{"id":617,"date":"2014-05-31T14:45:35","date_gmt":"2014-05-31T18:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ekrap.com\/?p=617"},"modified":"2026-03-02T02:31:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T06:31:31","slug":"cabaret-revival-nein-danke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ekrap.com\/?p=617","title":{"rendered":"Cabaret Revival? – “Nein danke”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here’s a short list of actors who have reprised Joel Grey’s role as the emcee in “Cabaret”: Alan Cumming, John Stamos, Michael C. Hall, Doogie Howser, and now Alan Cumming II.  They do a version of this:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"alancumming\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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\"michael_c_hall_cabaret\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"doogie_cabaret\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"stamos_cabaret\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n
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\"john_secada\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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 A louche, drippy, supposed sensuality.   What the role calls for is more of this:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Cabaret-joel-grey-26347153-462-329\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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\"joel_gray_manic\"<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Grey’s manic clown-from-hell, who takes you places you-know-not-where.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is because the parts of “Cabaret” that take place outside of the KitKat Klub are ominous and depressing.  They include the strangulation of Weimar Germany by creeping Naziism and a doomed romance between a Jewish greengrocer and the landlady Fraulein Schneider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alan Cumming seemed tired and disengaged at the matinee performance I saw recently.   Part of this is just style, watch the energy level change when Joel Grey takes over in this performance at the Kennedy Center in 1998:<\/p>\n\n\n\n