‘Cabaret’ Review: Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin Lead High-Style Revival That Cuts to the Bone
23.04.2024 - 08:08
/ variety.com
Naveen Kumar When Eddie Redmayne’s slithering Emcee assures the audience at “Cabaret” that “here, life is beautiful,” he’s telling a half-truth. The August Wilson Theater, done up like the Kit Kat Club for a bracing, high-style, Broadway revival that opened there Sunday, has indeed been transformed into a house of pleasure.
Entering through an alley and into fancified, jam-packed lobby bars feels like discovering a speakeasy inside a nightclub. The production is a hot-ticket escape from a city where police are breaking up student protests and a former head of state is on trial for porn-star bribery.
Inside the theater, the denizens of Weimar Germany writhing around this storied den are likewise at least temporarily inured from the political perils pressing on its doors. But in director Rebecca Frecknall’s ravishing and mercilessly introspective production of the 1966 musical by Joe Masteroff (book), John Kander (music) and Fred Ebb (lyrics), no one is safe from the turmoil rattling their psyches.
That twisted inner world is beautifully realized in a shadowy mélange of fringe and ruffles by the designer Tom Scutt, whose bawdy, under-the-big-top scenic and costume design is a feat of textures and deep, muted colors. Seating on either side of a circular center platform, skirted by VIP tables, lends the show an immersive feel, aided by Isabella Byrd’s sharp, captivating lighting.
Chic, circus-clown makeup (by Guy Common) shrouding the eyes of Redmayne and the limber ensemble suggests a sinister air of delirium as the principal players are introduced. Already near the end of her rope, Gayle Rankin’s coarse, determined Sally Bowles tries desperately to keep from spinning out before coming completely and furiously unraveled
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