Musical Lyrical Lingo
We're Musical Lyrical Lingo!
Join Tim and Lj who delve deep into the wonderful world of musical theatre and more importantly the lessons they have learned from different musicals.
Join them as they explore some of the greatest musicals ever created, from the classics to the new and exciting shows that continue to teach us something new.
So whether you're a seasoned fan of the stage or a newcomer, this podcast is for you.
So sit back, relax and get ready to immerse yourself in the world of musical theatre.
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Musical Lyrical Lingo
Cabaret and theatre's power and influence.
Ever wondered why some shows leave audiences spellbound while others are marred by poor etiquette? This week on Musical Lyrical Lingo, we promise to arm you with the latest in musical theatre buzz, from the Hollywood Bowl’s exciting summer showcase of "Jesus Christ Superstar" to the thrilling cinematic arrival of "Six" in UK theatres. We’re particularly thrilled about the musical adaptation of "The Parent Agency," especially since it's a special moment for us with our friend Sarah McFarlane stepping into a role. But it’s not all glitz and glam—our conversation takes a real-world turn with a candid discussion on theatre etiquette, sparked by a friend's less-than-ideal experience at "Hadestown."
Journey with us as we explore the latest revival of "Cabaret," a production that’s breaking barriers and setting a new standard for diversity in theatre. With the legendary talents of Marisha Wallace and Billy Porter taking center stage, this chapter of theatre history is as exciting as it is transformative. Their casting is more than just a role; it’s a statement for inclusivity and a testament to the tireless work of artists advocating for change. We celebrate the vibrant and evolving landscape of musical theatre, where new voices and visions are finally stepping into the spotlight.
As we continue our exploration, we peel back the layers of "Cabaret" to reveal its stark, contrasting themes alongside "The Sound of Music." Both musicals, set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany, offer powerful narratives—one ending in hope, the other in a grim truth. You’ll hear about the unforgettable contributions of creators like Harold Prince and Ronald Field that made "Cabaret" an enduring masterpiece. From the haunting melodies of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" to the poignant truths in "Maybe This Time," we unpack the emotional depth and historical significance that keep audiences both enchanted and reflective. Tune in for a conversation that promises to broaden your understanding of these iconic musicals.
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Hello and welcome to Musical Lyrical Lingo. We're your hosts, Tim and LJ.
Speaker 2:Today and every week we will be discussing musicals, but specifically what they taught us Welcome, bienvenue, welcome, welcome back folks.
Speaker 1:They came back. Hopefully you had a lovely lovey-dovey weekend last weekend.
Speaker 2:Love the pictures, Love them all.
Speaker 1:Have we got any? Who knows how are we doing this week.
Speaker 2:We're doing great.
Speaker 1:All good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Good stuff.
Speaker 2:Well rested and all that jazz.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, ready to go again. I'm good at the time of recording. I finished for a wee week's holiday tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Amazing Me too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. It's what the doctor has definitely ordered, lauren, but do you know what I've ordered? What have you ordered?
Speaker 2:Musical later news.
Speaker 1:You've ordered a wowser. Okay, that was interesting. It was very interesting Well.
Speaker 2:I'm coming up with a new way each week to get you to tell us all.
Speaker 1:Oh, that was nice. I like that. Well done, I've got two. So I've got two pieces of very exciting musical theatre news, I think, in my opinion. But then I also have a theatre etiquette question to ask you this week, because it is linked to the musical we're going to talk about. Okay, okay. So let's start with the exciting musical theatre news. So the musical has been announced for this year's Hollywood Bowl Summer Musical Spectacular. So you know the way the Hollywood Bowl have this thing that they do every year of reviving, you know the tradition of musical theatre productions playing in the iconic venue. Well, this year's, do you know this? Yet? This year's Hollywood Bowl Summer Musical is going to be Jesus Christ, superstar. Love it, I'm all for it. Yeah, I think that's a good choice.
Speaker 2:Hollywood Bowl summer musical is going to be Jesus Christ Superstar. Love that.
Speaker 1:I'm all for it. Yeah, that'll be. I think that's a good choice. I think a couple of years ago they did Little Mermaid and I was like what were they thinking?
Speaker 2:it was not great yeah, and did not do Lion King last year it wasn't great either.
Speaker 1:Oh, that was the one that Beyonce's daughter was. No, no, kim Kardashian's daughter was like Simba or something, or like Young Nala or whatever. Yeah, so that's exciting. I think that'll be really good. And this is even more exciting the long-awaited, professionally shot West End production of Six, the musical that was filmed in the vaudeville theatre, is set to be released in cinemas around the uk from the 6th of april.
Speaker 2:It is and the actually today time of recording. I think the trailer went live no way a couple of hours ago. Yeah, really I have and listeners.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen that yet, so my my fresh theatre news was even hotter off the press than that. Yeah, no very exciting Okay.
Speaker 2:Hold on, we've got some more things to mention.
Speaker 1:Oh yes, so David Bedell. I always get confused. Is it Bedell Bedell? So he obviously comedian we know him as a comedian in the UK but also then took to writing Musicals, well before musicals, writing children's books, and one of his children he wrote musicals before he wrote children's books. What musical did he write before his children's books then?
Speaker 2:We Will Rock you.
Speaker 1:Oh, did he? I thought that was Ben Elton. That's Ben Elton, lauren. Oh, I flipping love. I love when you get it wrong and you look at me like I'm stupid. No, that's the wrong person.
Speaker 2:Lauren, that's the wrong person. I'm tired.
Speaker 1:This Theatre News has got nothing to do with Ben Elton. Okay, it's got to do with David Bedell. Yeah, so his children's book, the Parent Agency, is going to be his first book that is having the musical theatre treatment and will be playing in the Storyhouse Chester from the 15th of February to the 2nd of March, prior to a planned national tour and London run. Now, what's even more exciting about this is we might just have a wee friend of the podcast that's just been cast in said the Parent Agency.
Speaker 2:And right now I think they're just finishing rehearsals and they're about to move into like London rehearsals.
Speaker 1:That's right, yeah, so all the best to your wonderful friend, sarah McFarlane, who is starring in that. That's exciting. It is exciting, but it is David Bedell's musical, not Ben Elton's. Okay, honest to goodness, you were looking at me like I had five heads going.
Speaker 2:Eh, excuse me, he's written loads of musicals, it's fine sometimes I get like so excited and then I just make stuff up I see letters d and b b oh, you just saw the b.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay that's it right, can I?
Speaker 1:can I speak to you about theater etiquette for a wee minute? Because, you know, nothing grinds our gears more than bad theatre etiquette. So a friend of mine and a friend of the podcast was recently in London seeing a few pieces of musical theatre. Now he saw the show that we're going to talk about today, okay, but he also saw Hadestown, which also has its own fantastic theatre news, but we'll talk about that in the next episode.
Speaker 1:But he had to go and see Hadestown twice.
Speaker 1:He had to return to see it a second time because the first time he went to see it on his trip he was sitting behind an audience member who was wearing a hat, a broad brimmed like not cowboy Stetson hat, but you know it was a lady and she was wearing quite a broad brimmed like fashionista kind of hat, right, quite a broad-brimmed like fashionista kind of hat right. Now he did politely tap her on the shoulder and ask her if she would mind removing the hat, just because he couldn't really see behind, to which he got a tut and her other party so who she was with proceeded to put his hood up and he sat through the first act of the show and really didn't see very much. Ended up going to speak to theatre management who moved him for act two, but he felt he needed to go back and see. I mean any excuse to go back to theatre, right, but he felt he needed to go back and see it again properly because he kind of didn't see much of the first half.
Speaker 2:That is wild, isn't that wild? I mean you don't need your hat on. Love, take it off.
Speaker 1:Right. So he did do the right thing in politely tapping her on the shoulder and saying would you mind removing your hat?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with that just like whenever we were in London and me and Aaron went to see Back to the Future, we had some people talking behind us very loudly in Italian and Spanish. So you know. We turned around and said you need to be quiet.
Speaker 1:Do you know Italian and Spanish?
Speaker 2:Well no, I just knew it wasn't English.
Speaker 1:I was like that's amazing. You told them to be quiet in Italian and Spanish.
Speaker 2:No, they both are no, it was actually really bad that um ushers didn't have to come and like shine the lights and stuff in them, but I mean but no, usher came near her.
Speaker 1:Oh, did they ask her as well? I don't know if they did.
Speaker 2:I can't remember that part of the story no, I think that's fine, like okay, fair enough, you've asked somebody to take your hat off and they've chosen not to. That is just a bit rude.
Speaker 1:There's not really anything you can do about that, though, but do you think that theatre ushers and theatre management you know the way they check your brags as you're coming into the theatre? Should they check your headwear?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think if it's going to be obstructing somebody's, for you.
Speaker 1:That's a beautiful hat, madam, but would you mind, when you take your seats in the auditorium, taking it off? Yeah, even if you haven't washed your hair that day, yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean the lights go down.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that is 100% the right answer, but I just thought that's an interesting theatre etiquette question to bring to the pod Listeners out there. He might even get in touch, he might go. That story is completely wrong. You picked it up the wrong way. But uh, other theater, uh other podcast listeners, do get in touch. If you have any of your own theater etiquette dilemmas or questions for us, it'd be good to bring them to the pod now let me ask you oh, whenever you were an usher, would you have said thousand percent, yeah, but I feel I was a bit of it.
Speaker 1:I was a bit no holds barred in my ushering. I didn't take no nonsense because as a theater goer and a theater lover I there was empathy. I completely understood what would be annoying and what wouldn't be annoying, you know popcorn, we we're not a cinema. Oh listen, I lost my rag when the theatre I was working in decided all of a sudden, overnight, they were going to start selling popcorn. I think I famously went. What is this a?
Speaker 2:cinema.
Speaker 1:We don't eat popcorn when watching the show. I refused to sell it. You needn't put me on that stall. I'm not selling that popcorn. It all came out. You can imagine, can't you? Oh?
Speaker 2:100%.
Speaker 1:Anyway, there we go. I just thought, hmm, interesting, must bring it to the pod. See what we think.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, thank you for that.
Speaker 1:Not at all. Shall, we move on to this week's musical, then we are very excited. Yeah, absolutely. And we kind of gave a bit of a clue on our intro, didn't we? We said welcome, bienvenue, welcome. So this week we are doing Are you going to tell, like I'm doing the intro? Oh right, sorry, cabaret, welcome, bienvenue, welcome. That's one of my on list to play characters. Yeah, I want to play the mc and cabaret, not sally balls, just the mc.
Speaker 1:You could play sally balls I'll play sally what god is sitting alone in your room love it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, cabaret, a big musical a big musical, yeah, a lot of um to unpack yeah, a lot to unpack and I learned a lot, not necessarily from the actual musical, but just a lot around it yes this week, um, and it's very much in our world because of this. What it's doing, like sally and mc are two different people every oh, you're talking, you're.
Speaker 1:You're talking about the one that's the, the one that's in the west end at the moment, and I think they're starting to do that on broadway, too, aren't they? They're starting to bring in, like, yeah, which is? Which is highly annoying because, obviously, the revival of cabaret opened in london. Is it three years ago, two years ago?
Speaker 2:2021 isn't that insane actually was like no, they've got that wrong yeah they've got the wrong, but it only that then transferred to broadway just at the end of 2023 going into 2024. So I think that's where I was getting confused because Eddie Redmayne. He moved over. So I think I was like no, there was absolutely no way that was 2021.
Speaker 1:So he opened it as MC in London and then has just opened it in MC in Broadway. Yeah, and at the time like for the first year I think, if not longer when it opened in London, you could not get a ticket for Love no Money, like it just was impossible. So you kind of think a musical that is that popular for the first year and a half, say, of its run, eventually the popularity will start to die down. It might still be a very popular show but you have a chance of getting some tickets. But now they've started, as you say, to do this replacing the sally and the mc, because they're getting these fun and the names they're getting are fantastic.
Speaker 1:But obviously, because they're big stars in their own right in different franchises or in TV and film, they do limited runs, which means the popularity continues and you still can't get a bloody ticket. And it's like at some point I would like to see this revival. I don't, at this point I almost don't care who I see in it, I just would like to see it because all you hear is how it's insanely brilliant it is. Do you know what I mean? But you can't get tickets for love no money.
Speaker 2:So are you going to talk about who is currently?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, right up to date, um, marisha wallace and billy porter are the latest duo to take on the roles of sally bowles and mc. They started on the 25th of january. Now, marisha wallace um, we kind of already know she's got her British citizenship. She's done quite a few musicals now in the West End and I'm on her number one fan list. But this will mark Billy Porter's West End debut and he is a massive singer and actor with many accolades to his name, including an Emmy for his role in the TV series Pose. Did you see that?
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Lauren, you need to go on and watch the three seasons of Pose, you would love it. Oh, you've got to watch it. And also musical theatre fans know him for his Tony-winning performance originating the role of Lola in the original Broadway Kinky Boots. So welcome to both of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he was on Graham Norton.
Speaker 1:He was, he's fabulous he is great.
Speaker 2:He brings so much light and joy to all of his interviews. But really interesting was and we'll probably talk about it is there was a really big, famous musical back in the 90s and he asked to be part of that but, um, they said sort of like no production of cabaret yeah, and this is this will be the first time that the two leads in cabaret are played by persons of color yeah which is crazy that it's taken yeah, and like, when he got the new back, then he, he went away and he did the research.
Speaker 1:Because I think the answer that he was given was it's not what we're looking for, almost like, yeah, you're not the right colour, yeah, um, and he, to his credit, went away and did his um research. And what he's saying rightfully, and what marisha is saying as well, is we were always there, two people of color. We've always been there, even dating back to, you know, um 1930s. You know berlin, you know germany, you know you know Berlin, you know Germany, you know they, you know people of colour were still there. So why on earth can we not get cast in shows like Cabaret? So it's iconic. What's going on? It's groundbreaking and it's never been seen before for this musical and that's really exciting. And I just think fair dues to you for continuing to bang on those doors until producers actually go.
Speaker 2:No, absolutely yeah, no great, and I think as well, like Marcia said she's going to, I want to play Sally. I want to play Sally she did and then she said and Billy will be MC like yeah, she got in contact with the producers, didn't she?
Speaker 1:and she was like any chance? And, and, to be fair, the producers didn't think about it and went, absolutely, but who, who could play your mc? And she was like, uh, my mate, billy. And then she just phoned him. Yeah, if you're in the uk and you have access to the Graham Norton Show, go and listen to that interview. It was really interesting and he's just entertaining anyway, isn't he Billy Porter, like in everything he does?
Speaker 2:And I can't look up the names. I don't have them written down because my phone is currently being used. My phone is currently being used, but at the moment in broadway, um, we have got a sally and we've got an mc and their names have have escaped me. This is terrible. It is um, the girl who does the voice of moana, and she was also in mean girls okay, yeah I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say it correctly yeah so I don't, I don't want to.
Speaker 1:And then mc is adam lambert, is that yeah?
Speaker 2:and really significantly as well, he is um, he is jewish and um, as he says, he um, he is like. When they were performing there a couple of weeks ago, it was also, um, you know, reminiscent about what goes on in this musical and this terrible stuff that happened in Nazi Germany, and he's a Jew and he is queer, and it's really important to have constant representation, also in 2025. So it's just lovely that across both productions, people feel like they're having a voice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there are a few. Let's talk about the musical then. So there are a few more important musicals on Cabaret. Importantly, yes, it was a big hit, spawned a great film and incorporated a clutch of famous songs that are recognisable, even done. I think non-musical theatre fans would know some of the Cabaret hits. Do you know what I mean? But more so it's important, more so because of what it tells us about ourselves, you know, and what it gets it makes audiences question, you know, when they go and watch it. The story concerns the doomed love affair between Sally Bowles and Cliff Bradshaw, a young American writer, conducted in the shadow of the encroaching Nazi regime. Their relationship first soars effortlessly towards marriage and emigration to America, but ultimately ends in sadness, abortion and separation. The material centres around a seedy Kit Kat cabaret club and the lives of its patrons and performers in Berlin, immediately pre-World War II.
Speaker 2:Yeah, book by Joe Mastersoff, lyrics by Fred Ebb and music by John Cantor. So it did open in 1966, on the 20th of November my sister's birthday, but not 1966 at the Broadhurst Theatre and it had 1,165 performances. Hal Prince was the director.
Speaker 1:Yes, he has a very important role to play in all of this.
Speaker 2:Major. We also have just talked about Hal Prince from his West Side Story work too, so another little connection there. Like we planned it, it we didn't sally at the time was jill halfworth and the mc was joel gray so yeah, go um back into um all of that, but um, it then went to the west end on the 28th of february 1968. It only had, and it was in the palace theater. It only had 336 performances. Cass was Judi Dench.
Speaker 1:I was about to say, but it had Judi Dench yeah.
Speaker 2:Sally was Judi Dench and MC was Barry Denham. Then, most famously, is director Bob Fosse took it on in 1972, where it won eight Oscars 1972, where it won eight Oscars as it starred Liza Minnelli as Sally and Joel Grey reprised the role of MC. It is said to be one of the most daring musicals, and everything that you spoke about there. It is based on a play called I Am a Camera, which was also based upon Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So John Kander and Fred based their work on Isherwood's 1935 memories of pre-Nazi Germany, which then later became that play and then a film called I Am the Camera. Yeah, I Am the Camera.
Speaker 2:Yeah, play and then a film called uh, I am the camera yeah, so these stories um chronicled the young british writers visit to the city when nazism was taking a grip on germany, and it's almost important that that is how this musical is always staged. That something bigger is going on, yeah, in the peripheral, yeah, but it's not directly affecting these characters, because nobody back then could have yeah ever imagined what was going to, but that's it.
Speaker 1:That's it's candor and ebb's masterstroke was to realize the supreme irony that, while the berlin cabarets were nightly filled with laughter and indulgence and decadent pleasure seeking, frighteningly out of place in the city, that was engineering one of the most terrific campaigns of genocide the world has ever known. So in the show, under the disguise of entertainment, the performers could satirise the Nazis almost as much as they wished, you know, and the show's greatest question became how long will the audience, and in some cases the performers themselves, ignore what they are actually being shown? Yeah, and it's just so clever, so very, very clever, and it should hit you.
Speaker 2:You know the very end should not. It's hard to say it should be a shock, because we're watching it post-World War II.
Speaker 1:It's a shock.
Speaker 2:But it should you know, because we obviously know what went on. But it should be a shock because you've almost been welcomed into this, not a safe space at all, but you've been welcomed into this club where everything else can be left at the door and you just have good fun. But that is not the case, yeah.
Speaker 1:Listen. The first time I experienced Cabaret was a UK tour and production of it where at the very end, the performers, who have been wild and debaucherous and entertaining the whole way through I'm getting emotional Stripped down on stage and walked into the gas chamber. They were gassed and that's how that production of it ended and like Talk about blow to the stomach, like you felt it in your gut and you went because you were. Oh, my goodness, what am I watching?
Speaker 2:yeah, you'd spent time with these. Yeah, there's these people on stage.
Speaker 1:And then, all of a sudden, and, as you say, you don't expect you like. You know, you know the time in which the show is is, you know what happens, but you just don't expect it at the end of Cabaret.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and funny. I was watching a documentary.
Speaker 1:Episode four documentary tally number two.
Speaker 2:Where it is comparing Sound of Music and Cabaret on how they both talk about the same subject but with different emotions, and how they hit you very differently. So we know that they're Nazis and everything that is going on, but the ending of Sound of Music is much more hopeful while Cabaret is definitely. There's not as much hope in yeah, as there is. Yeah, that's it sound of music, um what I also talked about, that lovely production that you just mentioned, um, with our lovely friend of the pod, francis oh yeah yeah, so I know that was a production of that.
Speaker 2:I'd seen too, and you were totally right just that moment where they walk on shocking as it was, because they were naked. You're going. Oh, I know why they're naked. Yeah, that's right, because they're watching this after the fact and you're like, oh my goodness, this is so sad.
Speaker 1:That's right. Francis Forman brought that up in his interview. Yeah, interestingly, before Kander and Ebb, british composer Sally Wilson, who had just enjoyed five years of a West End run of the Boyfriend can we do that musical this year, had independently begun a musical adaptation of Isherwood's book. However, step forward, mr Harold Prince. You don't mess with Harold Prince, do you? And his structure stature. He acquired the rights and felt that Sandy Wilson's musical efforts missed the required mood. So that's when John Kander and Fred Ebb were hired to write the songs instead, and Kander and Ebb researched the period carefully, soaking themselves in the 1920s. German jazz and the music is sublime.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I have a little thing here that I want to read out.
Speaker 1:You're reading from one of your wee books again that we talked about in West Side Story.
Speaker 2:So Joe Mastersoft said that the idea for Cabaret came from Hal Prince, and Prince was attracted to the notion of adapting the IM camera, as we have spoke about. Eventually, during some talks, they decided to structure a musical drama based more on the original stories than on the play. Prince saw parallels between anti-Semitism and corruption of Germany's Weimar Republic of the 20s and early 30s in the racial unrest in the mid-60s America. I went so far in one draft of the show to end up with a film of the March on Selma and the Little Rock Riots. But it was a god-awful idea and I came to my senses. Strangely, it was initially decided to recruit British composer Sandy Wilson to write the music and the very English Julie Andrews to play Sally Bowles. No, because it was Wilson's trial. Songs sounded too much like those of the 25th. The Boyfriend and Julie's manager refused to allow her near the project because of the subject matter.
Speaker 2:So Prince next then suggested Kander and Ebb as composer and lyricist, and then the company signed choreographer Ronald Field, whose experience in nightclubs resulted in a wealth of ideas for setting the musical numbers. And I think that is key because there is a grittiness and a realness to this Kit Klap Club where you feel, no matter what production you go and see, of it, because there is a grittiness and a realness to this Kit Kat club.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when you feel, no matter what production you go and see of it, yeah, that you are in a club.
Speaker 1:And I think the most up-to-date revival that we were talking about. You know that's on at the moment is the grittiest revival version there's ever been. That certainly seems to be what's coming out of of. You know the critics who have seen it and people we know that have seen it themselves.
Speaker 2:I think it's because they've gone back to this idea too is everybody was pulling on ideas of what they knew, and we know that that's where theater yeah magic is in theater if you write about something you know, there's a passion about it.
Speaker 2:So Prince was stationed with the army in Stuttgart in 1951 and he remembered a notorious nightclub situated in an old church basement. He clearly remembered the show's master of ceremonies His hair lacquered, flat lips made up in a looted red cupid's bow this part here and a great false eyelashes fluttering. This would be central figure for prince's show, a commentator and character at the same time. The cabaret itself would become a symbol for the ugly, mindless gaiety of inflation, devastation and the fascist berlin. A further visual influence was the satirical paintings of george gross, a german artist who lived in berlin at time. So so much influence to make you feel like you were submerged in that period.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Can we talk about our Sally Bowles quickly before we move on to what we learned? We've already learned a lot, really, from our background, from the background really. But obviously it would be a miss of us to not talk about judy dench for a wee minute. So, um, judy dench was the sally in the 1968, uh, west end production in the palace theater and critics uh, asserted that judy dench was the finest of all the sallies that appeared in Hal Prince's original stagings. And if she obviously was not much of a singer which Judi Dench is not, we know that about her. Her Sally is a perfect example of how one can give a thrilling musical theatre performance without a great singing voice.
Speaker 2:So this is a question that is constantly asked around cabaret Should Sally be a good singer or should she not?
Speaker 1:No, because, in fact, the major flaw, in my opinion sorry, just my opinion, folks, just my opinion it might not be a no, but I think it's a no Because, in fact, the major flaw of the 1972 film is its strongest asset the casting of Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles. So it has come to be the role that has defined Minnelli's career yeah, you know, made her step away from her mum's yeah you know she seized her big numbers like a true star, shining, you know, with the highest wattage she could um.
Speaker 1:but that was the problem because Sally Bowles is a small-time singer who will never reach the top in terms of character. Minnelli's just too good of an entertainer, you know, and I think that means Judi Dench was right and Liza Minnelli was wrong Shock, horror. What would Paddy say? I know.
Speaker 2:I can see both, because whenever we're introduced to sally, sally is meant to return. She has been away from the club for a while, so you know, sometimes you can see if she's a good singer. She's maybe been off doing something else and she's come back or is it that she's a really bad singer and she never was.
Speaker 1:You know, if she was better, she wouldn't have been in the cabaret clubs. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:So which is really hard now when you've got some amazing singers yeah and sally it's like. Is that the right direction to go?
Speaker 1:however, are they singing it amazingly because I remember when the the most recent revival the first cast, you know, we said that Eddie Redmayne was the first MC in the revival, but the first Sally Boulds to be cast was Jessie Buckley.
Speaker 2:It was Emma before that.
Speaker 1:Emma. So why did Jessie Buckley do the cast recording then?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was Emma and Eddie. Eddie like way, way, way, way, way back, and then they sort of like when it opened in london and then 2021 was eddie okay.
Speaker 1:But I remember when the cast recording came out with eddie redmayne and jesse buckley jesse buckley was singing cabaret life is a cabaret and it was like all over the place and it didn't sound pretty and it didn't sound like amazing and everybody was like kind of poo place and it didn't sound pretty and it didn't sound like amazing and everybody was like kind of poo-pooing the cast recording and I was like no, you people don't get it. I do a musical theatre podcast. I know what I'm talking about. No, but I was like, no, you don't get it. Like that is part.
Speaker 1:Like that is the perfect yeah you know, interpretation, that's the way it should be. You know, at times she's like shouting and that's it.
Speaker 2:I think sometimes some actresses try to really sing those songs yeah they are meant to yeah get under your skin in like a bad way.
Speaker 1:yeah, so I'm hoping from your original question why are they casting these great singers? I'm hoping from your original question why are they casting these great singers? I'm hoping that it doesn't matter how great a singer you are, it is being done the way it should be being done, because Jessie Buckley's got an amazing voice. Yeah, true, Do you know what I mean? And she won the Olivier for it. And you know, I didn't realise there was a Per Emma. I didn't even know the Emma that we're talking about before Jessie.
Speaker 2:See, I'm terrible with names. I couldn't picture her face and everything I just need to. As I'm getting older, my memory is definitely not as good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell me about it, sister, right Shall, we move on to our musical lyrical lingo then, absolutely.
Speaker 2:So my first thing that I learned was about this massive production in 1993 that was directed by Sam Mendes.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:It was originally in the Don Maher Theatre.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And then it transported to Studio 54.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And it had Jane Hork as Sally Little voice. Which literally screened it, and we had Alan Cummings.
Speaker 1:I didn't know that this was then brought back in the early 2000s yeah exactly the same production yeah, it was so of its time was so groundbreaking and like powerful, like it was so successful as well.
Speaker 2:So that was a major thing I learned. And then also I learned about how Prince used the opportunity for Cabaret to become the first concept musical, okay, a show with a serious central idea, to which all elements of the music and the staging are then related. Though technically Cabaret is half concept, half traditional Songs are used to develop characters as well as things.
Speaker 1:So that was my major learning yeah from the musical I learned quite a lot from the lyrics. Obviously, in the first uh number it opens the show and mc sings welcome, and I've done it a couple of times, so I'm not going to do it again, okay. Well, welcome, ben Avenue, welcome. And here MC begins a pattern that continues for the rest of the song, where he sings the phrase first in German, then in French and then in English, and that was a way of appealing to the Kit Kat Club's linguistical diverse crowd, and you know he does. There's many phrases that he sings in. You know that order, you know German, french, english.
Speaker 1:The same thing he also sings in here life is beautiful, the girls are beautiful, even the orchestra is beautiful. That idea of in here life is beautiful, beautiful. It was the underlying, this was the underlying message of Cabaret, and we've talked about it. The ignorance of this line comes back many times For a musical that set in 1931, during the rise of the Nazi party. The people of Cabaret and much of Germany willfully ignored the issues that were beginning to arise until it was too late.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and each character had a reason why Cliff was, you know, he was new in town so he didn't really understand. This is maybe just something that was going on. Fourline. Schneider too old, can't get involved. Sally too focused on um. You know her, her life and whether mc you believe mc is real or a fragment of it's an he's an interesting cat or they're an interesting character yeah, it's interesting that that yeah, you know it's actually very real.
Speaker 1:Yeah, their thoughts that people would have today yeah, funny, you should mention fräulein schneider, um and her oh, she's gorgeous, sweet character. Uh, older lady, as you say, um, living on her own. She sings a song called so so what? And she sings my summers were spent by the sea, so what? And I had a maid doing all the housework, not me, so what? And that specifically you know, that line she actually in the original text in the books. Um, she spent her summers in the baltic, and these lines about a maid and vacation were taken directly from the ashwoods ashwoods book goodbye to berlin. Oh, there you go. It was the first time I probably understood that, taken directly from the Ashford's book Goodbye to Berlin, oh okay, there you go.
Speaker 2:It was the first time I probably understood that they were talking about marks. It was actually the currency at the time, so that was definitely something. I learned from the lyrics and just quickly jumping back to O Willkommen, was I never realised how sexual that song was whenever I was originally listening to it.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean most of the Kit Kat stuff.
Speaker 2:So that definitely was a lesson that was learned the older I got.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that song. Yeah, fraulein Schneider also has another, another song called it Couldn't Please Me More. When she meets a gentleman, a Jewish gentleman, yeah, and she sings if you brought me diamonds, if you brought me pearls, if you brought me roses, like some other gents might bring the other girls, it couldn't please me more than a gift. I see a pineapple for me, because he brought her a pineapple the first time I ever saw it I was like what I just a pineapple, why? But actually, although pineapples are now just another fruit, we don't appreciate a pineapple. They were originally considered a delicacy item and a show of wealth in Europe, since getting one required connections or more to having a piece of fruit shipped across like the Pacific Ocean in a timely manner.
Speaker 2:And people used to rent pineapples to get their portraits taken.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they looked fancy and wealthy. And then we did talk about Fräulein, didn't we? When we were talking about Sound of Music, yeah, being a title or how to address an unmarried German woman, yeah, it came back to me. I was like Fräulein. I know what that means from Sound of Music.
Speaker 2:One of my favourite songs in cabaret is Don't tell Mama, don't tell Mama.
Speaker 1:Don't tell Mama what you do?
Speaker 2:Which is the city? Tell Mama, don't Tell Mama.
Speaker 1:Don't Tell Mama what you Do which is the city in Belgium. Yes, she also sings. Keep this From my Matter. Matter being the German for Mama. Though my dancing is not against the law, she sings, and that's ironic, because being a cabaret dancer and an implied prostitute in the show is the reason Sally will actually be sent to the death camps at the end of the show. What about tour ladies? Do-do-do-do-do-do Tour ladies, do-do-do-do-do-do Tour ladies.
Speaker 2:I think I was more focused on the actual musical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do-do-do-do-do-do. I think I was more focused on the actual musical. Yeah, I love it so much. Doodly-doo-doo-doo and I'm the only man. Yeah, you can see that one of the ladies is actually a man. Yeah, and that's because in that time homosexuality wasn't accepted. No, can we talk about? Probably the most. In my opinion, one of the most hard-hitting of the musical numbers is Tomorrow Belongs to Me.
Speaker 2:Okay, what makes you say that?
Speaker 1:Well, because the story is set in Berlin immediately pre-World War II, set in Berlin immediately pre-World War II. Kander and Ebb needed to supply a faux Nazi anthem, so they wrote Tomorrow Belongs to Me and they came up with this beautiful, yet chilling, purposeful anthem-like song. When Cabaret opened, its writers actually received many letters condemning them for the use of a real Nazi song. When Cabaret opened, its writers actually received many letters condemning them for the use of a real Nazi song. So people who heard it thought it was a real Nazi anthem. And according to Mark Stein in his history of musicals, broadway, baby Say Good Night. One audience member even swore, blind, that he remembered hearing the song in a Nazi death camp, as victims were herded off to the gas chambers.
Speaker 1:The song was a pure invention of Kander and Ebb, but it had a nerve, as it was intended to do. One of the lines says but gather together to greet the storm. Tomorrow belongs to me, and the title of the song communicates a subtext that rise of fascism. It is brutal and by placing the song in the voice of a boy soprano leading a crowd of patriots, kander and Ed mix the optimism towards the future with the foreknowledge that Germany would go down a dark path, and the point of the song is that bad ideas don't present themselves as bad ideas. They present themselves as and, more importantly, are considered by people who hold them to be good and noble.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, so it's a cross between an a cappella folk song.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's noble yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So it's a cross between an acapella folk song yeah, that's right. Yeah, tomorrow Belongs Me has a chilling beauty and is one of the most dramatically effective songs in the show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're totally right. Closing the first act with a bang sung empathetically Aaron Flaxen Herdius is one of the most innocent and most malevolent of moments. Ebb very cleverly begins with images of a stag in the sunshine, the green of the lime tree and the gold of the rye, in order to underline the links which fascists made between their policies and the laws of yeah this was the only off-stage song retained by the film. Okay, because the film obviously, if you only know the film, I would encourage you to just do a stage version.
Speaker 1:And there's a lot of differences to the stage version on the film.
Speaker 2:Like lots Characters are put out and characters put in.
Speaker 1:It's almost like two separate, aren't they?
Speaker 2:This is the only off-stage song retained by the film and gained greatly on celluloid by being shot on location in a rural setting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and one of the lines. The branch of the linden is leafy and green. Symbolises peace, love, unity and protection. In many cultures, particularly in Europe, as the linden tree is often considered as a sacred tree associated with community gatherings like marriages or healings, its branches are seen as a representation of those positive values you know back to. You know people not seeing bad things as being bad things and seeing them holding to be good and noble you know, oh, it's maybe this time, though, which is a song which was just for the film maybe this time the musicals.
Speaker 2:A lot of people say that that song is liza minnelli yeah you know, um, and that is the reason why it took she is the song that's why it took on um this like whole persona and that's just what you were talking about in the beginning. There's maybe songs which people are aware of, but they maybe don't know about cabaret, but they'll know songs.
Speaker 2:So yeah just a little bit. The song was written for the film, though it um has turned up in revivals of the stage show. It is particularly interesting for the way in which it encapsulates the personality of Liza Minnelli herself, for whom it was specifically written. Her doubts, energy, romanticism and sensitivity are all in evidence. Candor and Eb have always mirrored the contradictions of Minnelli's life in the music they have written for her. One could almost say they have structured her public image. In this song. Sally Bowles is Liza Minnelli.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fair, that is very fair. Yeah, I mean, the characters are like. Sally Bowles is a brilliant character, as is the MC and, as you say, what is he like In one of his songs? If you Could See Her where he it's in the Kit Kat club and he's with a gorilla and he's in a relation so, so bizarre, but so clever at the same time.
Speaker 1:You know, candor and ebber underlined the warp reflection that was their kick-ass club with its odd and unsettling mc, by having like real life plot yeah, um goings on or episodes directly corresponding to songs that were being performed in the club. So at this time in the musical, sally Bowles' landlady Fraulein Schneider is worried about her love affair with the Jewish man, the lovely man who brought her the pineapple, and the club's MC introduces a flamboyant number in which he complains that nobody approves of his own romance with a gorilla. That song ends with a sudden and I think the most brutal payoff line in the whole show where he sings If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all. And it's another like punch, like kick in the stomach, and I'm not jewish. So you know, for you know, jews that must like horrend, like you just can't imagine, can you? You cannot imagine what they've lived through. The lines and songs are a comment to the way german society viewed jews during the nazis rise to power, as demonic and not as human beings.
Speaker 2:Like just yeah, this was apparently. This idea was concocted by Eb himself, and then he presented the idea to Prince and he was delighted with it. However, the song gave the show's creators a bit of a headache when a Jewish pressure group objected strongly to the guer slash jew yeah equation. Thus, the song's last line was altered it was productions too, she isn't uh miskite yeah, yeah all.
Speaker 2:Miskite means ugly face in yiddish. Um, but I mean, if you look at that you're like why is he dancing about with gorilla? But it's so clever that it's like there's so much context in this musical like and you go this is ridiculous.
Speaker 1:And then you get that last line and you go you, almost well, you do, you feel guilty for going, what was that number? Or like what is this number? Because then you hear that last line and you go oh crap, right, okay it's almost like an onionness, isn't it?
Speaker 1:you peel away so many layers thousand percent um, and like each one's gonna make you cry yeah yeah, and for many years elsie in cabaret completely confused me. You know the way she sings. I used to have this girlfriend known as elsie. Yeah, so like Elsie isn't actually real in reality. Now that I've listened to it and I'm a wee bit older and I'm going oh, elsie's not Elsie. Elsie was just a metaphor for Sally's lifestyle. She's saying she wasn't what you call a blushing flower. As a matter of fact, she rented by the hour. So flowers are associated with fragility and beauty and blushing with innocence. You know it insinuates that Elsie is actually a prostitute. Easy to infer that Sally was at one time a lady of the night. She sings what good is sitting alone in your room, which refers to the large population who had to hide or were afraid to go outside as the nazi party slowly took over. As you say, like onion layers depth, depth, depth, too clever yeah, do you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like too clever for some, too clever for me, yeah, for the first probably 10-15 years of my life until I go oh, my goodness, I fully get it Like I actually get it now as to how ridiculously clever but also powerful saying at the beginning. It is probably one of the most important musicals out there. For what? Yeah, what it encourages their audience to think about or to question or to see within themselves the song should do that as well.
Speaker 2:And funny that line that you mentioned. Um is also, it seems, innocent um, as you said, but it's also a little jive to those that are sitting doing nothing whenever something is happening.
Speaker 1:Well, funny, you say that because I think if it's not my favourite song, it's one of my like. It's the song I want to sing most if I ever play the MC. And it's his last song. I Don't Care Much. I don't care much. Girls, alan Cummings, his version of it. He also, alan Cummings, did his own like like album and he does a brilliant version of this on his album. Go and listen to it. But anyway, he sings in I Don't Care Much. He sings in I don't care much. Warnings fair, I don't care very much. And that's mc's character, representing the, the spirit of germany at the time, and the sentiment here is that people in society were often not recognizing or ignoring the rise of nazism, um, or even being influenced through propaganda to not feel particularly opposed to a belief that you know, a belief system that wasn't actively affecting their own lives.
Speaker 1:It wasn't affecting them at that time, thus enabling that harmful ideology to kind of, you know like grow and you know like grow and you know that indifference or that apathy or lack of care that was in Germany at the beginning of yeah, oh god, aren't you glad you live now and you didn't live then.
Speaker 2:I mean, there's definitely we've talked about this before how musical musicals are great, that they teach you something. Yeah, and we can't rewrite history and I don't ever feel like we should, because I have but we can most certainly learn from it.
Speaker 1:Do you not think like musical theatre students should have to study? Like a musical, like cabaret?
Speaker 2:Rather than like Blood Brothers. Do you mean like you feel?
Speaker 1:like yeah, but I just think it needs like I think there's so much in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it would be an excellent text to study. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:There you go. Do you have any stand motivations?
Speaker 2:I love, maybe this time.
Speaker 1:Maybe this time I love Joel Grey, Alan Cummings, Judi Dench and Jessie Buckley.
Speaker 2:Very good.
Speaker 1:They're my.
Speaker 2:Wayne Sleep and Toya Wilcox also did a production. Yeah, I saw Wayne Sleep, but wasn't that fussed. I quite like Wayne Sleep, and Toya Wilcox also did a production. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I saw Wayne Sleep, but wasn't that fussed?
Speaker 2:I quite like Wayne Sleep and some stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, some stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, like you said, tickets are hard to come by.
Speaker 1:It's so annoying. I really want to see this new revival.
Speaker 2:I wonder would they ever do pro shots? Do you feel like pro shots are becoming more and more?
Speaker 1:popular? I don't know. Yes, to answer your question, I do think pro shots are becoming more popular, but I also don't know if this production of Cabaret is right for a pro shot. You won't get the right impact because sure they've rebuilt the whole theatre like, apparently it is like you walk. You don't get the right impact because they sure they've rebuilt the whole theater it like it, apparently it is like you walk. You don't go in the front of the theater, like they take you in a side door, it's like you're going.
Speaker 2:You're going into a german cabaret club yeah, well, the sam mendes version is online yes, and I, yes, has not seen it, and it's excellent.
Speaker 1:It really is good.
Speaker 2:It's weird to say that, though it is, the production is wonderful.
Speaker 1:No, the production is wonderful. Yeah, absolutely. And Alan Cummings in, that is like what.
Speaker 2:And also be prepared. If you are even listening to the musical for the first time, even just soundtrack wise, and you aren't, you know it is quite gritty. It's listening to the musical for the first time, even just soundtrack wise, and you aren't, um, you haven't. You know it is quite gritty, it's a gritty musical so um.
Speaker 1:It's not going to necessarily leave you feeling happy no, but I also hope maybe listeners who haven't experienced a soundtrack of cabaret before might understand it a bit better having listened to this episode. I hope that's what we're here for. We don't blow our trumpet. But what I mean is we've talked a lot and in a lot of detail, I feel, in this episode about this musical that hopefully if you're listening to the soundtrack post listening to this, it might, you might get it a bit more and might get the grittiness a wee bit more because you have a bit more of what's behind it yeah, and do you also see the film and cabaret, the musical, as two separate?
Speaker 1:things, yeah, I think.
Speaker 2:Sometimes people think they're the same no, definitely not yeah what bob fososse did was a really interesting film, yeah, but it definitely, I think, definitely hit the mark for a couple of those characters like a four-line, schleider and Schluz yeah. Schluz.
Speaker 1:Not her.
Speaker 2:No, not him. They are not in it and I feel like they're missing, though there's two other characters.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:It just doesn't hit as well as they do.
Speaker 1:Do you know what Cabaret? The film never really did hit with me for some reason. But anyway, shall we move on to this week's what Paddy will do? I'm going to ask you again because it involves, like the leading lady really, this week. So what would Paddy do? Reprise Liza Minnelli's role in Cabaret or Paddy Lepone's role in Evita?
Speaker 2:Oh, so what would she rather?
Speaker 1:perform. What would you do? Would you rather reprise Liza Minnelli's role in Cabaret or Paddy Lepone's role in Evita? And you have to perform that part as that person. So Eliza Minnelli, sally Bowles or Paddy LuPone, evita, it's a hard one this week, isn't?
Speaker 2:it. Do you know what I think? I'm going to go for Evita, because I love the way Paddy goes yeah, he loves you or he supports you.
Speaker 1:It's one of you. If not, how could he love me? I think it's my favourite bit of the whole show because of Paddy.
Speaker 2:I think I could do Liza well, but I would love the challenge yeah, the sass of patty's evita.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's a way to practice that, folks, until next week, folks, bye.
