What’s the biggest problem in showbiz? Easy-peezy, sweethearts- how the f*** do you top Liza Minelli’s Sally Bowles? Man, even she herself can’t, though me, I’d adore watching the mature, drug-fucked, David Gest-era Liza tackle the role!
So, is Cabaret a victim of its own success, and ubiquity? Hardly; like Shakespeare, any truly, multi-resonant text offers myriad interpretative opportunities. And here, we’re talking Crown Jewels plot points; the rise of Nazism, every sexual diversity known, and racial, generational and erotic bigotry!
Now to date, most post-Liza productions opt for a gritty, naturalistic sexual approach; that Minelli/Fosse chemistry’s simply the Olympic Gold standard of camp, forcing subsequent producers way outside obvious boxes. And lacking any solid facts regarding this latest iteration, I’d guess – at the risk of being wildly wrong – that it adopts a forensically intense, CSI realism. To an extent, that supposition’s borne out by the casting; ex-Eastenders and Bionic Woman diva Michelle Ryan is Sally Bowles, male ingénue Will Young, plays Joel Gray’s iconic MC, and simply stellar actress Sian Phillips takes on Mrs Schneider.
Now, that’s truly inspired casting; from playing patrician empress Julia in I, Claudius to a superbly icy Marlene Dietrich in the West End, Phillips gets autocratic mind-sets to an operatic degree, super-gluing even the most cursory punters to their seats! So, expectations as great as ever, then, but material as shrewd as author Christopher Isherwood, how could it be otherwise; this is a man who single-handedly created the literary interface between homosexuality and urban, mainstream society, still hugely relevant now.
Still, I have one further, as yet unrealized wish; a Cabaret fusing Cirque du Soleil visual extravagance and flaunting an era-specific decadence and art sensibility. Beyond easy, ménage a cinques and Bolly for breakfast, no version’s ever explored 1930s Berlin’s penchant for ether served on frozen flowers, and the delights of dominatrix and scat-singing transvestites! Still, who knows – the Savoy Theatre take may be the most gutsy, knife-edged take yet!
• Savoy Theatre, The Strand from October 10th.
