Cabaret struts into Power Center for weekend run

By Nick Falzone

Daily Arts Writer

Musical theatre is rarely valued as highly for its ability to teach as it is for its ability to entertain. Many theatergoers attend musical performances and leave feeling moved by a show's song and dance components, but not by its political or societal messages. Linda Goodrich hopes to alter this perception of the musical theatre with her rendition of the world-renowned show, "Cabaret," which runs this weekend under the auspices of University Productions.

Goodrich, the director and choreographer of the production as well as a Musical Theatre professor, is well suited for her role as the show's overseer, having appeared on Broadway in its 1987 revival. There, she portrayed a Kit Kat girl, a performer in the late 1920s German political club from which the musical receives its name. Eventually, she moved on with the production across the country and throughout Europe.

As she shifted locations, Goodrich also shifted positions in the show, acting as an understudy while assistant stage managing on the national tour, helping to set and choreograph the show on the other side of the Atlantic. Her incredible knowledge of the show helped her immensely in the creation of her own production of the musical, one that is notably different from the version currently on tour throughout the country.

"The version on tour now is very decadent from the beginning, very glamorous," Goodrich said. "But it doesn't always confront the audience; it doesn't necessarily make them look inside their hearts. In my version, I try to make the audience care more about the people; I try to make them think" about the German political situation, she said.

Fortunately for Goodrich, "Cabaret" is almost guaranteed to force the audience to think in this manner; it is one of the most politically based shows ever to come out of the musical theatre genre. Taking place in the heart of Berlin during the shift from the Weimar Republic to the Nazi regime, the musical delves deeply into the political tensions of the time period through two principal love stories.

The first main plot line, by far the more famous of the two, focuses on the developing relationship between Clifford Bradshaw, a visiting American novelist, and Sally Bowles, the young British nightclub dancer portrayed by Liza Minnelli in the 1972 film version of the musical. As the show progresses, the two expatriates move rockily throughout their relationship while Hitler slowly rises to power outside the cabaret walls.

The second story line, more politically based than the first, explores the issue of anti-Semitism. As a German shiksa landlady Fraulein Schneider falls in love with a Jewish fruit seller, Herr Schultz, she encounters a great deal of opposition from those around her. The two struggle throughout the show to keep their relationship alive despite the constant pressure working to break them apart.

The show, rife with political tension in its scenes outside the Kit Kat Club, also shows a lighter side of society inside the cabaret. In its nightclub performances, the musical effectively juxtaposes seriousness with farce, poking fun at politics while recognizing the gravity of the German shift to the Nazi regime.

Never losing sight of the political issues that later pushed Germany into World War II, "Cabaret" offers a view of late 1920s Berlin that entertains as it educates. And, as Goodrich points out, the show's didactic value is one of the primary reasons it has lasted for such a long time on the musical theatre scene.

Courtesy of University Productions

Cabaret plays at the Power Center for three nights this weekend.