Cabaret Review

Aazan Khan

Meaders

9th Grade Lit

31 March 2016

Willkommen and bienvenue, welcome! Is the tune that will be stuck in your head for days to come. Cabaret is a musical that tells the life of an American visiting Germany around the time of WW2 when Hitler was in power. The beginning was pretty wacky. Clifford was on the train to Germany when he met a new friend who becomes important later on. The club is where all the prostitutes were and they usually just danced with other guys and other women. This is where Sally met Clifford the American writer, they quickly became friends and became very close. Sally moved in with Clifford who was a struggling writer, Clifford was very poor and could barely afford the room. So he turned to the friend he met on the train Ernst. Ersnt told him that there was a job where he would go to Paris maybe once a month, get a package, and bring it back to Germany which would get him about 100 marks. The landlord of the place marries a fruit stand vendor who is Jewish, his name is Herr Schultz. At their engagement party Ernst comes sporting a Nazi armband which convinces Clifford, that it’s time to leave. Ernst however confronts him asking him to go to Paris for him and repeatedly raises how much he is willing to pay Clifford to visit Paris and smuggle the package, Clifford however refuses and Ernst grows irate and gets his Nazi friends to help attack Clifford, who is bruised and badly beaten. This is when he knew he wanted to leave Germany. So Clifford attempts to make Sally come with him, so that they can start a new life away from this violence. She declines because she believes that there is still money to be made in Germany and this angers Clifford, so Sally leaves and goes to the club. Clifford comes later and attempts to bring her with him and he hit her once. He eventually leaves and goes back to the apartment. It then returns to a conversation between Hurr and his new fiancée. She explains that she doesn’t believe that this marriage is going to work out because of the Nazi’s and Hurr attempts to change her mind, which he does for the most part. Then they attack his fruit shop (Kristalnachtz) and it goes dark. Sally comes back to the apartment and Clifford attempts to say sorry to her and that he really does want her to come with him and start this new life with the baby. She then reveals that it was too much of a burden, and that she had aborted the baby. Clifford was enraged and struck her, but still attempted to make her come with him, which didn’t work. Hurr comes and talks to the couple about how he’s going to a new place for a while (this implies he’s going to a camp) and that he wishes them well. This was the end, after this Clifford goes to Paris, and the next scene is everyone in concentration camps.

Overall this play was amazing, even though it was longer than most plays they kept your attention the entire time, it was a perfect play, and the message stuck with you. On one of the scenes they brought out someone dressed as an ape and made a song about if you knew her like I do then you would know she is beautiful, if you could see her through my eyes. She would look Jewish at all. That struck a chord with me for some reason, it was one of the best scenes hands down. If I had to rate this play I would give it a 10/10, one of the better ones I have been to.