CABARET the musical

Rating: ***
Cast: Fei Xiang, Emma Yong, Karen Tan, Jason Chan, Daniel Jenkins

Watched on 22 Jul 06 at Esplanade with Chup.

I particularly love Fei Xiang's performance as Emcee! He's really good with the right accent at the right moment. Emma's singing is quite impressive too. For a local production, I would say we are doing quite well. Some scenes left me quite bored and sleepy though...

the one who will let Chup comment more about the musical...

The good news; it is staged here. That’s no mean feat. The other good news; the play is a separate and different work, as good as if not more captivating than the movie. There’s no Mein Herr, no bisexual love triangle, the other couple in love are older and simpler, and they don’t have happy ending like the movie. (In the movie, the non-Jew converted to Judaism and they get married in a synagogue.) They also had lovely songs that the movie did not have.

The bad news, like the movie, it is not a very likable musical, partly because it was not meant to be. It is a musical with an “issue”, and the lighter moments are like sugar to coat over the bitter pill. The second act is dark and despairing, hence it is also mercifully short. The other bad news is Emma Yong sings the theme song Cabaret like she was singing the National Anthem. There was no modulating the speed, no lowering of eyelids, not huskiness, no fire, no connection with the audience; just a school girl rooted to a spot and made to sing a song memorized by rote. Yes, she was different from characters she has played in other musicals, but why should that matter? She wore red underwear in one number, but her body language said, please end this soon. It was painful to watch her. But then again, she has the unenviable task of living up to a legendary performance. The 1972 movie won 8 Oscars including one for Minnelli’s high voltage sizzle. Liza Minnelli immortalized the character of Sally Bowles with slurred speech from too many cigarettes and liquor, with what we would now call the Jack Sparrow looniness. Liza was Sally in real life, all sex and booze. Emma was the amatuer pretender. The Straits Times and Today had reviews that praise Emma Yong’s performance. They were far too kind. I was kind to her in what I wrote of The Man of Letters and A Twist of Fate. But not here. (Sadly, the 1997 interview of Liza Minnelli showed the sorry state of her voice. She was a spent force way before her time.)

Can I be kinder? Yes. It was wonderful, marvelous theatre, darlink. It was never dull, even when the German-accented dialogue was undecipherable. Pity the serious miscasting of Emma Yong as Sally Bowles.

Chup