BROADWAY HAS A MIRROR FOR US

It is probably just a coincidence that two revivals on Broadway this season are being performed in the round. What may not be a coincidence is that in doing so, both productions hold a mirror to the audiences watching those shows. We may not like what we see.

In both Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club and An Enemy of the People the audience becomes an additional character in the productions. Both shows have the audience on all sides -which can probably also be said to be true about their opinions of the themes of both shows.

In Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People (with a new script by Amy Herzog), Doctor Stockmann (Jeremy Strong), who cares very much for the well-being of his community, finds himself fighting those in power when he discovers the water that would feed the public baths the community sorely needs for economic reasons is contaminated. His deeply held concern for the health of his fellow citizens does battle with the people in power, including his own brother (Michael Imperioli), who is the town’s mayor.

The literal mirror in this production comes at the beginning of the second act when a public forum is held so that Stockmann can discuss his findings. The house lights are kept on after members of the audience have been encouraged to sample a beverage on stage during intermission. 

Some of those audience members remain on stage and serve as fellow citizens. The rest of us remain silent partners in the proceedings. Just like we are to most actions taking place in our own communities. We remain silent. 

Yet who amongst us does not have an opinion (whether independently formed or guided by whichever news outlet most closely aligns with our beliefs) about the power structure in politics? The health and well-being of ourselves and our communities? Can and should science be believed?  Should profits for the few be given a greater sense of priority over the health of our people?

Perhaps you should ask the people in Flint, Michigan for their answer.

Or look at any number of the issues your own city is facing.  

What director Sam Gold’s production does so simply and so effectively is make each of us who attends think about these issues in our own lives. How complicit are we in what happens or doesn’t happen? Just take a look in the mirror that An Enemy of the People brilliantly offers. Not bad for a play that debuted in 1883.

83 years later, composer John Kander, lyricist Fred Ebb and book writer Joe Masteroff had their musical Cabaret take Broadway by storm. It is based on a 1951 play I Am a Camera by John Van Druten which was itself based on Christopher Isherwood’s 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin.

The 1930s was a pivotal time in German history. Isherwood’s own experiences in the late 1920s to early 1930s as the Weimar Republic was coming to an end and Hitler and the Nazi party was rising to power.

That was certainly a good time to say goodbye to Berlin.

One need not look too deeply into today’s headlines to understand that this musical is, and sadly will perhaps always be, topical.

Critics have been deeply divided about Rebecca Frecknall’s production. The experience begins 90 minutes before the show starts as the audience walks through the alley on the east side of the August Wilson Theatre to enter the theater. Once you’ve made your way into the theater you enter the debaucherous world of the Kit Kat Club complete with performers doing various acts and drinks a plenty.

The musical starts and the Emcee (Eddie Redmayne) welcomes us to Cabaret. He tells us that we should leave our troubles outside. The creators, of course, had other ideas.

We find ourselves, once again, looking at the action from all sides and at each other. Audience participation as we start act two further deepens our ability to look at our neighbors. Another mirror has been constructed for us.

I’ve always felt that the regrettably evergreen relevance of Cabaret requires little to make us keenly aware that issues of antisemitism are unlikely to go away anytime soon. No matter how brilliantly staged, should we applaud the end of Tomorrow Belongs to Me? Or should we be appalled? Or both?

As an audience member we get to make that choice and see our fellow theatergoers wrestle with that same dilemma (if they wrestle with it at all) in our shared mirror. But we’ve always had that choice with Cabaret. For 58 years this incredible musical has asked each and every one of us the same questions. How those questions get posed to us vary from production-to-production.

Yet the questions must continue to be posed. The audience must continue to be involved. The mirrors must be in place and remain there.

Perhaps someday that mirror will tell us who is the fairest society of them all.

An Enemy of the People received 5 Tony nominations and plays through June 23^rd at the Circle-in-the Square Theatre in New York.

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club received 9 Tony nominations and has an open-ended run at the August Wilson Theatre in New York.

Main Photo: Victoria Pedretti, Caleb Eberhardt and Jeremy Strong in “An Enemy of the People” (Photo by Emilio Madrid)