Preview: Cabaret at Salon Perdu Spiegeltent

Amanda Billings and Tyran Parke star in the Auckland Theatre Company's production of <i>Cabaret</i>. Photo / Richard Robinson.

If life is a cabaret, what sort of a cabaret is it? Surrounded by an exotic collection of props, drawings of scanty costumes and actors stripping down to their smalls, Michael Hurst has reflected on that question often as he directs Auckland Theatre Company's musical Cabaret.

On one level the musical, which made its Broadway debut in 1966, is an erotic romp packed with well-known songs and polished dance routines; on another it's a look at a desperate society ripe for a totalitarian dictator like Hitler to take over.

Hurst, who previously directed Cabaret at the Watershed Theatre in the early 1990s and makes his third appearance in the production, says it is an ever-timely reminder of the need to be vigilant about human freedom.

"Berlin pulsed into the 1930s debauched and unfettered but 'Sin City' was ripe for a clean-up and the morally upright were ready and willing to wield the disinfectant - and wield it they did - duped by the idea of a powerful, healthy and racially pure utopia," he says.

"Cabaret reminds us that fundamentalism of any kind is the antipathy of human freedom. Religious extremism, reactionary politics, greed and the lust for power will always be the enemies of humanity."

It is 1930 in Berlin, Germany is an economic down and out, crippled by war reparations paid to its World War I vanquishers. The reactions of its citizens vary: some eke out a living by selling whatever they have; others grow angry and fuel the fires of nationalist fervour while some party like there's no tomorrow.

In Cabaret, the party happens at the Kit Kat Klub, where decadence is doing its best to kill depression. When young American writer Cliff Bradshaw (Tyran Parke) wanders in, he is caught in the spell of English chanteuse Sally Bowles (Amanda Billing).

Watched by the Klub's Emcee (Hurst), Cliff and Sally's happy-ever-after is not to be in a society amusing itself to death. Just as their relationship is doomed, so, too, is the romance blossoming between German boarding house owner Fraulein Schneider (Lynda Milligan) and Jewish fruit vendor Herr Schultz (Paul Barrett).

The musical, which comes with the warning that it contains nudity and adult themes, is based on the 1951 play I Am a Camera adapted from Christopher Isherwood's novel Goodbye to Berlin.

Hurst says to work again on Cabaret allows him to bring experience on a number of different levels as both director and his role as the Emcee.

"I don't come to it to do lots of things differently but in recent years a lot more research material has become available on what was going on in the Weimar Republic and the Berlin cabaret scene.

"That, coupled with the fact I am older, leads me to have a slightly altered view of things, to see more of the darkness in it, the cost of the lifestyle and the way the storm of Nazism grew and what it embraced and rejected."

Hurst was stunned by some of the latest research material, which details the depravity many ordinary German citizens were forced into because of financial necessity, and he aims to create a production that will entertain but stay true to the decadent tragedy which was the Weimar Republic.

He says the spirit of the period - its eroticism, art, architecture, music, film, theatre and literature - still shimmers. "The more we bring social analysis to it, the more we can reference things with greater meaning."

Tyran Parke has seen a number of productions of Cabaret and always wanted to appear in one. He approached Hurst earlier this year when the two worked together on the musical Sweeney Todd.

"I told Michael I was very interested and even though I was playing a mentally deficient teenage boy at the time, he saw that I might have some potential and asked me to audition.

"As different versions of Cabaret have been produced, the character of Cliff has evolved. He was always the protagonist but he didn't exactly move the story forward. I like the direction Michael is taking the story in, Cliff is no longer simply the lens through which we see things."

Known for nearly seven years on Shortland Street as the straight-laced Dr Sarah Potts, Amanda Billing takes a break from the top-rating show to portray Sally.

Hollywood star Liza Minnelli made the role famous when she starred in a movie version of the musical in 1972. Later Broadway revivals have featured the likes of Natasha Richardson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nip Tuck's Joely Richardson, Teri Hatcher, Molly Ringwald and Brooke Shields.

Billing hopes those who see Cabaret find it sensual and seductive but also tender and romantic. A self-confessed romantic, she says the secondary storyline is designed to make show-goers think more about the nature of love.

"Just watching those scenes makes me so emotional. I cried three times in one rehearsal recently."

But she also believes there will be times when the audience is swept away by the show's sensuality and erotic dance numbers. "I hope there are moments when the audiences feel a bit hot and sweaty and feel as if they have to look away.

"I know watching the wonderful dancers, I feel a bit like that sometimes."

Mike Edward, Sia Trokenheim, Colleen Davis, Sarah Iwaskow, Will Barling, Ebon Grayman and Hannah Tasker-Poland also appear.

Auckland Theatre Company has renamed the Viaduct "arty central" for its season of Cabaret, which will be performed in a European mirror tent, or spiegeltent, next to the Maritime Museum.

The company has previously used SkyCity Theatre for musicals but that is being converted into a sports theatre and is unavailable. Rather than abandon plans for a Christmas musical, the company turned the set into an opportunity.

It hired the Salon Perdu, an Art Deco spiegeltent that can hold up to 550 people and, with a diameter of 20m, is the largest surviving "tent of mirrors" in the world. Since their creation in the early 20th century, spiegeltents have been used as travelling dance halls, bars and entertainment salons.

Staging Cabaret in the Salon Perdu has given designers Nic Smillie and Bryan Caldwell the chance to create an authentic Kit Kat Klub.

Performance:

What: Cabaret

Where and when: Salon Perdu Spiegeltent, Auckland Viaduct, October 30-November 20