If you’ve seen more than one production of the Kander & Ebb musical Cabaret, you might have seen it as a big Broadway musical as Hal Prince staged it. You might have seen the more club-type atmosphere of Sam Mendes’ production with Alan Cumming and Natasha Richardson. But have you ever seen it in an immersive space where your feet might stick to the floor because of body fluids, sweat and blood? That’s exactly what director Michael Matthews has planned for Celebration Theatre’s production of the classic musical. His production is now in previews in advance of its gala opening on June 2nd.
I recently spoke with Matthews, who in addition to directing this production serves as Co-Artistic Director at Celebration Theatre, about the challenges of doing a show so strongly associated with its film, making the show his own and the perpetual topicality of the show’s themes.
How influential are other productions by Hal Prince and Sam Mendes and the Bob Fosse film for you as a director? Do you embrace their existence or act as if they never had been seen?
I have to treat it like no one has ever seen the play before, but I’d be a fool to not know. I have to make sure I don’t copy or imitate. But there’s so much in the ’98 production [that Mendes directed] that’s influenced by all of them. I’m going very very bare bones with the show. The whole theatre is done into the Kit Kat Club itself. Nothing new there. We call it our sticky floor cabaret. Your feet stick to the floor due to body fluids, sweat and blood. We have a cast of 13, so we whittled down a couple of ensemble members. It fits like a glove in that space.
What role does ambiguous sexuality play in this production? Does being at Celebration Theatre give the audience an expectation that you will be edgier than the Broadway revival had been?
Yes. Yes. Our whole show, choreographically speaking, we’re going with burlesque. All the boys and girls the movement is burlesque. It’s definitely a strip tease. Each number has a peel-away moment. We’re really going there in a great way to go with the mission of why we are doing the show. It will be very immersive and fully character-driven. No nudity though.
We’re talking and you are about one month into rehearsals. What have you learned about Cabaret that surprised you?
That it’s a meta-musical. It’s a play with music. It was actually super refreshing. I feel like every single song happens because it has to happen. It’s necessary. Every single one. That’s why it works so well. Every song pushes the story forward.
In the past couple of years, Celebration Theatre has had great success with reinventing big splashy musicals [The Boy From Oz, Priscilla Queen of the Desert] to fit into the small space you have. Why do you think they’ve been so successful?
Michael Shepherd and I, we are storytellers and we love to tell great stories really well. We also love the intimacy the space gives us. You can do anything in that space and we’re going to make it happen. The closer people get to the show then the story gets told in a brand new way. We don’t want you to lean back and relax. We want you to scoot in and watch.
Christopher Isherwood, whose book I Am A Camera was the basis for the musical, once wrote, “If it’s going to be a world with no time for sentiment, it’s not a world I want to live in.” Is there sentiment in Cabaret that isn’t somehow sullied by the situations surrounding these characters?
Oh absolutely. There’s still sentiment at the same time as complete despair, outrage and heartbreak. It comes from it. We care so deeply about these characters.
From your perspective, what makes Cabaret a show that not only continues to entertain, but also provokes?
My favorite thing about it, and one of the things I’m working on, is that it’s so crazy to do this show because it felt like it could have been written yesterday. It resonates so well with what’s happening today in our world. How did we not learn these lessons? That’s pretty powerful. We’re not just doing a show for a show’s sake, but because it’s relevant. And cabaret is all about that.
Photos of the cast of “Cabaret” by Mae Koo