Michael Matthews takes Cabaret, a director’s show if there ever was one, and transforms it into the summer’s most spectacular intimate musical, an almost perfect rendition of the 20th-century Broadway classic, a production blessed by superb performances, breathtaking choreography, and the most jaw-dropping design I may ever have seen at Celebration Theatre.

 As any musical theater aficionado will tell you, Cabaret (book by Joe Masteroff based on Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories and John Van Druten’s I Am A Camera) centers on a visiting American writer’s love affair with an expatriate English night club entertainer as Nazism takes its hold in pre-WWII Germany under the ever observing (and occasionally leering) eye of the club’s ubiquitous Emcee (Alex Nee).

It’s on a Berlin-bound train that Isherwood alter-ego Clifford Bradshaw (Christopher Maikish) makes the acquaintance of Ernst Ludwig (John Colella), the outgoing Berliner who will introduce him to lodgings run by seen-it-all Fräulein Schneider (June Carryl) and, more importantly, to Berlin’s pansexual nightlife.

 Kit Kat Club star Sally Bowles (Talisa Friedman) quickly finds herself taken by the handsome, sexually fluid American, and before you know it, the two expats have become live-in lovers.

Unfortunately for the young couple, the deeper Sally and Cliff’s intimate coupling gets, the deeper grows Germany’s infatuation with Hitler, inspiring Cliff to have second thoughts about earning extra Deutschemarks as an amateur courier for Ernst.

 Fräulein Schneider too begins to think twice about marrying her Jewish suitor, greengrocer Herr Schultz (Matthew Henerson), who had previously won her heart with a pineapple, and Berlin, which had seemed to Cliff such a perfect antidote to staid old England, now shows itself to be a considerably more dangerous place to call home-away-from-home.

The first thing audiences will notice about this Cabaret is Stephen Gifford’s absolutely stunning surround set with its velvet walls, framed paintings and mirrors, crystal chandeliers hanging down from above, and onstage audience seating for a privileged eight as Kit Kat Girls and Boys entertain “customers” and Anthony Zediker and Kit Kat Club band* provide their own infectious preshow entertainment from their perch high above.

 Dark as Cabaret can be, particularly in 1998-revival mode, director Matthews and choreographer Janet Roston make sure not to overwhelm us with the darkness, musical numbers like the sassy schoolgirl striptease that is Roston’s “Don’t Tell Mama” or the pulse-pounding “Mein Herr” or the gender-blurring “Two Ladies” or the showstopping “Money” stint not an iota on entertainment value, and romantic duets don’t get more delightful than Sally and Cliff’s “Perfectly Marvelous” and Herr Shultz and Fraülein Schneider’s “It Couldn’t Please Me More.”

Still, from the Emcee’s stunning first appearance straight up from the depths of hell, it’s clear that this will not be your grandparents’ Cabaret. Add to that a train whistle shriek coming from the same gaping throat that will later serve as part of a gramophone spewing forth words that may well make audiences wonder if history just might be repeating itself, and anyone who’s marveled at director Matthews’ genius will have reason to marvel once more.

 Of the fourteen different Cabarets I’ve now seen, none has been more dazzlingly performed than Celebration’s.

 Nee’s ûber-tattooed Emcee is sexy and scary and sleazy and rough and reptilian and never less than captivating, not only in nightclub numbers but as observer/puppeteer (and redefining androgyny in “I Don’t Care Much”) and he is matched every step of the way by Friedman’s simply sensational Sally, as uninhibited as a young Tallulah Bankhead at her most unrestrained, and sporting the best pipes in town.

 Henerson makes for a deeply affecting, silver-throated Herr Schultz, Maikish gives Hollywood’s handsomest and most charming 1930s matinee idols a run for their money as Cliff, Katherine Tokarz’s Fraülein Kost is as deliciously quirky (that Blanche DuBois curtsey!) as she is conspicuously expectant, and Colella’s Ernst mixes suave and sinister to striking effect.

 Last but not least, Carryl may well be the most glorious Fraülein Schneider I’ve ever seen, scoring laughs even Cabaret aficionados may not have known were there, earning additional points for poignancy and heart, and milking every dramatic moment imaginable from a gut-wrenchingly performed “What Would You Do?”

There’s just one hitch. Carryl’s non-traditional casting asks us to disregard race in a musical about race, a case where colorblind casting proves a distraction in a way that it would not in just about any other Broadway show, South Pacific, Show Boat, and Hairspray excepted.

 Triple-threat ensemble stars Jasmine Ejan (Rosie), Tristan McIntyre (Cliff), Sarah Mullis (Fritizie), Nicole Stouffer (Texas), and Mary Ann Welshans (a resonant-piped Helga) sizzle throughout, aided and abetted by Michael Mullen’s supremely imaginative costume mix of glitter, glamour, and grunge.

 Matthew Brian Denman’s richly hued lighting, Michael O’Hara’s plethora of period props, Byron Batista’s always impressive hair, wig, and makeup design, and sound designer Cricket S. Myers’ expert mix of vocals, instrumentals, and dramatic effects complete as dazzling an intimate theater production design as you’re likely to see all year.

Tuffet Schmelze is dialect coach. Brooke Seguin is assistant director. Estey DeMerchant is production stage manager.

Casting is by Jami Rudofsky. JD Barton, Brielle Batino, Tom DeTrinis, Laura Hartley, Julanne Chidi Hill, Zachary Kanner, Ian Littleworth, Ryan McLean, Trevor H. Olsen, Ken Stirbl, Jessica Troiani, Sophie Vanier, Brittney S. Wheeler, and Justin W. Yu are understudies. Robyn S. Clark plays Fraulein Kost after July 15. Ryan Edge’s boy soprano is heard prerecorded.

 Cabaret is produced by Jay Marcus and O’Hara. Mark Giberson, Constance Jewell Lopez, Parnell Damone Marcano, David Tran, and Alan Wethern are associate producers.

A musical that by its very nature invites directorial reinvention, Cabaret gets reinvented to stunning effect at the Celebration, ending its 2017-2018 all-musical season with one hell of a wallop.

*Khris Kempis, Nicole Marcus, Phil Moore, and Zediker

Celebration Theatre at Lex Theatre, 6760 Lexington Ave., Hollywood.
www.celebrationtheatre.com

–Steven Stanley
July 5, 2018
Photos: Matthew Brian Denman

Tags: Celebration Theatre, Joe Masteroff, Kander & Ebb, Los Angeles Theater Review