We all recall Joel Grey's master of ceremonies, that portrait of weathered decadence; here, the MC (Christopher Sloan) is a strapping young androgyne in a get-up that simultaneously evokes gentleman's evening wear and "A Clockwork Orange." Sloan is charismatic, malevolent, and pitiless, particularly when he mugs it up during the sweetest doomed romance in the show. No, it's not Sally Bowles and her American writer, Clifford Bradshaw; rather, it's middle-aged Fraulein Schneider and her Jewish grocer beau, Herr Schultz. In these roles, Lucy Sorlucco and John Little bring dignity and a loving domesticity to the production whenever they're onstage.
Though Nicole Van Giesen as Sally wears a very fake wig and overly ripped stockings, she's true to Christopher Isherwood's vision in terms of manic brittleness. Van Giesen is a crooner, not a belter, and most of the time this works with the Kander-Ebb score, though one doesn't expect Julie Andrews's pure tones coming out of this feckless chanteuse. Van Giesen is smart and economical in her gestures, supplying a modest, defeated shrug on the line, "everybody loves a winner/ so nobody loves me" from "Maybe This Time" (from the movie version and added to the revival).
With its melancholic story line and its leitmotif of anti-Semitism and burgeoning Nazism, this production of "Cabaret" is sophisticated and brutal yet peculiarly exhilarating. It shines a klieg light into a candy box filled with chocolate-dipped razor blades -- sweetness and deadly sharpness all at once.
Cabaret
A musical in two acts.
Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Book by Joe Masteroff. Based on the play by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood. Production supervised by BT McNicholl. Set, Jonathan Stapel. Lights, Annemarie Duggan. Costumes, Kurt Hultgren.
At: Foothills Theatre Company, 100 Front St., Worcester, through April 4. 508-754-4018. Foothillstheatre.com.
