Darkness. Drum roll. Cymbal crash. Billy Porter.
The three-time Tony Award winner has returned to Broadway as the shapeshifting Emcee at the Kit Kat Club. It’s a role he made his own in London, and he’s now sharing the spotlight with his U.K. costar, Olivier Award nominee Marisha Wallace as “the Toast of Mayfair—Fraulein Sally Bowles.” Historic, unorthodox, stunning—Porter and Wallace have signed on to ride director Rebecca Frecknall’s gloriously subversive revival of Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club into its climactic final weeks at the August Wilson Theatre.
Photo by Jay Brooks.
“They brought down the house every night on the West End, and I cannot wait for Broadway audiences to experience the electricity they generate together,” said Frecknall shortly before the two headliners joined the New York company.
While considered provocative when it debuted on Broadway in 1966, barely two decades after WWII, the original production was a massive success—scoring a Best Musical Tony, plus seven others. Predictably, the show, with its Kander & Ebb score and book by Joe Masteroff, was destined to morph with each generation, so that 60 years later the current incarnation is tailored to theatregoers living through a geopolitical landscape of unnerving upheaval.
Photo by Marc Brenner.
For Frecknall and Tony-winning designer Tom Scutt, this meant upping the show’s theatrical stakes to include an immersive pre-show event 45 minutes prior to curtain. Leaving the 21st century behind, you move through a labyrinth that takes you to bar areas where the dancers and musicians who make up the Prologue Company transport you to a carnival-esque ambiance circa the late 1920s. According to Frecknall, the intent is to have these performers become a sort of bridge “...between now and then, and invite the audience to relax, loosen up, and be themselves.”
Adds Julia Chang, the show’s choreographer, “The Prologue has always been about what theater can represent. Allowing artists and their spirit to play, have fun, and have direct alchemy with the space. The Prologue comes from a place of empowerment and celebrating differences: artistic expression, gender, body shape, race, and ethnicity. It is ‘anti-status quo.’”
As for the Prologue’s intrinsic playfulness, let’s just say it doesn’t fully evaporate when you enter the theatre, nor does it leave you in that explosive split second when the spotlight hits the Emcee. Dressed in oversized leather shorts, wearing a toddler’s birthday hat, his glee is palpable, even when his moves are marionette. It’s 1929 and Berlin is ready to party as Kit Kat kinder—“girls” and “boys”—cavort onto the turntable stage for their introductions: “Rosie”…”Lulu”…“Texas”…“Helga”… “Victor”…“Bobby”…“Hans”... Once assembled, they pose—a human merry-go-round of sensuality—only to dismantle and fade off.
And what of us: patrons/observers/voyeurs? We move in and out of the cabaret, caught up in the characters’ lives, discovering…how American writer Clifford Bradshaw first met Sally Bowles…how he came to rent a room in Fraulein Schneider’s boarding house…how more than one love story came into focus, grew, and dissolved…and how illusion, hope, and denial imploded all at once.
Photo by Marc Brenner.
This is the iconic Cabaret, where every character, scene, and emotion is amplified by one of musical theatre’s most original and affecting scores. For most of us coming into the show, the numbers are familiar; what stuns us is Frecknall’s revisionist, no-holds-barred staging. From a coy baby doll “Don’t Tell Mama” to a pulse-pounding “Money,” it’s clear the groundbreaking musical has broken mind-altering new ground.
That said, Cabaret’s ballads are legendary for being showstoppers. And two of them—Sally’s “Maybe This Time” and the Emcee’s “I Don’t Care”—have become signature torch songs for Porter and Wallace. With voices that melt into the melodies, their exquisite renditions—both social media faves—are achingly beautiful. Now as they recreate their critically acclaimed London performances on Broadway, New York theatregoers can experience the thrill of seeing these two major talents live.
Photo by Marc Brenner.
“Having the chance to present this masterwork to audiences at this moment in history has been the honor of a lifetime. We are so proud of what Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club has achieved on Broadway—artistically, culturally, and with audiences,” said Adam Speers of Ambassador Theatre Group on behalf of the producers. “We’ve been unbelievably lucky to have had such an incredible string of cast members...and Billy and Marisha are the ideal stars to lead us into this final stretch.”
Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club is playing at Broadway’s August Wilson Theatre, 245 W. 52nd St. To reserve tickets call 888-985-9421 or visit kitkat.club.
