What makes Fraulein Kost so significant in 'Cabaret'?

[Musicaldudepeter]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 5:55pm

Peg Murray was the original Kost in 'Cabaret' on Broadway and won the Tony for Featured Actress for her performance. It's not a gigantic role in the show, but it's obviously a significant enough one, certainly her performance must have been superb - anyone share any memories - or does anyone have any other thoughts on this character and her role in the show? What makes a good Fraulein Kost?

[HistoryBoy2]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 6:05pm

The role is a great opportunity for comedy, fire, determination and scary fervour.

Her scenes with the sailors require excellent timing, those with Fraulein Schneider need to have anger and a will to survive (much like Schneider herself) and she sings the show's arguably most chilling number at the end of Act One with near religious zeal.

There's a lot you can do with Kost, and she can very easily steal every scene she's in.

[bobs3]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 6:06pm

The character is a metaphor for the economic problems facing Germany in 1930s. The country was bankrupt with rampant inflation and high unemployment. Kost is in theory a comedic character but she is also a tragic character who has no choice but to sell her body if she is going to survive. She also has one of the best and most frightening songs in the show "Tomorrow Belongs to Me."

Updated On: 5/15/12 at 06:06 PM

[Musicaldudepeter]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 6:08pm

This is great guys thanks!

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 6:18pm

She's also one of the more faithful adaptations of a character from Iseherwood's Berlin Stories.

[Matt2]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 7:00pm

It also helps whoever is playing the part to get recognition among the awards groups if Sally and Fräulein Schneider are placed in the leading category- a la the 1966 cast.
Wait, Haworth wasn't even nominated for Sally- something I've always found odd. How can you NOT get nominated playing Sally Bowles?

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 7:11pm

Haworth got quite bad reviews. One of the great moments of the last revival was Michelle Pawk's moment with Herr Schultz. Schultz, having misplaced some coins, tells Kost he's looking for x number of groschen. Kost answers him that she's looking for X number of marks as she goes off into the night.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 7:24pm

Haworth really alienated critics and audiences, accordning to that largely uninformative, recent book about the making of Cabaret. Apparently her performances varied wildly from (*again apparently) note perfect, to distracted and lazy, night after night).

[Matt2]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 7:41pm

Anyone think Hal should have given in and let Minnelli originate the part? Or was he right in saying that she wasn't the right fit for Sally in his version of Cabaret? I know Flora wasn't a big success, but she did win the Tony (and some considerable critical praise) that year.

[E.Davis]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 8:33pm

Also in the 1998 version she is a Kit Kat Girl and sings the German section of "Married".

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 8:44pm

I'm not sure myself. Jill fits Isherwood's Sally Bowles much better, and I think Liza may have weighted the play too far towards Sally (although later versions of the play do this more anyway giving her Maybe This Time, etc).

[GlindatheGood22]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 8:50pm

I don't think Liza should have played Sally on Broadway. The Sally of the movie is a completely different animal than the one on stage. I actually really hate the movie, since it bears little to no resemblance to the stage show.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 8:54pm

But it's a great movie. Maybe you don't think so, I just take them as two completely different works both based in part on similar (and different) parts of Isherwood's stories.

[Playbilly]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 9:47pm

Jealous of you folks. I hope to see a top notch stage version of Cabaret some day. Saw the tour in LA with Teri Hatcher. Notsogood, unfortunately. (Teri's understudy was on for my performance. Ms. H, it turns out was busy trying to get the Desperate Housewives gig.).

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 9:51pm

I don't totally love the Mendes/Marshall production as much as others, though there is a lot to admire (I've, ahem, "seen" a great video of the Hal Prince 80s revival which largely recreated the original, and I think his production gets unfairly called out for being old fashioned by many fans of the Mendes now), but I did see the tour in Vancouver with Kate Shindle. I don't think she had done much Broadway at that point (would have been around 1999 I think?) and all I knew about her was she was a Miss America, so was expecting the worst, but she was (as Liza would say) "Terrific!"

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 5/15/12 at 10:00pm

The Mendes/Marshall production on Broadway with the original cast was the single best theatrical experience I've ever had. It was anchored by the perfect performance of Natasha Richardson and put over the top by the rest of the cast, including a shockingly effective Michelle Pawk. She was beat down, funny and, ultimately, terrifying as Kost. Her belting out Tomorrow Belongs to Me with Denis O'Hare is the second most chilling moment of theatre I've ever witnessed (the first happening later in the evening with the most extraordinary performance of the title song by Ms. Richardson).

There was nothing surprising about the fact that five years later, both Pawk and O'Hare won Tony Awards.

[goldenboy]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 12:45am

The significance of Fraulein Kost is that she puts out.

[newintown]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 8:58am

Kost also transforms from a figure of derision to one that demands respect, due to joining the Nazi bandwagon. It's something of a metaphor for the way Naziism gave power to the morally bankrupt over the virtuous.

[AC126748]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 9:29am

(Teri's understudy was on for my performance. Ms. H, it turns out was busy trying to get the Desperate Housewives gig.).

What a ludicrous comment, considering that she toured in CABARET a full seven years before DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES aired.

Michele Pawk's performance of Kost in the recent revival was incredible and she should have been nominated. I saw several other actresses in the role (including Victoria Clark) and all were quite effective.

[Musicaldudepeter]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 9:30am

Wow I didn't know Victoria Clark played the role... That's a very interesting thought

[Playbilly]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 10:22am

Not sure your dates match, or if it was DH, but she ceratinly used the time in LA to do meetings and miss performances.

[PattiLover]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 10:35am

Has the end of Act 1 always been the Kost's reprise of Tomorrow Belongs To Me, all the way back to the original Prince production?

[AC126748]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 10:39am

If Teri was using the LA leg of the tour to audition and take meetings, it wasn't for DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES. She did the tour for seven months (February-September 1999). DH didn't premiere until 2004, and Hatcher has stated she was one of the last people cast.

[beaemma]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 12:35pm

According to my playbill from the original production, "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" is first sung by Emcee and the waiters and later done as a reprise by Kost, Ernst, and the guests at the engagement party at the finish of Act I. I differ strongly with those who say the original production was traditional or conventional. CABARET and COMPANY were the two shows that opened my eyes to how creative, innovative, and unconventional musical theatre could be.

[nealb1]

Posted: 5/16/12 at 3:37pm

Who told you that Teri H was out of the show to take meetings and audition?