The Making of Cabaret by Keith Garebian (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Making of Cabaret by Keith Garebian Valerie Joyce The Making of Cabaret. 2nd ed. By Keith Garebian. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2011. pp. xiv + 232. $19.95 paper. “Cabaret is not just a musical,” Keith Garebian asserts in the new preface to his second edition of The Making of Cabaret. Rather, he argues, it is “a rare balancing act that is both entertaining and instructive and that manages to make music, dance, dialogue, and décor part of the action rather than restrict them to serving as mere divertissements” (xiv, xi). Garebian’s work on Cabaret, which is part of his larger body of work on groundbreaking musicals such as West Side Story, Gypsy, and My Fair Lady, is also an impressive balancing act of entertainment and instruction as he deftly and deeply explores the historical, artistic, and structural process of creating and producing a groundbreaking musical. [End Page 125] In this new edition, which updates and expands the 1999 original, Garebian has cut “much of the extraneous biographical background on the major collaborators in order to concentrate more sharply on aesthetic and sociocultural issues that did not receive much discussion in the first edition” and has included several images of the most recent revivals (xiv). Garebian begins with “Bowles and Berlin” and “Prince of Broadway,” detailing the origination of the Sally Bowles character and the adaptation process from her inception to her arrival on Broadway. He introduces Christopher Isherwood’s biography and his Berlin Stories, the tales chronicling his experiences in pre-World War II Germany. Garebian then traces John Van Druten’s stage and film adaptations of Isherwood’s character in I Am a Camera, including biographical information on Julie Harris, who starred as Sally Bowles in both versions. The focus of the chapter then shifts to Harold Prince, the innovative director of the 1966 Broadway original production of Cabaret, whose imprimatur, Garebian argues, is indelible. In “Curtain of Light, Tilted Mirror,” and “Cabaret Ambience,” Garebian examines Cabaret’s original production design, with a particularly useful analysis of the political and social milieu of real German cabaret and the ways in which Prince and his team both utilized and missed opportunities to exploit the Brechtian elements available to them in the richness of their Kit Kat Klub setting. Garebian specifically focuses on Boris Aronson and Patricia Zipprodt’s work in sets and costumes and thoroughly examines the production’s “single greatest design element,” the giant mirror that hung over and reflected the audience, which he uses as a metaphor throughout the text (49). After providing thorough biographies of composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb, Garebian insightfully analyzes the incorporation and application of a camp aesthetic in their musicals and specifically in the Kit Kat Klub performances of Sally Bowles and the emcee in Cabaret. He also examines each song in the original score, detailing the writing process for each collaborator as well as their decision-making, rehearsal, and revision processes as the musical found its final form. Wading into content that could easily become mind-numbing, Garebian’s work here is balanced by his inclusion both of descriptive passages of character work and plot concerns and of analytical details concerning orchestration and complex rhyme schemes. Throughout The Making of Cabaret, Garebian provides biographical material for the stars of the musical, as well as anecdotes that enhance both the context and interest of the narrative. In “Casting” and “Rehearsals and Boston,” he covers the major players in the original production, Lotte Lenya, Joel Grey, and Jack Gifford, among others. He also provides some of the most comprehensive [End Page 126] research collected on Ron Field, Cabaret’s choreographer in 1966 and 1987. In the chapter “Broadway Presentational,” Garebian provides a balanced assessment of the original production’s achievements and faults, covering both financial details and the reviewers’ responses to the Broadway opening and the cast, with particular attention to the much maligned Jill Haworth as Sally Bowles. Overall, his work on the original production firmly institutes it as a pivotal musical in its historical moment. In “Reincarnations and Revisions” Garebian examines the two major Cabaret reincarnations, the 1972 Bob Fosse film and the...