On March 28, 2024, I applied for the “Cabaret” ticket lottery, mostly because I laughed when I read the tweet: “Can’t wait to get that rejection email every single day.” I had never won a Broadway lottery before, let alone for a show as buzzy as this one, but I love to be part of discourse, so why not take a shot? Maybe this time…
The next morning, my inbox contained the impossible email: “You won the CABARET AT THE KIT KAT CLUB Lottery!” Opening preview. Two seats at a second-row stage-side table (going for $529 apiece on SeatGeek) were suddenly in my possession for only $25 each. Close enough to trace the sweat lines on Eddie Redmayne’s cheekbones and realize that, woah, Bebe Neuwirth is so tiny.
I give these details to be up front about my own experience and biases. I was blessed with some of the best seats in the house for a genuinely affordable price and saw the show before any reviews, out-of-context tweets or Tony Award nominations influenced my opinions — though this would not be my first exposure to the musical “Cabaret.” Between listening to the 1966 original cast recording for years, studying the iconic choreography of Bob Fosse’s film adaptation in college courses, watching grainy bootlegs from the 1998 and 2014 revivals, harboring passionate feelings about Aaron Tveit’s sultry “Miscast” performance of “Mein Herr” and seeing this production in London (from the nosebleeds of the nosebleeds), I entered this night at the theater fully intending to enjoy myself.
Upon leaving the theater, I experienced a rare optimism at this production’s ability to genuinely breathe new life into a story I thought I knew by heart.
But I was confused a few weeks later, when I read in the New York Times’ review of this most recent revival that: “The problem for me is that ‘Cabaret’ has a distinctive profile already. The extreme one offered here frequently defaces it.” Why would we bother with a revival of such a seminal work and not put a new coat of paint on it?
Of course, many theatergoers will bring expectations to this iteration of a musical that has been presented again and again for over 50 years (closer to 85 counting Christopher Isherwood’s novel “Goodbye to Berlin” and John Van Druten’s play “I Am A Camera”). Each revival casts its own distinct shadow on the tragic and satiric source material, depicting a society’s turn away from newfound sexual freedom and toward violent repression. (Hold for the obligatory “as relevant today as it was then” commentary.)
Why do we (e.g. commercial Broadway producers) put on revivals?
