CABARET
At
Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace
(Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace Website)
100 Drury Lane
Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois 60181
630.530.8300

Through October 11, 2009

Book: Joe Masteroff
Based on the Play by John Van Druten
and Stories by Christopher Isherwood
Music: John Kander
Lyrics: Fred Ebb
Produced for the Broadway Stage by Harold Prince

Producer: Drew Desantis
Executive Producer: Kyle Desantis
Producer: Jason Van Lente
Associate Producer: Gary Griffin
Director: Jim Corti
Music Director: Doug Peck
Artistic Director: William Ostek
Scenic Designer: Brian Disney
Lighting Designer: Jesse Klug
Costume Designer: Tatjana Radisic
Sound Designer: Cecil Averett
Assistant Choreographer: Erin Thompson
Fight Choreographer: Jarret Ditch
Properties Designer: Greg Isaac
Stage Manager: Thomas Joyce
NY Casting Consultant: McCorkle Casting, Ltd.
Press Representation: Noreen Heron & Associates,
Kate Hughes, Lianne Wiker, Brenna O'Leary

Starring:
Zarah Mahler, Jim Weitzer, Patrick Andrews,
Jarret Ditch, Kent Haina, Amber Mak
Christine Sherrill, Amanda Tanguay, Gary Carlson,
Stephane Duret, Jennifer Knox, Nicole Pellegrino,
Holly Stauder, Erin Thompson, Molly Curry,
Rebecca Finnegan, Rob Lindley, Buddy Reeder,
Joey Stone, Melissa Zarmemba, Brandon Dahlquist,
Michael Glazer, David Lively, Summer Rich, Richard Strimer

Orchestra:
Maria Honigschnabel, Bonny Brown,
Michele Lekas, Amalie Smith, Juli Wood,
Sarah Allen, Linda Van Dyke, Rachel Levin

Susan Weinrebe
July 31, 2009

Like a train speeding toward an abyss, Drury Lane's Cabaret hurtles through the decadence and growing social decay that was Berlin just before the darkness of the Third Reich. With Patrick Andrews as the Master of Ceremonies, this incarnation of Cabaret has you from hello, or more specifically, “wilkommen”. Past notable Emcees, Joel Grey in the 1960's and Alan Cumming performing in the notorious, defunct Studio 54 in the late '90's, left their imprints on the show. No less can be said of Andrews.

Slightly built, he uses boyish impishness to beguile and then shock with the shenanigans he oversees at the Kit Kat Club. Controlling the rhythm of the acts, both licentious and acrobatic, serving the tastes of the clientele who want what the club offers, Andrews masterfully directs the audience down a dark path. Romping with the dancers at the club or frolicking in bed in the
hilarious number, "Two Ladies," he teases with his naughtiness before he delivers the damning punch-line in "If You Could See Her." Whether wearing his tuxedo, boxers, or garter belt and high heels, this Master of Ceremonies uses his bedizened sly eyes and charisma to mask the decay to which he is both party and victim.

Each version of Cabaret makes the most of its interpretive license. Joel Grey became a living death's head by the end of the show. Alan Cumming shed his leather coat to reveal a concentration camp striped uniform and strode off stage with his arm around one of the male dancers. Andrews, dressed in the mufti of a normal citizen in a suit, departs the rising Nazi state in the same train car that appeared at the beginning of the show.

Brilliantly staged to include the layered depths of the Kit Kat Club, a railroad compartment and a bedroom within a boarding house, the scenic design makes a relatively small stage large enough to hold the multitudes of dancers, musicians, and denizens of the club. From the rising of a train
car at the start of the show, to the smoky portrayal of the nightclub, every inch of the set reeks with the authenticity of the period.

The story line of Cabaret revolves around a young American, Clifford Bradshaw, on his way to Berlin where he hopes to energize his writing career. As fate and fateful plotting have it, a young German befriends him in his train compartment and launches Cliff, the naïve and pliable
foreigner, into the generally verboten pleasures of the Kit Kat Club.

It is there that Cliff meets the hyperkinetic and ebullient Sally Bowles, an English ex-pat who lives only for the moment. Sally soon brings zest to Cliff's staid and dull existence and, in so doing, forces him to test the trueness of his moral compass. Zarah Mahler's husky voice and huge energy more than filled the stage. Utterly entrancing in the part, she played the self-destructive young woman with all the tenderness and cruelty inherent in the thoughtless young. Allowing herself to cry several times in the persona of the young woman who, like a moth, inevitably chooses to fly towards the flame, Ms. Mahler made me feel that I wanted both to shake and protect her
Sally.

In the boarding house where Cliff finds the cheapest lodging possible, the landlady, Fraulein Schneider played by Rebecca Finnegan, shows us what a survivor does to live another day. Ms. Finnegan is a powerful singer who musically sorts out her nihilistic philosophy of life in "So What" and "What Would You Do". She shows us an ordinary person who rationalizes any
compromise of values in order to live. Ms. Finnegan imbues her character with pity, enough that we do not end up despising the landlady for her choices.

The train metaphor persists as each character chooses or has chosen for him the track that will decide their fate. We, as an audience, having partaken of the forbidden delights of the time and place in Berlin, dread what we know is to come. The stunning Drury Lane production of Cabaret, the Tony Award-winning musical, demonstrates that this show retains the power to entrance and shock an audience.

Zarah Mahler as “Sally Bowles”
in CABARET at Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace
Courtesy of Johnny Knight

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Zarah Mahler as “Sally Bowles”
and Jim Weitzer as “Cliff Bradshaw”
in CABARET at Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace
Courtesy of Johnny Knight

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Patrick Andrews “Emcee” and Ensemble
in CABARET at Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace
Courtesy of Johnny Knight

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Rebecca Finnegan "Fraulein Schneider"
and Christine Sherrill “Fraulein Kost”
in CABARET at Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace
Courtesy of Johnny Knight

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Patrick Andrews “Emcee”
in CABARET at Drury Lane Oakbrook Terrace
Courtesy of Johnny Knight

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For more information, contact Dr. Roberta E. Zlokower at zlokower@bestweb.net