Opening: 19 March 1998
Closing: 2 November 2004
Number of Performances: 37 previews and 2306 regular performances
Theatre Company: Roundabout Theatre Company
Creative Team: Joe Masteroff (Librettist), John Kander (Composer), Fred Ebb (Lyricist), Sam Mendes (Director), Rob Marshall (Co-Director and Choreographer), Robert Brill (Scenic Design), William Ivey Long (Costume Design)
Principal Cast: Alan Cumming (Emcee), Natasha Richardson (Sally Bowles), Ron Rifkin (Herr Schultz), John Benjamin Hickey (Cliff Bradshaw), Denis O’Hare (Ernst Ludwig), Michele Pawk (Fraulein Kost), Mary Louise Wilson (Fraulein Schneider)
This production holds the distinction of being the third longest running revival on Broadway. It won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical Revival. The revival, produced by the Roundabout Theatre Company, first opened at Henry Miller’s Theater on West 43rd Street as a replica of the 1993 revival produced by London’s Donmar Warehouse. The theatre had been decked out to look like the Kit Kat Klub was renamed as such during the production’s tenure. Audience members could sit at tables on the stage, near the bar, or in the regular theatre seats. They were served drinks and food to maintain the authenticity of the scenic illusion. On the design of the space, Mr. Mendes said, “the lure and the allure of the club pulls in the audience and shows them what they have become a part of by sitting and watching it . . . It’s rough. It’s dirty. It’s in your face” (qtd. in Rothstein). Robert Brill designed the scenery and opted to paint the whole theatre black, bringing in “a much darker feeling of impending disaster” (Rothstein). Less than six months after the revival’s opening, a construction hoist fell from the Condeeé Nast building on 43rd Street, and blocked access to Henry Miller’s Theater, forcing Cabaret to relocate to Studio 54. The renovation to Studio 54 took $1.2 million, but gathered an endowment of $12 million (Weber). The arrangement at Studio 54 was was similar to that at the Henry Miller’s Theater. Upon entering the space, the audience found themselves “wandering into a fully realized, three-dimensional version of a nightclub in Weimar Germany, an environmental experience as well as a theatrical one” (New York Times). Unlike other performances on Broadway, audience members were not given playbills upon entrance, but rather while exiting the theatre. Director Sam Mendes was adamant about this change, trying not to intrude on the overall effect of the show and keep it as an immersive experience. Philip S. Birsh, then the CEO of Playbill, responded to this request by stating, “I don’t care what the show is, the service we provide and the spirit of our arrangement and agreement is that they are to hand them out at the beginning of the show . . . If they are not, and I discover it, I will have to revisit our service of that particular production” (New York Times). After a long discussion, Mendes and Birsh worked out a deal where the producers paid for Playbill to publish a special program that contained no advertisements and was to be handed out at the end of the performances.
While this version of the musical shared a lot of similarities with the original 1966 production, it introduced many new aspects, such as the Kit Kat Klub Boys. These men took the place of some of the Kit Kat Klub Girls, which introduced more opportunities for depictions of drag performance and queer sexuality. For example, in the song, “Two Ladies”, a man in drag portrayed one of the ladies. William Ivey Long expertly designed the costumes. The Kit Kat Klub Boys, bare chested in leather vests, contrasted the Kit Kat Klub girls, who were dressed like chorus girls in antique bras and torn mesh stockings. Michael Feingold described the girls as looking glum, and the boys surly (Feingold). The Emcee, as played by Alan Cumming, wore a tuxedo jacket, bare underneath, rolled-up dress pants, and a crooked bow tie. The Emcee also sported a swastika at one moment, making the production the first to use more than the one visible swastika. According to Malcolm Johnson, Cumming’s Emcee was a “deliciously twisted, impishly staring, vampirically grinning Emcee” (Johnson). Cumming was very well received. Alternatively, Natasha Richardson, already famous for roles on Broadway and film, was less enthusiastically received. Some of her mixed reviews were especially harsh. For example, Michael Feingold claimed her Sally Bowles “has a pop style singing without substance, . . . [and] the Mayfair fragility of a parking garage” (Feingold). Malcolm Johnson, said, “her Sally is lost, absurd, tarty, desperate, split between a deluded belief in her performing powers and the certainty that she is doomed to failure” (Johnson). Others critics, such as Ben Brantley, were more positive:
Sally Bowles has just stepped into the spotlight, which is, you would imagine, her very favorite place to be. Yet this avidly ambitious chanteuse recoils when the glare hits her, flinching and raising a hand to shade her face. Wearing the barest of little black dresses and her eyes shimmering with fever, she looks raw, brutalized and helplessly exposed. And now she’s going to sing us a song, an anthem to hedonism, about how life is a cabaret, old chum. She might as well be inviting you to hell (Brantley).
Although this review sounds overwhelmingly negative, Brantley goes on to praise Natasha Richardson for leaving audiences with a deeper understanding of the character, unlike the version played by Liza Minelli, a much more talented singer. Richardson leaves the audience thinking about the effect the show had on Sally and her desperation. Overall, Richardson was well liked in the role, although admittedly not as well as Cumming. In the production’s long run, Sally Bowles was also played by numerous actors such as Molly Ringwald, Brooke Shields, and Jennifer Jason Leigh. As Fraulein Schneider, Mary Louise Wilson was criticized for lacking Lotte Lenya’s authenticity. Ron Rifkin (Herr Schultz) was less musical, but “sturdily touching” (Feingold). Denis O’Hare made Ernst three-dimensional. Michele Pawk (Frauline Kost) was doing her best work. John Benjamin Hickey (Cliff) was the “height of the show’s conviction,” catching all of Cliff’s waverings with a mellow but beautiful singing voice (Feingold).