First, let me clarify for anyone coming over from the "other" discussion board - I am indeed Mike Boyna (AKA on these here boards, variously, as Hysterium, Atticus, and/or Vinnie de Ruzzio)
I am more than pleased to respond to Craig's question. Many people - including me - will go see a show and exchange nothing more than the customary pleasantries in the lobby. With Cabaret being my first directing project in some time, I encouraged people to email or call me to provide their "unvarnished" review. A few have done so, and I thank them for that. I thank Craig as well for participating in a process I consider instrumental to my growth as an artist, whether that be as performer or director
On to the show.
Above all else, I consider Cabaret a show about choices. Each major character (and for those paying close attention, even some of the ensemble players) made specific, personal choices about dealing with the oncoming menace.
Craig is spot on about my approach to the Emcee view. We decided early on the the Emcee is the only one who always knows what's going on.
With Sally, however, I would characterize her misery more as self-pity than self-knowledge. Sally is much too immature to possess any true level of self-knowledge. There was a lot of discussion during rehearsal about the fact that if you met any of the main characters 5, 10, or 15 years after Cabaret, they would all be changed in some fundamental way -- except Sally. In fact, in Isherwood's Berlin Stories, Christopher (Cliff) does actually go back to Berlin some time later and finds Sally to be --- surprise, surprise ---exactly the same person. Her breakdown in the title song comes from her inability to keep up the carefree charade often put on by highly insecure people. Her pain comes from the sudden disappearance of "security" - although she will never really admit or understand why events unfolded as they did. The problem for Sally is that she doesn't ever learn anything from these episodes. One can safely assume that there was always another major disaster right around the corner involving another Cliff in another sleazy club.....
If in the original version, the obliviousness to the situation is the main problem, and from that comes the thought: "I'd better be more attuned to life than these people"; then this version, which shows at least some people who do recognize what's going on, should prompt the question: "How could these people, knowing what they must have known, have made the choices they made?" Kind of variations on a theme, but enough to take the overall feel to the much darker side.
To participate, to ignore, to circumvent, to collaborate, to rat out, to escape- even for an evening (or fifty) of debauchery at a third-rate Klub...all these choices and all possible combinations thereof, were available to the people of 30's Berlin. And they still are today.
When I first proposed my dark-tinted version of this material, I was asked if I was prepared for people not to like it. My response was simple: "It's not my job to make them like it...It's my job to make them think about it"
I encourage any and all feedback both on the production itself and on the analysis thereof
Sincerely
Mike Boyna
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