Review: Cabaret
Richard Douglas: Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, 09-02-24Even the orchestra is beautiful!
Let me start by saying, Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club was exceptional and if you get the opportunity, see it. I approached the performance eagerly as someone who loved both the 1972 film and Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin, but one who had never seen Cabaret on the stage, and it surpassed my expectations. Jake Shears is wickedly wild and grotesque as the emcee. His larger-than-life performance flips perfectly between debauchery, devilishness and depravity. He is a skilled, and seemingly inexhaustible performer whose presence fills the room. [qt-button text="LISTEN LIVE" link="https://matineeradio.com/listen-live/" target="_blank" size="qt-btn-m" style="qt-btn-primary" alignment="aligncenter"] Taite-Elliot Drew’s Clifford Bradshaw is — on the surface at least — the all-American boy who sees through the nonsense and gleans exactly what is unfolding around him in Germany. Drew delivers a solid performance which serves as a stabilising force amidst the madness surrounding his character. For me though, it was Rebecca Lucy Taylor who stole the show with her complicated and heartbreaking Sally Bowles. Her performance had the audience in awe, and often on the verge of tears. Utterly compelling and entirely believable, even her character’s darkest moments shine out. I must also mention Beverley Klein’s excellent performance as Fraulein Schneider embodying for me the tragedy of the everyday person in the looming future of Nazi Germany. If only she didn’t have to return the crystal fruit bowl… The staging and direction is extraordinary, the cast and company is phenomenal, even the orchestra is beautiful.
