Cabaret - Playhouse Theatre

I had tickets for this weekend which was of course cancelled. Tickets were £90 each. The email about new tickets gives a credit voucher, plus an extra £10 a ticket as after mid March prices go up. Problem is, the seats I booked have now been reclassified as a higher band and are £150. So to sit in the seats I’d booked, I have to actually pay more?! And I even forked out for early booking originally. This seems like a bit of a rip off to me?

I’ve had this, too - but my £90 ticket is now £200. So the extra £10 they’ve offered really isn’t going to go far. I know the cancellation is unavoidable, but to tell me they’ve given extra credit “to ensure you can rebook at no additional cost” just isn’t true. The whole thing has left a very bad taste

Where has that person whose ‘friend’ refused to take a test gone?

No, I don’t think it is. They were meant to be going with the person and there was all this talk of solicitors and complaints that when they booked the terms were different.

People come and go. Let’s get back to the show rather than discussing members please.

Now cancelled until after Christmas, just got a text!

I was booked to see Cabaret on Wednesday afternoon so obviously disappointed but not surprised. Now wish I hadn't booked an evening show too as I'd rather avoid London at present but will probably attend.

I'm resigned to not seeing Cabaret now with current casting but even after March the £70 seat I had costs £100 which adds to the pain !

Perhaps give everyone the food they ordered as a take away after the show to enjoy at home? It’s all cold food anyway.

I mean this thing's downed all the ones without food as well.

Cabaret @ Playhouse Theatre (14 Dec 2021)

Possibly my all-time favourite piece of theatre, I’ve seen more performances of Cabaret than I can count. The pinnacle, obviously, being Sam Mendes’ 1993 masterpiece. With that production still looming in many people’s minds, mounting a major 21st century revival requires guts, originality, and a strong sense of “why?”. Thankfully, Rebecca Frecknall’s stellar new staging is dripping with all three.

Penetrating the exclusive doors of the Kit Kat Club is an experience in itself, with the atmosphere building gradually, air thick with anticipation as well as haze. The pre-show performances don’t quite grasp the raw, guttural sense of creative energy they should, but then again, neither do the gold-leaf Moet-Chandon sponsored cocktail bars. The Playhouse has been brilliantly transformed, but I wonder if the overall impression is a bit too polished for the material at hand.

Frecknall takes every advantage of the immersive Club that she’s built. Her staging is effortless and precise, as if the play had always been envisaged for an arena house. The characters inhabit all corners of the stalls, inviting the well-paying audience members at cabaret tables to dive into the story as participants. The brilliantly written book scenes are made all the more dynamic by the need to constantly about-face to include both sides of the audience.

If there are any faults to the circular nature of the blocking, its in the large musical numbers. There are only so many ways to move a dozen people around a small disc of a stage, and that becomes apparent during the muddy chaos of “Two Ladies” and “Money, Money”. With no unified “front” to play to, key musical climaxes can’t rise to their full potential.

Eddie Redmayne’s Emcee is almost precisely how I imagined him: physically deranged, brilliantly nuanced, and wholly original. He breathes new life into iconic monologues, and holds court with the naughty cheek, moral ambiguity, and ethereal energy required. There are moments where his screen experience betrays his diction and projection, but he otherwise proves himself a magnetic theatrical presence.

Omari Douglas beautifully captures the starry-eyed American spirit of Cliff, with heart and sexuality worn bravely on his sleeve. He doesn’t always keep up with his scene-partners in the more serious moments, but hey, delivers the best American accent I’ve heard on the West End this year. Other standouts include Liza Savoy as a warm and effervescent Fraulein Schneider, and Anna-Jane Casey who brings an assured maturity to Fraulein Kost.

The design is sparse, muted, yet rich. I love the use of the multi-tiered-wedding-cake turntables (especially on the train), and Isabella Byrd’s lighting provides some striking images in the musical’s dark latter half. Tom Sturd’s costumes carry the aesthetic weight of the evening, using minute adjustments in the colour palette to shape the mood in increasingly disturbing ways. I’d like to purchase Sally’s green coat when the run is over please.

Speaking of Sally, as the iconic cabaret singer Jessie Buckley gives one of the greatest musical theatre performances I have ever seen. She explodes into the room with a wry, shouted “Don’t Tell Mama” that isn’t so much tongue in cheek as it is vulgarly sarcastic. Her Sally has the charisma and frivolity we expect, but is enriched with an abrasive devil-may-care streak that left me (someone who knows every word of this play) completely unsure what she was going to do next. She lifts the performances of each of her scene partners, and demands the audience’s fond but cautious attention. When it comes time, her fragility is revealed with such vividness, I just about forgot where I was. “Mein Herr” is a stomping good time, and I don’t think I could imagine a better rendition of “Maybe this time.” I was dumbstruck. Unfortunately, Buckley’s tour de force performance and Frecknall’s heavily specific vision are on a collision course that robs us of what surely could’ve been a defining performance of the title song. “Cabaret” is over-choreographed in a confusing attempt to illustrate…..something. Buckley does her best to contribute the emotional gravitas she is capable of to the direction of flailing her arms around, keeling over, and spinning in circles. I’m not sure what it all means, but it’s a spectacular shame.

And yet, despite being denied the catharsis of the 11 o’clock number, I was overall enthralled by this production. Frecknall delivers an evening that demands its viewers surrender to the experience being crafted around them. It reminds us why live theatre can provide a group of people with feelings no other form of media can, and why being in a communal space of storytelling is always relevant. There is a great deal of risk taking place in this Kit Kat Club (esp of catching Covid, it would seem) but when the risks pay off, they do so perfectly marvellously.

So completely and utterly unacceptable. 

This price gouging is repellant. 

I've had the same. I am desperate to see Jessie Buckley in this so was contemplating booking a more expensive seat as a Christmas gift to myself but I may hold off for a bit.