The other day, I wrote about the production of Cabaret in London with Jessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne. In checking out various videos about it, I came across something remarkable – a 25-minute video of a 2021 production Cabaret in Hamburg. It’s very well-done and absolutely fascinating to see it in its “home base” context, some of it deeply moving, despite being in (of course) German, but also because it’s in German. Actually, only most is in German – the songs that Sally Bowles sings (and some of the introductions to her numbers at the Kit Kat Club) are in English. That said, reading the credits at the end, the actress playing her appears to be German. A lot of the material here focuses on the relationship between the old couple who are not in the movie, so it might be unfamiliar to people who haven’t seen the stage version. Fräulein Schneider is the landlady of the building where Sally Bowles lives, and Herr Schultz is her elderly Jewish friend who owns a fruit stand and lives in the building. The only things to know here is that at one point he brings her a rare pineapple, which overwhelms her and leads to a lovely duet, “Pineapple.” Later, one of the arrogant tenants – often sneaking men into her room – catches Herr Schultz visiting the landlady, but he protects Fräulein Schneider’s reputation by saying the two plan to get married. Afterwards, he explains that this is something he’s been meaning to ask her anyway. Later, we see a short version of the reprise of their lovely song, “Married.” But as you might imagine, things don’t get well for a German-Jewish relationship. Incidentally, the two actors who created the roles on Broadway were both legendary and are great on the original cast album. They’re the always-wonderful Jack Gilford and Lotte Lenya, who was married to the great composer Kurt Weill. (Kander and Ebb even wrote two songs for her in the style of Weill.) To be clear, there’s a lot more in this video and several songs for Sally, including the full version of the title song. And some of it is very emotional and even chilling. By the way, I put closed captioning on, so this might help you in the dialogue scenes. (It doesn’t work in the songs, as much as it tries.) If for some reason the closed captioning that I set up doesn’t work, you can do it yourself. First, click the “CC” icon. Then, click the gear icon you'll see next to it, select Subtitles, then German/auto-generated (if it’s not already checked), and then click Auto-translate and scroll down to select English.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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