions made for the public tend to be the author's stage directions. They may be included so the reader can envision the production, but they are there in the first place to help the director envision the production.

It's only the editions published by rights-rental organizations (primarily Samuel French) that include detailed notes from the stage manager.

I'm sure there are exceptions, such as authors who don't bother with stage directions at all and authors who are control freaks and attempt to ham-string the director with copious directions. But the nonsense taught in directing classes ("Don't bother reading the stage directions") is just one more reason we end up with lousy interpretations of plays. The movement in academia of telling young directors they are "visual artists" instead of interpreters of play scripts is but a particularly egregious academic trend.

I haven't read CABARET since the original published edition, so I can't say what they did with editions published after the Sam Mendes' production.

Updated On: 12/15/14 at 06:04 PM

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/15/14 at 6:10pm

Those of you who are arguing that directors should ignore stage directions should think about the consequences of your view.

Do you really want playwrights to indicate every action in the dialogue to make sure it happens on stage? "And now I am stabbing Hamlet! 'Od's bodkins, he slayed me first!" You will end up with scripts written entirely for the blind!

Updated On: 12/15/14 at 06:10 PM

[ChairinMain]

Posted: 12/15/14 at 7:01pm

I grew up close to Samuel French's bookstore in Los Angeles and would go there after school like some kinds would go to the mall. I still have a stack of random children's musicals (mostly british pantos, and some of them INCREDIBLY racist) sitting on a shelf in my parent's house. The most extreme case of stage manager notes being included in one of their scripts that I can think of is probably THE WIZ, which not only includes details scenic designs and blocking, but also ever single move of the original broadway choreography.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/15/14 at 7:56pm

And those overly detailed instructions are not binding on anyone, ChairinMain. No more than the set designer is bound by the model plots printed in SF scripts.

Personally I think they do everyone a disservice: (i) they make play scripts nearly impossible to read; and (ii) they teach young actors (and directors) that acting is a matter of "go here, then there, turn and say your line".

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 12/16/14 at 8:40am

^ Well, in the case of The Wiz, it probably really helps, actually, not the world's strongest material ever brought to the stage, but otherwise, I agree.

[newintown]

Posted: 12/16/14 at 9:03am

I thoroughly enjoyed Mendes' Cabaret the first time I saw it (at the Miller with Richardson, whose performance has never been equaled, for me); less so in subsequent visits. It's far from subtle, and the original mirror concept strikes me as more provocative.

If the stability of our lives (and the lives of our families) were threatened, I have no doubt that 99% of our population would ultimately collaborate with an immoral regime rather than resist. And that's what Prince's staging tells the audience. And it's an idea with which most people just can't cope. That's what makes it more audacious than Mendes' flashier ending, which is about the MC, rather than mankind.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 12/16/14 at 10:38am

If the stability of our lives (and the lives of our families) were threatened, I have no doubt that 99% of our population would ultimately collaborate with an immoral regime rather than resist. And that's what Prince's staging tells the audience. And it's an idea with which most people just can't cope. That's what makes it more audacious than Mendes' flashier ending, which is about the MC, rather than mankind.

True, true and TRUE! Right on the money! I agree.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 12/16/14 at 10:08pm

Sadly yes. I'd like to think I would be different, but if my children or grandchildren were threatened, I'd fold like a card table!

[JBroadway]

Posted: 12/16/14 at 10:14pm