Cabaret
Sky City Theatre
Review: Susan Budd
"Willkommen, Welcome, Bien-venue." The words from the androgynous emcee in white tuxedo draw us into the melee of the Kit Kat Club with its gorgeous dancing girls and hunky studs for every taste.
It's 1930s Berlin, and clouds are gathering while stormtroopers flex their muscles. But forget that - break out the bubbly and party.
Raymond Hawthorne's stylish, sexy production for the Auckland Theatre Company takes a straight - well, straightish - approach to the oft-performed musical.
It rips with glamour and panache through the tale of a stumbling love affair between Sally Bowles, a Chelsea flapper beginning to fray round the edges, and the opaque, asexual American writer Cliff Bradshaw.
The seedy environs of the Kit Kat Club herald the coming of the Third Reich as the doll-like boys and girls play their naughty games in shadows cast by huge classical columns.
Monumental as John Parker's set is, with its soaring height and orchestra set aloft, it is also intimate. Mirrors descend to create dressing rooms backstage or the lovers' small bedroom in Frau Schneider's rooming house.
Cabaret is, after all, a musical, and so gritty social realism has its place elsewhere. The club and its dancers are glitzy rather than seedy, and Sally Bowles, as played by Sophia Hawthorne, shows little sign of having been round the block more often than most of us have had hot dinners.
She has the sweet bloom of youth and a voice which, while it often has raw power, tends to be off-key in lyrical passages. She gives a highly intelligent performance but brings a quality of detachment which lies uneasily with the portrayal of an incandescent moth drawn too closely to the flames.
Ross Girven, as the emcee, is the undisputed star. A beautiful clown, he brings empathy and humanity to a role which is often simply a portrait of decadence. As silent witness to the bittersweet courtship of Frau Schneider and Herr Schultz, he brings almost unbearable poignancy to its sadly inevitable outcome.
Helen Medlyn and George Henare play the ageing lovers with a light comic touch and rare sensitivity. Their duets are a delight and Medlyn's voice displays operatic brilliance without over-powering the light texture of her songs.
Rima Te Wiata gives a bravura performance as Fraulein Kost, the lovers' neighbour who cannot resist a sailor - or two or three.
The cast sing and dance with abandoned precision, and choreography, music, lighting and costumes all contribute perfectly to the aura of sexual glamour.
Glitzy game played out in shadows
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