Black

Stratford's Cabaret
Was quite a disappointment,
All icing, no cake.

Those who know me well know that Cabaret is near and dear to my heart for many reasons. It was unfortunate, then, that this production missed the boat on a great many counts. It spent all of its time trying so hard to be clever -- and even worse, trying to TELL us how clever it was -- that the impact of the story was sacrificed. The whole thing played out with such emphasis on technical gimmickery and "big dance numbers" that the the audience was kept at an arm's length from the characters themselves. A series of missed opportunities ran into another series of missed opportunities; the director seemed to throw things in just for the sake of it -- seemingly "setting rules" for the world she created -- and then threw them out the window just as randomly. And the Emcee? Just a non-entity. Wandered through the show without power over anything, least of all the audience. I'm not saying it's the actor's fault (though I think he was miscast, in any case) since the director didn't seem to want to give his character any focus, any teeth, regardless.