Kerr describing him asĬheerful, charming, soulless and conspiratorially wicked. Presiding over this cabaret of sublime decadence is the Emcee, an omnipresent force that encapsulates the many and varied facets of human nature.ĦWhen Cabaret opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on November 20, 1966, Walter Kerr writing for the New York Times described the production as havingĮlected to wrap its arms around all that was troubling and all that was intolerable with a demonic grin, an insidious slink, and the painted-on charm that keeps revelers up until midnight making false faces at the hangman.ħNobody quite captures the “demonic grin” and “painted-on charm” of which Kerr speaks quite like American actor Joel Grey who originated the role of the Emcee winning the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical. In the first draft he and Kander and Ebb experimented with two scores running concurrently, one within the book for the personae, the other, pastiche for the entertainers (Prince 126).ĥTo facilitate the notion that the cabaret was indeed a metaphor for Germany, the Kit Kat Klub was created to provide a fictional burlesque theater as a forum to showcase a distinct narrative of Berlin hedonism, sexual expression and confronting social commentary. The life of the cabaret as a metaphor for Germany. Cabaret was a massive hit winning both the Tony Award and New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Musical and played a total of 1,165 performances.ĤPrince recalls how the musical was named:Ĭalling it Cabaret was Joe Masteroff’s idea. When Prince successfully gained control of the rights to Van Druten’s play, he enlisted the talents of writer Joe Masteroff to fashion his own version and provide the musical’s book. Directed by Hal Prince with music and lyrics by renowned American songwriting team, composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb, Cabaret was based on John Van Druten’s 1951 play I am a Camera which was adapted from Christopher Isherwood’s semiautobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin (1939). This androgynous emblem of decadence served as inspiration for the Master of Ceremonies or MC (Emcee), a character that Prince created to serve as a magnetic force able to engage his audience to enter the glitter and impending doom of Weimar Berlin’s transgressed underworld at the dawn of Nazi Germany.ģFirst produced on Broadway in 1966, the musical Cabaret was destined to embark on a journey that sustained a number of stage incarnations over the next five decades both on Broadway and on London’s West End including a slew of international productions around the world. There was a dwarf MC, hair parted in the middle, and lacquered down with brilliantine, his mouth made into a bright-red cupid’s bow, who wore heavy false eyelashes and sang, danced, goosed, tickled, and pawed four lumpen Valkyries waving diaphanous butterfly wings 1.ĢDirector-Producer Hal Prince describes a compelling visual that he encountered when visiting a nightclub near Stuttgart in 1951.
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