“Cabaret,” a musical by Joe Masteroff with lyrics by Fred Ebb and music by John Kander, is based on the play “I am a Camera” (1951) by John Van Druten. This play, in turn, is based on the novel “The Berlin Stories” by Christopher Isherwood. The original Broadway production, produced and directed by Harold Prince, first opened on November 20, 1966. This hit musical was adapted into a film titled, “Cabaret” directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse in 1972. The film “Cabaret,” though based on the musical by the same name, is different from the musical in many aspects.
First, the female lead, Sally Bowles, is American in the film while the same character is a British national in the musical. Besides, the main male character, Cliff Bradshaw, an American in the musical, has been renamed Brian Roberts who hails from England. Yet another character named Maximilian Von Heune in the film has been removed from the musical. In addition, the love story of Herr Schultz and Fraulein Schneider in the musical has been omitted in the film version. Another major difference is the addition of the love story of Fritz Wendel, a Jew pretending to be a Protestant, and Natalia Landauer, a wealthy Jew heiress, as a subplot in the movie. Moreover, several songs in the musical have been substituted by new songs composed by Kander and Ebb.
The plot of the film version deviates from that of the musical. The movie focuses on the love story of Sally Bowles, a cabaret singer of Kit Kat Klub, and Brian Roberts, a British writer. The timeframe is set in 1931 Berlin when the Nazi regime has been assuming control over the whole country through their planned agenda. After arriving in Berlin, Brian moves into a boarding house where Sally lives. He takes up a job of giving English lessons as a means of livelihood.
At first, when Sally tries to seduce him, he makes it clear that he is not interested in women. However, they fall in love later after Sally undergoes an emotional breakdown when she fails to meet her father and she feels that her father does not care for her.
One day, they meet a guy named Maximilian Von Heune, who is very rich. Sally becomes enticed by his wealth and is seduced by him. Max then disappears all of sudden, leaving behind some money for the couple. Sally discovers that she is pregnant, but she has no idea whose baby it is. Brian proposes to her, and at first, Sally accepts it. However, subsequently, Sally realizes that she is never going to be happy with him and the baby, and resorts to abortion. Brian leaves Germany and heads for England while Sally continues to live in Berlin.
Despite the story’s focus being on the above couple, the most interesting character in Cabaret is the Emcee of Kit Kat Klub. He performs songs that comment on every single situation that happens in the real world outside the cabaret. It appears that he knows everything even if he is visible in the cabaret scenes only. He has ready information about what is going on, what is happening outside, and even how people feel about one another.
In Kantor’s article “Harold Prince and Cabaret,” he quotes Joel Grey, who plays the Emcee of Kit Kat Klub; “Hitler presented himself as “There’ll be food on every table, so come with me.” I always thought my character was very similar in terms of what I offered the audience.” Hitler could read people’s minds, and that is the reason he achieved success in implementing the Nazi agenda which tempted Germans at that time. That is what exactly Emcee also does in the cabaret; he knows everything that happens outside and shows what the audiences want to see in the cabaret.
Further, the Emcee does not tell a story, but he comments on it. Or he shows what is happening now in a funny way, as if presenting a satire. For example, at the beginning of the film, there is a scene where the club manager kicks out a Nazi officer from Kit Kat Klub. Later, the manager gets beaten by some Nazi thugs. This scene overlaps with the cabaret scene in which the Emcee performs a show pretending to beat dancers who wear mud yellow colored clothes, which look very similar to the Nazi uniform. In reality, when Nazis are beating a guy in the cabaret, they are being beaten by the Emcee. Thus, it transpires that Emcee wants to unveil the irony by evoking a sense of the scenes that the audience wants to see in the cabaret even though it is far from the reality that happens outside.
Bob Fosse, as the director and choreographer of the film version, does exemplary work, especially concerning the perfect choreography. It emulates the mood and the atmosphere in the cabaret that Fosse attempts to show. For example, at the beginning of the film, the Emcee says “Life is disappointing? Forget it! In here, life is beautiful! The girls are beautiful! Even the orchestra is beautiful!” and introduces the dancers and singers. The steps of the dancers are very awkward.
The movements do not reach anywhere near the synchronized aesthetic quality of the orchestra. It is further characterized by distorted body movements like turning over the shoulders back and moving only hips side to side with fixed upper body and dropped arms the dance sequences look awkward. It is not the dance that we usually expect to see in the cabaret.
These distorted movements allude to the fact that what the audience wants to see is not the same as the reality they face in the outside world. Precisely, the perception of the Nazi agenda by Germans is not the same as the reality of Nazism that Hitler has attempted. People just see what they want to see. The role of the Emcee is to show the audience what they want to see. So, it elicits a sense of distortion because it is not the reality.