Atlanta Opera’s current production of the famous Kander and Ebb musical “Cabaret” is hardly your grandfather’s version of the celebrated show. The surprisingly enduring and malleable source material began in the form of the semi-autobiographical 1939 novel “Goodbye to Berlin” (by Christopher Isherwood), about a young aspiring American writer in pre-World War II Germany, before being initially adapted for the stage (by John Van Druten) in the 1951 straight play “I Am a Camera.”
Scripted by Joe Masteroff, and under the original direction of Harold Prince, the musical rendition of the story first opened to great fanfare on Broadway in 1966, and later became an equally renowned 1972 film, directed by Bob Fosse. Director Sam Mendes revisited and substantially reimagined the subject matter again for an acclaimed 1993 revival in London’s West End, which was then imported to Broadway in 1998, co-directed by choreographer Rob Marshall.
It’s this darker, edgier and higher-tech iteration of “Cabaret” that Atlanta Opera artistic director Tomer Zvulun has mounted in a refurbished warehouse space at Pullman Yards, a former industrial complex in the Kirkwood area of town. But, even though the original ‘60s version of it may be comparatively quaint in retrospect, the show has always felt a tad ahead of its time — a far cry from the mainstream musicals of the day, in terms of addressing momentous social, political and historical events.
The setting is Berlin during the early 1930s. As Hitler’s Third Reich is rising to power outside, most of the story circulates inside and around the decadent, metaphorical Kit Kat Klub, led and overseen by a seedy Emcee (ghoulishly portrayed here by Curt Olds). One romantic subplot involves the nightclub’s headlining act, a free-spirited and fun-loving British singer (Aja Goes), and the struggling American writer (Billy Tighe) who falls under her spell. The other concerns his aging landlady (Joyce Campana, splendid) and an elderly Jewish fruit vendor (Anthony Laciura).
Credit: Ken Howard
Credit: Ken Howard
Francesco Milioto conducts an 11-member orchestra. Aside from a few more conventional songs from the two older characters (“So What?,” “It Couldn’t Please Me More,” “Married,” “What Would You Do?”), and a chilling Nazi anthem that closes the first act (“Tomorrow Belongs to Me”), the bulk of the production numbers are delivered from within the Kit Kat Klub. The indisputable highlight among the many performed by Olds and the Kit Kat chorus is a show-stopping “Money.” And Goes handles each of her big solos with dynamic aplomb (“Mein Herr,” “Maybe This Time,” and the iconic title tune).
The scenic design of Alexander Dodge includes a runway of sorts, surrounded on three sides by sections of the audience, which is often problematic for Zvulun’s blocking purposes. From the side where I was seated, for instance, I missed several bits of business involving a phonograph situated on the opposite corner of the stage. A couple of times, the back of one actor would obscure the view of another actor in the scene. In one awkward moment, Campana starts singing a song to other characters upstage, and then ambles downstage to present the rest of it directly to the audience.
Elsewhere among the design team: Marcella Barbeau’s lighting is appropriately moody; Erik Teague’s costumes are suitably swell (or kinky, if need be); and the lively choreography is by Ricardo Aponte.
But designers Nicholas Hussong and Nick Chimienti get much too carried away with an inordinate amount of projections, incessant distractions from the rest of the show that are displayed on two large monitors on either side of the set. It isn’t that they’re not talented; they just don’t appear to realize when enough is enough with all the video imagery — artsy slo-mo double exposures or blurry hallucinations, a collage of wide-eyed closeups or an occasional live feed (or simulation thereof). Some of their work is moderately hypnotic and effective, but a lot of it is mostly overblown and pretentious.
As it is, Atlanta Opera’s “Cabaret” is quite capable of speaking, singing, thinking and feeling for itself.
THEATER REVIEW
“Cabaret”
Through June 19. 8 p.m. Fridays; 2 p.m. Sundays; 8 p.m. Thursday (June 16). $50-$112.50. Pullman Yards complex, 225 Rogers St. NE, Atlanta. 404-881-8885, www.atlantaopera.org.
Bottom line: Highly stylized, by turns haunting and heavy-handed.
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