Linette Smith is a huge fan Bob Fosse’s easily recognizable jazz style — those turned in knees, sideways shuffles and rolled shoulders enhanced with a bowler hat, canes and chairs.
As a part-time dance instructor and theatre arts teacher at Strathcona High School, Smith has directed plays for both the Edmonton fringe and Edinburgh fringe. So it was a no-brainer when Two One Way Tickets to Broadway tapped her to direct and choreograph Cabaret, now performing at Catalyst Theatre until Nov. 20.
For many, the award-winning Cabaret not only has a repertoire of stunning songs and dance numbers, it also has a compelling and highly political storyline.
“It’s quite relevant today with a sliding economic situation globally and with our constant search for who we are,” says Smith.
Set in the uninhibited era of the Weimar Republic, it revisits the rise of the Nazi Party and plays it against the German people’s apathy. It hints at the upcoming change that would have horrific consequences not only for Europe, but the world.
The show opens as Clifford Bradshaw (Gregory P. Casell), an American looking for adventure, arrives in 1931 Berlin. He is quickly introduced to the seedy Kit Kat Klub where anything goes. At the club he meets Sally Bowles (Nicole English), a singer who escapes reality with a helpful dose of cocaine, and falls deeply in love with her.
In counterpoint to Cliff and Sally’s relationship is the comfortable friendship of boarding house owner Fraulein Schneider and her elderly Jewish fiancĂ©, Herr Schultz. As the Nazi machine grows, their relationship becomes prophetically doomed.
“There was a sadness about people trying to live under the shadow of something powerful that was separating their lives,” Smith says.
Directing the club’s traffic is the charismatic and flashy master of ceremonies, the evil and nameless emcee (Martin Galba) of the Kit Kat Club. An enigmatic figure, hidden behind rouged lips and cheeks, the emcee has a sinister, almost ghoulish quality of the era.
St. Albert’s own Doran Werner gets quite a bit of practice with multiple costume changes as a sailor, waiter, banker and Nazi soldier. “And he gets to do a lot of dancing.”
Smith is completely cheerful when describing the 28 musical numbers, with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb.
“Kander has created an absolute German 1920s feel with an accordion and banjo. It captures the tinny club sound, the … ragtime, pseudo-jazz feel. What’s fantastic is you do feel the German folk influence, in a jazzy way.”
No Edmonton production can rival the iconic 1972 film with Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey, but the company deserves full marks for rising to the challenge of this politically charged piece.
“It’s a dark show. It has fabulous music and it makes a fantastic political commentary of the rise of the Third Reich.”
