Review: Cabaret

The country is heading for destruction, but the cabaret celebrates

(Caption) Martti Suosalo plays the master of ceremonies of the Kit Kat club at the Helsinki City Theatre’s Cabaret.

Directed by Kari Heiskanen, choreography by Markku Nenonen, set design by Kaarina Hieta, costumes by Sari Salmela, conductor Timo Kärkkäinen, starring Jonna Järnefelt, Markku Nenonen, Nicke Lignell, Sinikka Sokka, Kai Hyttinen, Matti Olavi Ranin and Helena Haaranen. Second premiere 11.11. at the Helsinki City Theatre.

The American writer comes to Berlin, where the signs of rising Nazism and persecution are already in the air. There will be singing and dancing in the cabaret, and the author will get to know the singer Sally Bowles. Outside, the windows of Jewish movements are shattered and marching footsteps echo, but inside, the celebrations are as if before the end of the world.
The setting of the musical Cabaret, which is familiar to many as a film, is fascinating. Reality and escape from reality are equated with rapid cuts. From an extremely boisterous and erotic cabaret performance, we move on to a distressing life.
This opposition lies in the strength and originality of the work. However, Cabaret does not reach the level of the greatest musicals, at least not in the close connection of songs, dance and story. The song numbers do not develop the events, they are rather separate numbers that work well in themselves. And there are some real evergreens in John Kander’s music: Cabaret, Willkommen and the song about how money makes the world go round.

Tangible energy

Cabaret requires strong opposites in order to function. There are those in this implementation. Kari Heiskanen is a master at creating fast action, brisk pace and frantic turns. The energy of the cabaret numbers is palpable, as the stage is closed to the first rows and even in the second row there was a touching distance of the dancers.
The invisible boundary between the auditorium and the stage is broken right from the start: the audience has to play the role of the audience, because when you enter, the cabaret is preparing for the performance and the dancing girls, who are more seductive than each other, go around greeting the audience.
The pace of the cabaret acts was so fast that it even seemed to eat away at the more serious episodes of the play. Especially in the beginning, it was somehow difficult to get into the world of the characters in a credible way. Of course, little by little, Sally, the writer, the landlady and the Jewish fruit merchant began to grow into living figures. And in the end, even the master of ceremonies, hiding behind his role, began to feel human. The last image of the cabaret master walking into a smoky distance was wistfully effective.

Musical experts are already available

The set design is insightful, with a few changes, the cabaret sometimes becomes a railway station, sometimes a dormitory. Both the set design and the costumes combine decadence and splendour. The rhyme master Jukka Virtanen has also succeeded excellently: the Finnish translations of the songs are joking, but still clear.
There are already musical experts in Finland, in Cabaret for two crews. In this cast, the emphasis was on acting and dancing, with the exception of Kai Hyttinen, when the singing sounded more like a Finnish than an American musical style. But this requires more actors than singers, because Cabaret is not a well-composed musical, there are only 16 actual musical numbers.
The central character of the cabaret is Markku Nenonen’s efficient, unruly master of ceremonies. Jonna Järnefelt plays the powerful and rough Sally Bowles, Nicke Lignell the innocent writer, Sinikka Sokka the landlady who adapts to the realities of life. Kai Hyttinen’s role is too high for him, but he sings pleasantly. The music is provided by a large orchestra.