Theatre in Review: Cabaret (Roundabout Theatre Company/Studio 54)Once again we are invited to the Kit Kat Klub, where denizens of the night slink through a speakeasy door, slither around the stage, and invite us to join them in a dance of death. Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall's 1998 staging of Cabaret reinvigorated the 1966 Joe Masteroff-John Kander-Fred Ebb classic musical about foolish dreamers and ugly political realities in Weimar Berlin, and their inventions have stood the test of time. From its earliest incarnation, in Harold Prince's groundbreaking 1966 production, Cabaret contrasted its blinkered characters, blinded to the horrors unfolding around them, with the sardonic numbers performed on the Kit Kat Klub stage; Mendes and Marshall extend the concept, making the audience into the paying patrons of the Kit Kat Klub, partying on while the world goes to hell. Cabaret always ushered us into a world of divine decadence; this production puts a death's-head grin on the invitation. As in the 1998 production, Alan Cumming's Emcee dominates the proceedings, regarding the audience with a knowing smirk, making risqué suggestions to the patrons in the front row, cavorting erotically with the chorus, and, when the occasion calls for it, capping a number with a hissed anti-Semitic remark that silences the room. Shirtless -- the better to see the bruises and track marks on his arms -- and clad in suspenders that fit neatly around his crotch, he is the production's own personal Pan, a leering, goatlike figure who surveys the action with one eyebrow raised. His performance has lost none of its seductive allure. Writing about Joel Grey's characterization of the same character in the original production, Walter Kerr called him "sin on a string." It's a term you can apply to Cumming in the full knowledge that it will stick. The major new addition this time around is Michelle Williams as Sally Bowles, Cabaret's giddy, narcissistic, self-destructive goodtime girl, and from her first entrance, waving a tacky feathered boa and bouncing on an oversized chair to the racy lyrics and ricky-tick melody of "Don't Tell Mama," she makes the role her own. Her Sally is the star of any party that will have her, a fame-obsessed creature who only comes alive when the limelight points in her direction, who buries her real feelings under a canned line of chatter, and who, when faced with important decisions, simply cannot see beyond the next day or two. At the same time, there's a haunted, faintly dead look in her eyes that suggests she knows that, deep down, all her frantic activity is leading nowhere; there's a childlike hope in her voice when she sings "Maybe This Time," but her face suggests otherwise. And when, her life in tatters, she steps into a pin spot to deliver the title tune, the disconnect between the cheerfully fatalistic, live-for-today lyrics and the anguished woman singing them is riveting. We're watching Sally implode in real time, ending with a final belted note and a savage gesture that sends her floor microphone tumbling into the darkness. Other members of the cast bring new inflections to this revival as well. Linda Emond captures the essential stoicism of Fräulein Schneider, the landlady who, in middle age, is at last tempted to take a chance on love, only to conclude that she cannot risk marriage to a Jew. She offers a stellar version of "So What," a number that manages to be both warmly inviting and bracingly cynical, but she really shines in the bleak, understated "What Would You Do," in which she challenges us to judge her for turning her back on love. Danny Burstein is a fine match for her as Herr Schultz, the gentle Jewish grocer who is certain that the Nazis are just one more political squall that will blow over. In a show in which almost everything is delivered with a knowing wink, his big number, the ballad "Married," is an oasis of simple, authentic emotion. Bill Heck's All-American good looks and skill at suggesting a great deal in very few words make him a fine choice as Cliff, the writer who, fleeing professional failure and questions about his sexuality, ends up sleeping with Sally and unwittingly aiding her Nazi acquaintances. There are also solid, mordant contributions from Aaron Krohn as one of Hitler's more charming followers, and Gayle Rankin as the prostitute whose teeming business puts her at odds with Fräulein Schneider. Mendes and Marshall have an endless supply of attention-getting staging ideas at their command. A chorus kick line suddenly becomes a line of goose-stepping Aryans. Cumming and a pair of dancers retreat behind a backlit curtain, their silhouettes writhing as they assume a variety of sexual positions. The angelic-sounding Nazi anthem "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" is heard on a gramophone, the singer's choir-boy voice marred by scratches on the record. The orchestra crowds into the tacky, tilted frame that hangs over the stage, offering a raucous rendition of the title tune. Robert Brill's production design wraps the room in black enamel paint and leopard upholstery, topping each cabaret table with a tiny pink-shaded lamp. The lighting, by Peggy Eisenhauer and Mike Baldassari, uses saturated colors and flashing, transparent light bulbs to create a world where it is forever 3am -- until the tone changes and the lighting switches to a harsh, pitiless white palette. William Ivey Long's costumes contrast the Kit Kat Girls' worn, stained scanties with the solid, middle-class outfits worn by Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz. Brian Ronan's sound design may be a little overpowering for this not-terribly-large theatre; the result is a tad artificial when a more intimate sound would be welcome. It all culminates in the production's famous coup de théâtre, not to be discussed here, which, in a single bold stroke, reveals the horrifying fate that awaits anyone who doesn't flee the dubious pleasures of the Kit Kat Klub. Roundabout has taken a bit of heat for reviving this production -- something that not-for-profit theatres never do -- but this production is a powerful reminder of what can happen when artists who have mastered the craft of musical theatre collaborate on something really challenging. Cabaret comes from a time when musicals were monumental; it makes nearly everything being produced today look puny in comparison.--David Barbour 
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