Strong, but toned-down risque scenes in Concordia's 'Cabaret' skillfully staged

By MICHAEL RYDZYNSKI (November 14, 2002 - Irvine World News) Photo at right: Kit Kat Klub MC played by Michael Shackelford is flanked by Kit Kat Girls Frenchie (Kelsy Kendall, left) and Rosie (Sarah O'Connor) in scene from the Concordia University production of "Cabaret."

Legendary film showman Cecil B. DeMille, a devout Catholic, once remarked that one has to show the sin large enough on the screen for audiences to comprehend its terrible effects.

The producer-director of "The Ten Commandments," taken to task by critics and moral groups alike for making the golden calf appear humongous in that 1956 film, would have felt proud of Peter Senkbeil's decision to stage "Cabaret" as well as his handling of the PG-13 material contained therein.

Director Senkbeil dares his audiences to accept Concordia University offering its most adult fare to date as a way of illustrating how an entire nation, Germany, could have gone so astray and put all their energies and devotion into supporting a rising group of fanatical men called the Nazis.

And like DeMille, whose scenes of debauchery in "Ten Commandments" were considered envelope-pushing for its time but quite tame by today's anything-goes standards, Senkbeil's direction may be quite strong by Concordia's standards, but still toned down, not only compared to today's films and plays but even the 1966 original Broadway version. The John Kander-Fred Ebb-Joe Masteroff musical is given by Concordia's cast a uniformly excellent production at times funny, poignant, horrifying and downright creepy.

American writer Cliff Bradshaw (Jason Bischoff) arrives in Berlin to find inspiration - only he finds the Kit Kat Klub and Sally Bowles (Kristin Meerdink) instead. The two try to maintain a romance amid the political and social upheavals happening in 1929-30 Germany, while the club's nameless MC (Michael Shackelford) sings songs that comment, however slyly, on the action that has happened or is to come. In this production, slides of photos and artwork (commercial and otherwise) of that time likewise comment.

Throughout the 2 1/2-hour show, Senkbeil has managed quite skillfully to toe the line between the graphic and the vulgar without violating that line. He has modified somewhat the MC's ghoulish makeup but not his cross-dressing number.

There is quite a bit of groping of body parts - the MC of the women, vice versa, the women of each other and themselves - although the most sensitive parts are avoided. While the showgirls' costumes aren't all that revealing (Vegas seems X-rated by comparison), their suggestive nature is constantly in your face. The scene where Cliff gets beaten up is rather graphic as well, though there's no blood gushing.

And the list goes on.

If any criticism could be cribbed from this reviewer, it might be that the really disturbing scenes - there is only one left unaltered, at the end of Act I - are a little too toned down as well. In that one exception, you see people mindlessly gathering around the new Nazi power with such chilling devotion as to leave you wanting some air. The impact of Senkbeil's intention is never more fully nor more powerfully realized than in this scene.

Meerdink makes for a sassy Sally. Comparisons to Liza Minnelli (who won an Oscar for her portrayal in the 1972 film version) seem unavoidable - she even looks a little like Minnelli - yet Meerdink makes Sally her own and sings the title song with panache.

Bischoff provides a sharp contrast to her, his Cliff being too clean-cut and conscience-minded to her shallow, glitzy Sally. As a result, there never are any sparks between them. If that's intentional, kudos to the two of them.

Shackelford is most wonderfully repulsive and garish as the MC. He wisely avoids the Joel Grey interpretation and makes his role rather clownish instead - the kind of clown that haunts little kids' worst nightmares (minus the violence), the kind that makes you shudder yet you continue to look at, much like a car accident with possible bodies lying around.

His several renditions are marvelously unsettling, with "Two Ladies" and "Money, Money" (the latter written for the movie) being particular standouts.

Rebecca Rogers and C.J. Larson, last seen here as Lord and Lady Capulet in Concordia's "Romeo and Juliet," are back as another couple, Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz. They infuse their characters' doomed love affair with sweetness, sensitivity and pathos, thus actually making their relationship, though secondary to that of Cliff and Sally, more interesting and sympathetic.

Rogers has two of the more interesting songs, the gently sardonic "So What?" and the heartrending "What Would You Do?" and shares an adorably funny duet with Larson, "It Couldn't Please Me More (The Pineapple Song)."

Vernon Dew effects an eerily subtle change from stiff-necked but amiable smuggler to full-blown Nazi as Ernst Ludwig, who initially befriends Cliff. Priscilla Huh, a Concordia alum and staff member, steals every scene she's in as the prostitute Fraulein Kost, culminating in her chillingly leading other Germans at a party in "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," displaying an excellently crystal clear and vibrant singing voice in the process. It's a pity her character completely disappears after that.

The six Kit Kat Girls and Male Ensemble of six do their jobs with admirable gusto and sleazy movements, bringing Melanie Jacobson's brisk choreography to life.

From the piano, Rob Blaney leads a nine-piece combo in music that sounds, by turns, appropriately gaudy, tawdry, piquant and sentimental.

Ambra King Wakefield's costumes evoke the seedy atmosphere of prewar Berlin, while Craig Brown's scenery, lighting and sound all further the cause of "period" flavoring.


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