"I Don't Care Much" from CABARET

I'm auditioning for the Emcee CABARET and for one of my audition pieces I'm considering "I Don't Care Much." This will be the 1998 version as opposed to the track attached to the 1966 OBCR. I was looking for some input regarding the analysis of this piece, as I am interested in conducting an in depth a critical analysis of the show as well as hopefully participating.

Through my analysis of the piece (which has not yet been very in-depth) I concluded that this is piece an agent of criticizing society (both of the text and currently). The character "does not care" because he is raised in a culture that does not allow feeling which, in turn promotes blindness to the world around them. Like in The Good Person if Setzuan (sp), the character comes to the realization that, in order to survive in their culture, feeling can not take precedence over worldly necessities. Feeling, in fact, must become fully suppressed. Thus the lower class culture reacts as if it were numb and turns the other way as the Nazis take control of the country through disgusting means. As a result of their blindness they cannot even see what is to become of their own future (extermination by the party). In this specific scenario the feelings to which the character is becoming numb take place in relationships. Being a prostitute, sex has become a means of money, not expression, and relationships have become unmanageable because it does not allow for a means of living. In current culture, we are all too aware of the numbness that has become integrated into our lives. How many young men make masturbation routine? Who thinks twice about where the meat they are eating came from? What, besides the money out of our pockets, is the full price for oil? How did we acquire the land we walk upon?

Hopefully I'll receive some feedback and on this then I'll address the acting choices I have made in performing this piece as a result of this analysis and its feedback.

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What's the Emcee Cabaret? And is there a Sally Cabaret?

That's very in depth examination... but... um... there is such a thing as too much. I'm not sure this song is as intelluctual as you are attempting to make it. Sometimes, there is a lot to be said for just feeling things.

kmc

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Also, this song wasn't written for the Emecee at all. If I'm not mistaken it was written for a streetwalker... and it didn't make it into the original production. So. All the meaning you are applying is yours.

kmc

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"alienates his antics from the auidience"
What does that mean?

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KJ.. I said I'm doing the 1998 version (in which the Emcee sang this song), not the pre- 1966production version. This is why we're discussing the Emcee in the first place.

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BSoB... I feel as if our interpretations are similar in the fact that it provides a stunning contrast with the message in "Cabaret," which is the song to follow.

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That's a totally interesting and valid read I guess... but to me... the coupla times I saw it... It seemed like he'd been victimized... like he'd just been beaten by Nazis or something... or he was so completely falling down drunk... but desperate drunk though... the sad kind... like at the end of a party. It was honestly the only moment where I had sympathy for the Emcee... it was like... he was saying I don't care... but he OBVIOUSLY did care... and was trying desperately to pretend like he didn't... and his foundation had cracked...
which is really the opposite of your view. I mean... at this point the Emcee has become a victim...of the Nazis? or himself? from what I can tell... I don't fear him... I pity him.

kmc

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I agree with it being about not caring, in terms of becoming numb -- whether it be forcing yourself to do so, or by what's being done to you by others, or with the situation you're stuck in.

I think it's really important not to forget that Emcee is the narrator here more than he is a key character as a player in the story. Everything he does is not so much what "happens" but what is said as his own commentary on what he watches.

I also think it's important to think about how he's being played in your production -- sinister and evil, or vulnerable and more innocent than he seems? Whether you fear him, pity him, or hate him is basically up to the interpretation -- look at the differences between the original and the Mendes production. Much of it lies in whether he represents the Nazis or what is to be *destroyed* by the Nazis. Is he falling apart, analogous with his world, with his previously perfect decadent party? I guess that would dictate the level of sincerity that goes into the tone of the song, if that makes sense; some of it could potentially be given a sarcastic spin, I think. He is, no matter how vulnerable, still something of a jokester, though personally, I never saw I Don't Care Much in particular as a joke at all. He's falling apart.

I think in the revival, it worked being the Emcee's song because of the omniscent quality they gave him, and how "representative" he was of whatever commonalities there were in this society. He was without concrete identity.

Anyway, off of *that* tangent, I think Emcee is fairly self-aware -- someone said he's aware of how stripped-down he is, at this moment. I agree; he's displaying a lot of painful emotion, and this is the first time in the show we see that from him. He's not just some horny boy in a club, but much more than that. In the revival, at least, I think his visceral emotions were pretty evident in the physicality of the character at that point, and I think he was saying that the party *was* over -- he wasn't going to care about the party anymore, but he had to turn off and face the reality -- harsh and ugly and black and sad as it was.

... hopefully some of the ramblings are useful to you!

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Updated On: 4/4/06 at 12:20 AM

A tangeant, but in the 1998 version did the Emcee dress in drag for this song? I saw a production where the Emcee was dressed as a prostitute diring this piece.

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Well in the dover(i think) biography of Hal Prince that I own... they say it was written for Cabaret... I don't care much either way... my point being that it wasn't written in any specific context... so that any context you tried to put it in would just be fictional anyway. So. Really you have free reign.

And I'm not trying to get into a he said he said or whatever... but you said he alienated the auidience... and I don't think that that's what I Don't Care Much does at all in the Mendes production... it does the opposite. It attempts to make you forgive his former transgressions... or at the very least make you pity the fact that he is pretty much a lost cause. That isn't alienating at all.


kmc

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I agree with luvtheemcee... i really don't think you can blame him for throwing the brick... to me... he's playing... like he's playing a part... manipulating the story... that's why I think it's SO devastating at the end... cause he's above the story but he still can't escape victimization.

He wore like a too big glittery house dress with earings.

kmc

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Em - at the root of it, I don't think the Emcee is a real person, per se. I think he is a conglomerate of different people. He's sort of a spirit of the piece, but represents some group of people...

Sorry, let me clarify:

He alienates us from the "joke" he's been playing with the line, "She wouldn't look Jewish at all." It's the moment we step back and say, "Hold on! What's been going on!"

THEN he sings "I DON'T CARE MUCH" as almost a completely different creature...