Cabaret Travels: Shyamala's Written Assignment 2

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Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the most apathetic of them all?

These readings gave me a greater appreciation and understanding of what actual performances in European cabarets might have looked like from 1890-1940.  Thus, I was able to better understand the importance of cabaret’s lineage in relation to American dance and also the films Cabaret and Victor Victoria that I wrote about in my first assignment.   In terms of American dance, I knew that modern dance or expressive dance (in Germany) had roots in cabaret performances, but had never quite understood the depth of artistic creativity that was going on in these venues.  I had imagined cabaret performances consisted of can-can dances and burlesque shows that were merely there for voyeuristic purposes.  While these were certainly a part of it, there was much more going on.  For example Valeska Gert (Gertrud Samosch, 1892-1978), a dancer in Berlin, described “I performed theater, I longed for the dance; I danced, I longed for the theater.  I was in conflict until the idea occurred to me to combine them: I wanted to dance human characters.  I invented an intricate fabric, one of whose strands was modern dance-pantomime; another strand was abstract dance; other strands were satiric dances, dances to sounds, expressionistic dances” (p. 15 Senelick, Volume 2).  She also claimed to have created the first socially critical dance-pantomime by creating a dance portraying a streetwalker.  Another well known dancer, Anita Berber (1899-1929), created dances named Horror, Depravity, Ecstasy , and Cocaine.  The words (1922) and description (1931) of the performance of Cocaine by Anita Berber (p 11-13, Senelick, Volume 2). sound very much to me like they could be from a contemporary dance performance or experimental performance art piece today.

And there was quite an awareness and dialogue about voyeurism itself.  Some progressive groups hailed nudism as “healthy living” and voyeurism as “legitimate entertainment” during desperate times of post-war depression (P. 7).   For some, the nude dancing was legitimized by the story of Salome, the dancer who was considered femme fetal because she requested, on behalf of her mother, the head of the prophet John the Baptist (p. 9, Senelick, Vol 2).  It is unclear to me if this was legitimized as a moral tale, or as the staging of a biblical tale, or just giving a reason and context for a nude dance.   On the other hand, there were critics of the nude dancing who made written and/or performed commentaries on how the rich could afford to enjoy the delights of voyeurism in the nightclubs while the poor, the prostitutes, and the wounded war vets were all in dire circumstances outside the walls of indulgence.  These are the very tensions that the movie Cabaret represents in Berlin in 1931, just before the Nazi take over.  In the song “Money” that I commented on in my first assignment this satirical commentary is present.  Here are the contrasting lyrics with one verse talking about the rich and the next about the poor.

“Money” verse about the rich (All is the man’s text unless noted as woman)

If you happen to be rich,

Woman:.......Ooooh
And you feel like a
Night's enetertainment,
Woman:...Money
You can pay for a
Gay escapade.
Woman: Money money money
If you happen to
To be rich,
Woman:….Ooooh
And alone, and you need a companion
Woman: ...Money
You can ring-ting-A-ling for the maid.
If you happen to be rich
Woman:.......Ooooh
And you find you are left by your lover,
Woman: ...Money
Though you moan and you groan quite a lot,
Woman: Money money money
You can take it on the chin,
Woman:.......Ooooh
Call a cab, and begin
Woman: ...Money
To recover on your fourteen-Carat yacht.

“Money” verse about being poor (this part the man and woman both sing in canon, except where noted)

If you haven't any coal in the stove
And you freeze in the winter
And you curse on the wind
At your fate
When you haven't any shoes
On your feet
And your coat's thin as paper
And you look thirty pounds
Underweight.
When you go to get a word of advice
From the fat little pastor
He will tell you to love evermore.
But when hunger comes a rap,
Rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat at the window...
Woman: At the window...
Man: Who's there?
Woman: Hunger!
Man: Ooh, hunger!

See how love flies out the door...

While many cabaret artists fled to America during the Nazi regime, they had little luck for their satirical work didn’t translate well to the de-politicized American  public (for example see P. 252, Senelick, Volume 2).  However, according to Scott Miller in his writing “Inside Cabaret” for New Line theater (a political musical theater group in St. Louis: http://www.newlinetheatre.com/cabaretchapter.html), the musical Cabaret appeared in various forms in the U.S. during certain politicized moments. “The novel appeared at the close of World War II; the non-musical stage version debuted during the McCarthy era; the stage musical opened during the Vietnam era; and the movie musical opened in the midst of the Watergate era. Each of these times has also been a turning point in regard to the social standing of American women and gays.” He notes that each of these versions had revisions in the script and content of the show, making it more and more political, sexually explicit, and gay friendly each time.  He claims that the original musical reflected the director Hal Prince’s, “desire to break through to a new kind of socially responsible musical theater.”  So it makes perfect sense that recreating a politicized theater in Europe, would be a strong parallel for the politicization of arts in the U.S. during its own political crises. 

Miller sees the money song in Cabaret as commentary  “to the fact that people will do almost anything – including abandoning their morals – for money,” like the politically indifferent main character Sally Bowles.  And he sees the over-all purpose of the play/film is to warn the audience against this kind of apathy.  He thinks that Cabaret is situated in 1933 because it is a moment in time where if more people took a stand against the Nazi’s that perhaps Hitler’s extermination of the Jews, arts and homesexuals could have been prevented.  In fact, in one staged version of Cabaret, he says that there was a giant mirror that was facing the audience in order to imply that “the people of Germany, who allowed the Nazis to take power, were very much like us, just ordinary people who found their country in trouble and looked for someone to fix things, to offer easy solutions. If we had lived in 1930 Berlin, the mirror suggests, we too would have been cajoled into believing the Nazis could save the country. It also says that we – the populace – are as much to blame for such horrors as corrupt politicians. Whatever happens in our country, we allow to happen.”  (http://www.newlinetheatre.com/cabaretchapter.html)

Of course, considering my own experiment with the mirror, in my first creative assignment, I am interested to hear about it used in this way. Another similarly interesting method to note in the readings, was the making visible of the inner workings of theater, like the piece where the stage is representing backstage, and the audience is where the actors are imagined to be rehearsing. (p. 76, Senelick, Volume 1). This relocating of elements and implicating of the audience as a part of the action is a tool that could be played with more with the use of the mirror.

Finally, tying back to my research of cross dressing and gay culture in Victor Victoria, the dancer Anita Berber, who had created the piece Cocaine, seems to have been an open lesbian and apparently created a new trend in fashion of women wearing tuxedos and monacles.  Victor Victoria was set in 1934 Paris, while Berber created her dance “Cocaine” in 1922, and while Julie Andrews doesn’t wear a monacle, she certainly sports a fine tuxedo.  There are many more gay and cross dressing elements that could be commented upon and Miller has some very interesting opinions on gay rights in relationship to the rise of Hitler and to the present day rhetoric of the Christian right in America today that are worth checking out: http://www.newlinetheatre.com/cabaretchapter.html

But for now, I would like to close emphasizing the strong political commentary that was present in the European cabarets.  It was particularly surprising to me to discover that Bertolt Brecht, a seminal figure in the field of theater as social commentary, performed original songs in German cabarets early in his career before fleeing Germany, like so many other artists because of the rise of Hitler.