Word: cabareting
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JOEL GREY'S DIABOLICAL LEER, Liza Minelli's divinely decadent green nail polish and nervous mannerisms and the way her magnificent, ringing voice transfigured both in the lurid glare of the Kit Kat Klub--these are images that linger long and powerfully from the film version of Cabaret. From the growing horror of Nazism in Weimar Germany, the film cut artfully to the dazzling, perverse world of the cabaret, which grotesquely parodied an even more grotesque reality. The effect was to present a society in which decent human relationships were impossible, where human contacts were uniformly debased to the level...
...production of the original play Cabaret must labor in the shadow of the movie, even though play and film are structurally distinct. The subplots are completely different, the main plot varies in significant details, and, most important, the film version transplanted virtually all the music to the cabaret sequences, heightening the contrast between the escapism of the Kit Kat Klub and the painful drama outside. If the play suffers from the blurring of these two worlds, however, it benefits from the mere fact that it is theater--that we, the audience, are immediately present as the audience...
...ghosts of the characterizations created by Grey and Minelli loom over Mather's Cabaret, and Don Martocchio and Katie Spillars have evolved different strategies for dealing with them. Martocchio plunges into the part of the Emcee much as Grey did--leering, bawdy gestures, demonic glee and all--but his supple body and fine voice invest his performance with a flair...
With Martocchio setting the tone, the cabaret scenes are always suitably grotesque, sometimes stunningly so. Among the show's best numbers are "Two Ladies," an athletic celebration of a menage a trois complete with tumbling and the obligatory obscene gestures, and "Sitting Pretty (The Money Song)," featuring elaborate sequined, rhinestoned and feathered costumes and the talents of "Mary" (America) Lou Fackler as a red, white and blue drum-assed American dollar...
...Mather Drama Society not only poured profuse energy (and cash) into this production, but also found the talent to complement it. Best then to take the advice of the show's title song, and come at least to this particular Cabaret...