cabaret
april 20-22nd | emerson stage
by joe masteroff, john kander, and fred ebb
dramaturgy: rainier pearl-styles and marissa freidman
i see dramaturgy as an extension of community engagement. actors and audience sometimes need tools to uncover a specific nuance or relevance to the story. as a dramaturg for cabaret, i helped actors and audience members draw connections between nazi germany and the rise of fascism, white supremacy, and homophobia and transphobia today. you can see an abridged version of work as a dramaturg/educator/facilitator below!
i also prioritized community engagement as a dramaturg. along with the directorial team, i designed a website with information about the show as well as historical information about weimar berlin and the rise of fascism. this website was publicized along with tickets to increase audience access (you can see a abridged republication of it’s content below)
as with the actors, my goal was to widen understanding of the events in the play. i hoped audience members would see the actions in cabaret as a series of small movements towards fascism, and be able to identify their own roles in oppression and liberation.
as a queer, jewish dramaturg, i balanced the storytelling of the rise of nazi germany with my own conviction that stories of joy within marginalized communities are just as powerful as stories of struggle.
my approach to dramaturgy for cabaret focused on widening the lens with which we see stories of the holocaust.
for early career actors who were engaged in conversations around identity and accuracy of character portrayal, i created materials that focused on diversity in the weimar republic. my goal was to help participants check their assumptions that a story about nazis was solely a story about oppression of jewish people.
i especially wanted to highlight liberatory experiences of marginalized folks in the weimar republic, as berlin pre-1933 was a time of flourishing arts, queer culture, and racially integration. my goal as a dramaturg/educator was to help all actors find themselves represented in some aspect of the story.
click the image to see pre-audition information packet send to all prospective actors and designers.
dramaturgy note
by: rainier pearl-styles and marissa freidman
Originally produced on Broadway in 1966, Cabaret is just as poignant as ever. For all its grit and glamor, at its center, Cabaret presents a devastating criticism of political and cultural apathy.
Taking place during the waning years of the Weimar Era, we are safe within the confines of the decadent, if seedy, Kit Kat Club, a place where intersectional identities not only exist, but are celebrated. Queer, Black, Jewish, non-conforming – all are welcomed. Outside, a maelstrom is forming, fomented by the economic instability and devastation lingering from Germany’s defeat in World War I.
Spanning from November 1918 to March 1933, the short-lived Weimar Era is associated with a vibrant urban life, cultural diversity, a commitment to democracy, and new, exciting artforms: Bauhaus art and architecture, the expressionist films of Fritz Lang, Bertolt Brecht’s theater, and, above all, cabaret culture. This flourishing allowed for Berlin to solidify an identity as an international metropolis, a liberal bastion to rival Paris as the arts and entertainment mecca.
Cliff, an American writer, arrives in Berlin in the winter of 1930-31 just as unemployment reaches almost 4 billion in Germany alone. He meets the British chanteuse Sally Bowles, and others at the Kit Kat Club and Fräulein Schneider’s boarding house, where he is rooming. The charismatic Emcee of the Kit Kat Club becomes the lens through which Cliff writes his novel. It is through Cliff’s eyes that we, as outsiders invited in, see the chipping away of the veneer and the terrifying rise of totalitarianism. As the impending doom converges, too many remain in denial of anything happening beyond the Kit Kat Club, where life remains beautiful. “Politics? But what has that to do with us?” Sally remarks as Cliff urges her to see the threat of Nazism.
It is the answer to this question that often eludes us: what does it have to do with us? All too often the answer is nothing…as long as the chaos remains outside the cabaret doors. The beauty of the hedonistic and carefree Bohemian life becomes a facade, masking the rot at the core of a rising nationalistic identity.
What is our responsibility to others, and ourselves, in the face of adversity?
additional resources
kaz rowe’s queer history
“Before WW2, Germany saw a brief period of conflicted social progress that allowed its queer community to become more visible than ever before. What was life like for the queer folks of Weimar Germany? Come learn with me about LGBTQ Germany before the Nazis, and the film star who appeared as the first on-screen sympathetic gay character: Conrad Veidt.” - Kaz Rowe