Cabaret: An Animated Summary

These animations are the subject of a New York Times interactive feature by Jesse Green, 'Reanimating Cabaret,' One Frame at a Time. 
 

As part of our preparation for the Harold Prince exhibition that opened last September, The New York Public Library digitized a large number of photographic negatives of production shots from several of Prince’s musicals. As a result it is possible to virtually reconstruct the staging of these original productions by arranging the hundreds of digitized photographs in the order of the show.

Harold Prince, the director and producer of Cabaret, borrowed a staging idea he had witnessed at the Taganka Theatre on a trip to Russia. Clips from a 1974 production at the same theatre were recorded by Dimitri Devyatkin and posted on Vimeo. The production made effective use of shadow projections, a technique Prince would use himself in many later works from Sweeney Todd to LoveMusik. He experimented with the technique in Cabaret as seen in these animations of a scene depicting the rise of the Nazis to power, photographed by Friedman-Abeles at the first photo call, but cut by opening night.

Many of the numbers in the musical take place in the Kit Kat Klub, a seedy cabaret inspired by one Prince himself used to frequent when he was drafted into the army and stationed in Germany just after World War II. The cabaret is a kind of parallel universe that comments on the action in the world off-stage. The world of the Cabaret and the outside world only occasionally intersect in the plot, but they are tightly interwoven thematically.

This summary of the show uses animations created from photographs of five different photo shoots. There are two collections of photographs of the original cast, the first of which depicts Sally in a blonde wig which was discarded by opening night. There is a second set of photographs of the original cast depicting the show as it appeared at the opening. Finally, there are photographs taken from the national tours of 1967, 1968, and 1969.   

The lights dim and a sign reading “Cabaret” lights up. There is a drum roll and the sign goes out.  

A Germanic vamp plays as the Emcee enters in a spotlight and welcomes the audience to the cabaret where “life is beautiful—the girls are beautiful—even the orchestra’s beautiful.” The dancers begin and the band plays as the Emcee continues to sing "Willkommen."

Cliff visits Fraulein Schneider and finds her more than willing to make a deal on a room. She accepts half her asking price and sings a song of resignation, “So What?"

It is New Year’s Eve. The action shifts away from the cabaret as a train car slides on stage. Cliff Bradshaw, an American writer, is sleeping on a seat. A German man enters the carriage, waking Cliff. He introduces himself as Ernst Ludwig. A guard enters for a customs check. He searches Ernst’s suitcase carefully but virtually ignores Cliff’s. While the guard is searching his suitcase, Ernst hides a smaller bag on top of Cliff’s case. When the guard leaves, Ernst admits to Cliff that he smuggles merchandise out of Paris. Cliff does not object. Ernst, having found a new friend, offers to take Cliff to the Kit Kat Klub. Cliff declines, saying he still needs to find a room. Ernst gives him a card with the address of Fraulein Schneider who, he says, has a variety of inexpensive rooms for let. The train slides off stage and the Emcee finishes his song.

Fraulein Kost, a prostitute who lives across the hall, enters and introduces herself. A sailor runs out of her room and into another. Fraulein Schneider shoos her away.

Rudolf Schultz, a Jewish fruit-market owner, enters carrying a bottle of schnapps. He invites Fraulein Schneider out on a date. Cliff sits down to work but seems to hear a woman in the cabaret calling him from a phone on her table. He packs up his typewriter and decides to go out to the cabaret to celebrate the new year.

The first performer at the club is Sally Bowles, an English singer. She sings a song with the other cabaret performers, “Don’t Tell Mama” pretending to be a young woman whose parents think she’s “living in a convent” or “on a tour of Europe.” 

Cliff is watching the show and drinking a beer when the phone on his table rings.

It is the performer, Sally Bowles, who has been eyeing Cliff during her last performance. She flirts with him, but when he offers to join her table she tells him it’s not possible “at this time.” Another man sits with her.

The lights go out. It is midnight, the start of a new year. When the lights rise Sally appears at Cliff’s table. They introduce themselves, and kiss.

A raucous New Year's dance begins in the cabaret in which the patrons call each other on telephones, swap partners, and kiss.

Later, back at his new flat, Cliff is teaching English to Ernst, the smuggler from the train. Ernst is trying to set Cliff up on a date.

Fraulein Schneider enters and announces the arrival of Sally Bowles from the cabaret. She enters with luggage and announces her intention to stay with Cliff. Ernst leaves. Sally negotiates a 50% raise in Cliff’s rent with Fraulein Schneider so she will be allowed to stay and begins to make a drink of raw egg and Worcestershire sauce to “cure a hangover.”

Sally reveals to Cliff that Ernst smuggles not merchandise, but money for a political organization. Sally sees that Cliff is reading Mein Kampf because, he explains, he wants “to know something about German politics.”  

Cliff expresses some reservations to having Sally stay with him, but Sally convinces him, in song, that it will be "Perfectly Marvelous."

The Emcee appears in the cabaret and sings a song ("Two Ladies") about how people in Berlin often have multiple, simultaneous, lovers. The song is meant to suggest the decadence of Germany at the time, and also suggest the “free love” attitude of the 1960s when Cabaret first opened.

Back at Fraulein Schneider’s rooms, the landlady is fighting with Fraulein Kost about the sailors she hosts in her room. Schneider tells Kost she can no longer have them over, and Kost warns that they pay the rent and she will have to move out if she can no longer host them. The argument ends in a stalemate when Kost locks herself in her room.

Herr Schultz arrives with a gift of a pineapple for Fraulein Schneider. The two sing a charming love song about the gift ("It Couldn’t Please Me More") and dance together.

Back at the Cabaret, the waiters sing a patriotic song ("Tomorrow Belongs to Me") as the Emcee watches from the side of the stage.

Back at Cliff’s flat, Cliff expresses his happiness about his new life in Berlin. Sally tells Cliff she is pregnant. Cliff responds with a mixture of anxiety and excitement.

Ernst arrives and asks if Cliff will go to Paris and smuggle a suitcase back to Berlin. Cliff, thinking of his new family situation, agrees.

Back at the cabaret, the Emcee sings "The Money Song," listing different ways to make money through unconventional means. He calls the cabaret women by the names of the currency of each country. Each is dressed in costumes representing national stereotypes.

Back at the flat, Fraulein Schneider encounters Fraulein Kost in the hallway as she is sending her sailors on their way. Schneider is surprisingly quiet, until Herr Schultz appears in the doorway. Schultz, to protect Schneider’s reputation, tells Kost the couple are to be married in three weeks. Although it is a lie, the couple consider the possibility in a song ("Married") and then decide to go through with it. Sally arrives and offers to plan an engagement party for the couple.

The action shifts to Herr Schultz’s fruit shop, decorated for the engagement party. Cliff returns from Paris with the briefcase he has smuggled for Ernst. The engagement party commences. Fraulein Kost arrives and her sailors dance with Fraulein Schneider.

Ernst arrives wearing a Nazi armband. Herr Schultz, a little drunk on schnapps, decides to entertain with a song that uses the Yiddish word, “Meeskite,” to describe an “ugly, funny-looking” Jewish boy who marries another “Meeskite” girl and together they have a beautiful baby, so attractive their friends say “He should pose for baby food.”

He continues the song as a duet with Sally.

Ernst, realizing Herr Schultz is Jewish, starts to leave abruptly. He complains that he cannot support this wedding and that Herr Schultz is “not German.” Fraulein Kost stops him and tells him she will make the party “amusing.” She leads the party guests in “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” The Emcee watches from the top of the stairs in the cabaret, smoking a cigar. 

Act II

The Act begins as the Kit Kat Klub dancers form a kick line on the stage. One of the dancers is the Emcee. The dance ends with the dancers goose stepping offstage shouting “Sieg Heil!”

Back at Herr Schultz’s store, Fraulein Schneider breaks off her engagement, telling Herr Schultz that she cannot risk being married to a Jewish man if the Nazis come to power. Herr Schultz tries to comfort her, and she is almost convinced until a brick is thrown through the window.

At the Kit Kat Klub, the Emcee sings a comic love song with a dancer dressed as a gorilla ("If you could see her"). The song ends with the horrifying anti-semitic line, “If you could see her through my eyes / she wouldn’t look Jewish at all.” The line caused such controversy in the original production that it was often changed to refer back to Herr Schultz’s Act One party song: “She isn’t a meeskite at all.”

Back at Cliff and Sally’s flat, Fraulein Schneider returns the couple’s engagement gift explaining that the wedding will not take place. When Sally encourages Fraulein Schneider to fight for the relationship, the older woman asks Sally to consider the fact that younger couples have more options and mobility. She sings “What would you do?” to Sally, but also as a question for the audience. 

After Fraulein Schneider leaves, Cliff tells Sally to quit the Kit Kat Klub because he wants to go back to America with her. She will start a new career as a mother, he says. She resists, but he is insistent. He tells her to pack, and leaves to try to sell his typewriter to pay for part of the trip home. He gives her a coin to call the club. According to the stage directions, she considers the coin then “...she makes up her mind. She springs up, grabs her fur coat, and rushes out the door.”

In the next scene, Cliff follows Sally to the Kit Kat Klub. He tries to convince her to give up her job. She protests that there is a Depression in America and there is no guarantee either of them will find a job there. Cliff tells her the only reason she got her job at the Kit Kat Klub is because she was “sleeping with somebody.” She leaves him. 

Cliff encounters Ernst who wants him to go on another smuggling run. Cliff refuses. Ernst insists and asks if Cliff’s resistance is “because of that Jew at the party.” Cliff hits Ernst and is then beaten by Ernst’s bodyguards.  

Sally appears and sings “Cabaret.” At one moment in the song, she passes behind the mylar curtain and then emerges into a section of the stage that is neither the club, nor reality. It is clear she is making a decision.

Back at the flat, Herr Schultz comes to say goodbye to Cliff and Sally. He is to move across town. Sally arrives without her coat. She reveals she has had an abortion, and gave the coat to the doctor in payment. Cliff leaves alone.

In the next scene Cliff is on a train, writing about his memories of the Cabaret. There are brief flashbacks. The Emcee appears, says goodbye to the audience, and runs off with his hand raised in a “Sieg Hiel.” The show ends with the mirror reflecting the audience members back at themselves. Prince wanted the audience to contemplate whether they are, like many of the characters in the play, abdicating their responsibility to fight for civil rights by simply enjoying the long party of the 1960s.  

One member of the audience on opening night was a 36-year-old Stephen Sondheim.

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