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[0:00] Richard Israel: I mean, let's be honest. You are an award-winning musical theatre director, Richard. I mean, we're just being honest here. Yeah, I mean, that's just, those are just facts, people. Do you have someone that you look up to as, like, an icon of directing musical theatre?

[0:17] Richard Israel: That is a great question. I will say it depends, actually. I don't think there's any director that I said, oh, gosh, I really want to match that person's style or sensibility. I love Bart Sherer, I think, is like a whiz with the classics, because I think he's really great at, like, taking the classics and just blowing the dust off of them, still maintaining what they are and what the creator's intent was, but just making it feel really fresh. If it's, you know, I mean, obviously, Hal Prince could do anything. I mean, he's definitely a big part of this show that we're talking about today.

[0:54] Richard Israel: Completely, and also was a producer. He didn't just think with an incredible artistic eye, but he also thought in terms of what is doable, what is achievable. Like, I don't know if that necessarily consciously entered his calculus, but it's just there. Like, I ran a theatre for a long time. I know what these things cost. And so, for better or worse, I'm always kind of thinking in terms of, like, oh, my God, am I asking for the moon? And sometimes, yes, and sometimes I'm going to, because I need the moon.

[1:24] Richard Israel: And those are just facts. That's just real, people. So, yeah, I don't know that there's necessarily a specific director that I have tried to model myself after, because to be in all humility, like, there are some things I've done where it's like, nobody would have done that the way that I did that, and I'm really proud of that, you know? And then there are some people like Marion Elliott is amazing, and she makes me want to not direct anymore, because she's so smart at every single thing she does that I'm like, I never... Confession, I don't know who this is.

[1:55] Richard Israel: Curious Incident.

[1:56] Richard Israel: Oh.

[1:57] Richard Israel: And the London Revival of Company that was supposed to open in New York with a female Bobby.

[2:02] Richard Israel: Got it. It's interesting, because last week we covered Merrily We Roll Along.

[2:08] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Who did you do that with? You know that's my favorite show on the planet.

[2:10] Richard Israel: I know it's your favorite show. Jen Shelton actually picked it out.

[2:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, cool.

[2:14] Richard Israel: Which I thought was really cool. And anyway, it was really, really fun to talk to her about it.

[2:18] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That's amazing.

[2:18] Richard Israel: But in talking about Merrily, there were some big, big misses that Hal Prince made with that show originally.

[2:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, yeah.

[2:26] Richard Israel: And then you look at Cabaret, and you just see like this huge home run and groundbreaking ideas brought to the theater. It's fascinating that one career can have such influences one way or the other, which to me seems like the definition of auteur, right?

[2:44] Richard Israel: 100%. Yeah.

[2:46] Richard Israel: And in the past, I've said that I think that most auteurs in musical theater are composers or composing teams, because they are so intrinsically tied to what material gets chosen and the tone in which it's presented, both from a feeling place and from a hearing place. And yet, Hal Prince makes me think otherwise.

[3:07] Richard Israel: Yeah, well, here's what I would say that's such a great observation. And somehow, as you're saying that in my gut, I actually think it's weirdly a straight line from Cabaret, you know, through to something like Merrily, because I think, I know we're not talking about Merrily, but here's what happens, I think, is that if you're Hal Prince, and you have knocked things out of the park fairly consistently over the course of your career, there is no reason to think that casting a bunch of 20 year olds in that show is a bad idea. And it's not arrogance, and it's not ego. It's just that like, there is a world in which you say, Oh, my God, and I know what we're gonna do. To a certain degree, genius requires risk.

[3:48] Richard Israel: Absolutely. You know, you look at 19, what is this, the Tony season was 1967 for Cabaret. And so you look at what else is coming out that year. I Do, I Do, The Apple Tree, Walking Happy, those are the other musicals nominated for Best Musical along with Cabaret. Like, one of these things is not like the other. Right? I mean, talk about taking a risk. But in this case, it paid off.

[4:14] Richard Israel: Well, yeah. And the thing is, it's, to me, that's so indicative of the 60s, right? Like, the transition from kind of the early 60s of Camelot and the Dick Van Dyke show. And by the time we were in, you know, 67, 68, 69, we were doing hair. So it's like, you're really in this very, very transitional time. And these things, I think they're not gradual, right? They're not like these even little slopes. They're like these jarring and especially artistically, like, you're gonna have Robert Mapplethorpe, who is like, taking pictures of penises and like freaking out the world. But ultimately, like, he is pushing things forward. And something like Cabaret, which is sure was like super jarring, especially as compared to The Apple Tree.

[5:02] Richard Israel: I Do, I Do, for Camelot. I Do, I Do, which is like, I mean, nice show, couldn't be tamer. So if you look at something like Cabaret, which just was like a taser on people, that's the beauty of what we do. It's open to everybody. It's open to every frame of mind. And then people either latch on to it or they don't.

[5:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Welcome, everybody to a musical theater podcast where we discuss the cultural and emotional impact of some of our favorite musicals in theater history. My name is Jeffrey Scott Parsons, you can call me Jeff. Today we are talking about Cabaret with musical theater director and performer extraordinaire. Are you still performing?

[5:46] Richard Israel: I am not.

[5:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Do you like sing around the house and delight everyone?

[5:55] Richard Israel: My neighbors love it. No, I don't even really sing around the house. I just I, it was a fairly, I would say it was a fairly clean break.

[6:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: We parted ways. It's Richard Israel, everyone.

[6:07] Richard Israel: Hello, everyone.

[6:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hi, Richard. Thank you so much for doing this.

[6:11] Richard Israel: My pleasure.

[6:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Now, you are notoriously one of the least social media people I know.

[6:18] Richard Israel: Thank you.

[6:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And I say that as a compliment, truly. But like, if I were to say, message you on social media, there is no guarantee that you will see the message, let alone respond.

[6:30] Richard Israel: That's absolutely true. Like maybe months down the road when I get reminded that, oh, Facebook is a thing where people can actually contact you and they might need something. But that reminder hits me like once every couple of months or so.

[6:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: That being said, you've converted a little bit, a little bit.

[6:51] Richard Israel: Yes. One of the unintended consequences of a global pandemic.

[6:55] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. Right. Now, what is behind this intention? Can you share with everybody?

[7:00] Richard Israel: Well, I mean, here's the thing. It's super easy to just watch the news all day and then eat as many carbs as you can to make up for having watched the news all day. So, yeah, I think we're at our laptops a lot. And so I found myself on Facebook much more than I than I have been. And it's a wonderland. And it's also accessible. And again, not like our current political and social situation was news to me, but it was surprising to me how many people I know who know people who are diametrically opposed to where I sit. And, you know, I'm typically someone who I was a canceler before canceling was cool. Like it's just it's pretty easy to cancel president. Totally. It's always been pretty easy for me to be like done.

So I found myself kind of doing that. And then I found myself really looking at that and examining that and the reality that nothing's going to change if all we do is just cancel each other. Like that's not how societies evolve. And I know that that's not super lofty. And I make no pretense that I am I am hereby evolving society. But I do think that we're in a situation where you have to be vocal. I can't help but feel like the answer to tribalism can't be tribalism. Right. And if we're trying to build bridges, then we have to do the uncomfortable work of actually building them. Yeah. And look, that doesn't mean that you can't be angry and it doesn't mean that you have to be nice, because I know that sometimes we confuse being nice with being clear.

I'm not saying that, but forcing ourselves awake to that is everything that cabaret means to me. Yeah. Which is why I'm really excited to talk about the show. Also, I mean, do you like cabaret? I haven't even asked you if you actually like the show.

[8:52] Richard Israel: What if I was like, I think it's actually you saddled me with this stupid show? No, I love it. You know, that feeling like when you start falling for somebody and like your heart starts racing and but it also feels like your tummies and it's like those weird heart cramps, like being twitterpated. I felt that when I started thinking about the show, and I realized like how desperately I missed the magic of what we do. I guess the show is a symbol of that for me. And I didn't realize that I did it. It was one of the first times I was really cast against type. And I played the MC. And I mean, it apparently changed my life.

[9:34] Richard Israel: Well, I could be wrong about this. But I do think that it's probably a lot of people's first as performers or as creatives. I think it's a lot of people's first exposure to a show that is sort of popular entertainment that actually is very political in nature.

[9:49] Richard Israel: So it's sort of like Spring Awakening, right? Subject matter, not at all. But vibe wise, I just know like every actor who's ever done Spring Awakening in college, they're like, it's the most significant show ever in my life. And it is and it should be and I directed it and it was very significant. But I think part of that is that there's an irreverence to it. There's a subversive quality to that show that like if you are in that show, and if you were sort of at the beginning of your career, there's something like super naughty and super like I am an artist and I am like subverting the world. And I think Cabaret is that for a lot of people, because, again, it sits in this interesting hybrid place where you as a theatre, you can do Cabaret and nobody's going to be like, that's a weird little political show. It's like it is a marquee title that people will come see. And it also messes with you.

[10:45] Richard Israel: Yeah, you know, that's what I love so much about Kander and Ebb. They are the kings of giving you quintessential Broadway, something that sounds exactly like what your grandparents would listen to, you know, on their compilation of greatest Broadway hits. And yet sitting in the theatre and experiencing it is something subversive and so much more beyond what it sounds like.

[11:05] Richard Israel: Kander and Ebb, they've cracked the case on that. They do it better than anybody.

[11:09] Richard Israel: And like anybody. And you don't realize it, right? Like, A, what's interesting is I think when people think of Kander and Ebb, they just think of like, light and fun. New York, New York.

[11:21] Richard Israel: Exactly. Like that's where people's brains go. But like I did a little research, Florida Red Menace, Cabaret, Chicago, Zorba, The Rink, Kiss of the Spider Woman, Steel Pier, Scottsboro Boys, The Visit. There is not like a crowd pleaser. I mean, there are accidental crowd pleasers. Chicago is set up as a vaudeville. It is the structure of vaudeville. It lives in vaudeville. Scottsboro Boys, same. It is set up as a minstrel show. And so if you know anything about that stuff, you're having this meta experience of like, oh, my God, I'm watching a vaudeville. I'm also weirdly invested in these characters in Chicago, Cabaret, a million percent. Like, I don't know how they'd figured that out, but they did.

[12:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So let's talk about John Kander and Fred Ebb, who are this legendary musical theater composing team.

[12:08] Richard Israel: John Kander from Kansas City, Missouri. So he's a Missouri boy. Fred Ebb, I believe, from the East Coast. Both educated. John Kander meets Fred Ebb through his music publisher. They get put together. They write the song called My Coloring Book, which becomes a huge hit for, is it Barbra Streisand? She covered it. I don't remember who sang it first, but then she did a cover and somebody else sort of famously did a cover. It's an amazing song. They work really well together. They're infamously known as a composing team that composes incredibly quickly. They have written songs in 10 minutes that have stayed in shows and become really popular songs.

[12:48] Richard Israel: And this is, I think, one of the key elements to what they were able to unlock. They are not precious about their stuff. And even when we're talking about a show as legendary as Cabaret, this is not a musical like Oklahoma, where you're going to see a revival and someone's going to walk out of and say, can you believe what they did to Cabaret? You know what I mean?

[13:13] Richard Israel: Oh my God. A hundred percent. It's not the Bible. You can kind of do whatever with it and whatever has been done with Cabaret every time that it's mounted, every time a revival comes around when they did the film. It's a completely re-envisioned show. And I think there is something to that in the magic of this songwriting team. It has to be tied to this really great subversive edge that they're able to bring to all of these different stories. Right.

[13:39] Richard Israel: Well, and also, I mean, sadly, we're never not going to be under the threat of tyranny. And it doesn't matter who's in the White House. And it's not just tyranny in the way of like, there is this dangerous leader. It's tyranny just societally. So the reason that a show like Cabaret, it just stays with us. And I was thinking a lot about this, Jeff, actually, because I keep coming back to Shakespeare and I don't make that comparison lightly at all. And I'm not rolling through saying, well, Cantor and Abbot and Masteroff are the Shakespeare of our day. But the parallels are that you can conceptualize.

[14:24] Richard Israel: Want to know why? Because it's over 400 years old. It is universally resonant themes. Like, you want to put Romeo and Juliet in an aquarium, do it. Because it's like, it's universal themes. And if you want to figure out some 21st century way of like serving that up so that we get it, do it. And weirdly, like Cabaret, for some reason, the way that it hangs together, the way that it's constructed, I think it does hold up to conceptualization within reason. Because what it addresses, it's not going anywhere. It's weirdly sturdy. It just hangs in there. And a lot of that I have to say, I'm sort of I directed She Loves Me before the world stopped turning. And I've always really liked that show. And then once I directed it, I came to love that show.

And the reason I love it is because of the book. Because Mastroff's book, that guy is so elegant in how he writes. There is not an extra word anywhere to be found. And somehow or other, that guy knows how to get to the core of the human heart with the least number of words, but the most perfectly placed crystal cut words. The language of Cabaret isn't heightened like the language of She Loves Me is. But if you look at those book scenes, oh, my God, the way that he twists lines on each other. And again, not to take away from the music, obviously, but the music, like everybody knows the music is amazing. Yeah. But what I think people don't pay attention to is how magnificently elegant that book is.

That's fantastic. Just to clue you in on the podcast. It seems like we're always talking about She Loves Me. I don't know why, but in terms of musical theater, it's six degrees from She Loves Me. That makes me so happy because the show is so weird, right? Who would have thought? And for a while there, it's been a while since it's come up. And so I'm very excited that She Loves Me is back into the regular fold of episodes. But for a while there, every single episode, for some reason, She Loves Me came up. But it is a really interesting point because it's the first time that Hal Prince, this director that we've been talking about, stepped from producer to director. And then Joe Mastroff, who was the book writer for She Loves Me.

And Hal Prince also had produced, not directed, but produced Kander and Ebb's first show, which is For the Red Menace. It's about communism. Liza Minnelli's Broadway debut tears down Broadway with her vocals and the rest is history. But that show was a total flop. But he has all of these pieces. He has Joe Mastroff from She Loves Me. He has Kander and Ebb from For the Red Menace. He's wanting to direct more and more. And then this really interesting idea to musicalize I Am a Camera, which was a play based on a book of short stories by Christopher Isherwood, all about his experiences as an American writer in Berlin right before World War II. And the idea, the audacity to kind of turn that into a musical, right? All of those players come together and create what we now know as Cabaret.

[17:44] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Hey, everybody, I just wanted to reach out and say thank you to our amazing listeners who took the time to give us a review. Your stars and comments mean the world to me. First up, we got WCDDRR who said, My favorite listening, the best musical theater related podcast out there. Five stars. Thank you, WCDDRR. Also recently, we got one from A.M. Pond who wrote, 12 out of 10 would recommend. We got a lyricist among us, folks. I also wanted to give a shout out to LoveDusty because even though they chose to wait until I made an error to give me a review, they were 100% correct. LoveDusty writes, Act 1 of Merrily, We Roll Along does not end with Not A Day Goes By. In fact, it ends with Now You Know, which is a much better ending.

Number one, you're right. I totally forgot Now You Know. And number two, the rest of your review deserves a conversation. So if anybody out there ever has any questions, comments, or concerns about any of my episodes or mistakes that I made, please call me out on social media at amusicalpodcast or by emailing me at amusicalpodcast@gmail.com. I will be more than willing to admit when I'm wrong, but then at least we keep the conversation going. That's what we do here. We have conversations. So thank you to everybody for your continued support. And LoveDusty, email me now.

[19:11] Richard Israel: Have you read any of the Isherwood stuff?

[19:17] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I actually just reread the Sally Bowles Berlin story.

[19:23] Richard Israel: Okay, because Sally Bowles to me is one of the best written characters in musical theater in scenes.

[19:30] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: 100%, yeah. There's so much information about her from the scenes that then the songs are almost just frosting. Whereas so often in musical theater, it's the other way around.

[19:36] Richard Israel: Right. How much of that character development is in the Isherwood stories?

[19:41] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I will tell you a shocking minimum.

[19:44] Richard Israel: Wow, really?

[19:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, because I was ready. I was like, because I'd read Berlin stories a while ago. And I was like, Oh, let me just reread just the Sally one because it's the one that in theory, I Am a Camera is based on. Right. And I reread it. And it's like, no, her sort of like whirlwind-ness is definitely there. And I have to admit, I meant to read I Am a Camera and I didn't. But I'm guessing that the evolution of it is that I Am a Camera sort of amplified the stuff that sort of needed to get amplified from Berlin stories. And then just Cabaret took it the rest of the way. Weirdly, John van Druten, who wrote I Am a Camera, he also wrote Bell, Book and Candle, which is the other way he did, which is the basis for the TV show Bewitched.

He's an interesting, just really quickly, he's sort of an interesting cat, because he was a gay playwright in the 50s, who was very closeted. And most of the stuff that he wrote has to do with a secret, some sort of piece of difference that has to be kept under wraps. And there's, you know, a lot of scholarly works about how like that it was, it was just an amplification of sort of what he was going through as a gay man in the 50s. But so yeah, so good for John van Druten for seeing something in Berlin stories and saying, I can dramatize that and put that on stage. My guess is that it was a fairly big leap from I Am a Camera to Cabaret where now you're just you're totally reconfiguring things.

And I don't know if you read that at one point, I want to say it was David Merrick, but I could be making that up. But at one point, Kander and Ebb and Hal Prince were advised to take out Jerry Robbins, thank you to take out all the songs that weren't in the Kit Kat club. Right. And to just keep it a little more cohesive. All of the music only happens in the Kit Kat club. Right. And fortunately, they did not listen to that advice. It's just so masterful how those songs just again, it's like, they're fun and delightful, and they're really tuneful. And but man, if you lean lean into them for more than eight measures, you're like, wow, what am I what am I listening to? So it's I don't know, man, they're just real good at that.

[22:06] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So true. So Cabaret opens on Broadway. I don't think this is sacrilegious in saying that the original production of Cabaret is not like the best version of Cabaret, right? It always gets a little bit better. I'm not even going to say that one was the best. But that being said, it changes the game. Some of my very favorite musicals come from the 60s. Fiddler on the Roof being first and foremost, it's my favorite show. And when you look at how that entire opening number is structured, there are a lot of similarities between Tradition and Ville Coleman. Right. This idea of a lead character introducing an audience in a very Brechtian, very like breaking the fourth wall way to this world, basically saying you are welcome here, right?

Now, the world of Cabaret has always been much more seedy than on a Tefcon. In fact, this is sometimes the thing that pushes me away from Cabaret is how disgusting it sometimes seems like a game, like how disgusting can we make this world? Totally. How many heroin bruises? How much snorting cocaine? How much like just open humping for everyone to see? Can we shove into one musical? Why do you think that is? Because I have since come to my own conclusions as to what that's all about.

[23:24] Richard Israel: I think that A, I love that you asked that question. B, I love that you and I are of the same mind on that. And here's the thing, because I could not agree more. And what I think is that like we were talking about earlier, like Cabaret just really lends itself to interpretation and to, it's Cabaret, so go as far as you can, go as far as you want. When I've seen productions of Cabaret that I haven't totally dug, it's a lack of trust in the material, right? Like, I get it. I get what this club is. So, you know, answer the question, how many heroin bruises? Like two or three. I don't need any more than three. Choose company. Exactly. Three is one too many heroin bruises. But because you are diverting my attention away from what I should be placing my attention on, which is the lyrics and the music and the scene work.

So I have seen productions where it's like everybody's naked. And again, like, do your thing. But I do think that that like as a director, I always feel like I am in service to the creators of this thing. Like my job is to be the conduit between the writers and the viewers. If you're just throwing this in my face so that I don't have to lean into the show, all I have to do is just lean back and let it wash over me. Then when you get to the post-abortion scene, you have no right to expect me to lean into it because you have already set up what this is as an experience where I just don't have to really do any work. Right. Your job, I think, as a director is you have to thread that needle and you have to you have to orchestrate how the audience is perceiving and just make sure that when you need them to lean in and listen on a human level, they're doing it, which means all the way back at the beginning of the show and Vilkaman, if you're just too out there and ridiculous, you are making a contract with the audience that then you have to live in when the rubber meets the road.

[25:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What is that? I'm going to bring now I'm bringing in Maya Angelou.

[25:33] Richard Israel: What is I know it was only a matter of time.

[25:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's a matter of time. What's that Maya Angelou quote about? You may forget what a person says or does, but you'll never forget the way they make you feel. Right. And I think that sometimes we go to Cabaret and have this very visceral, very raw experience. And then maybe when we try and recreate it later, it's like you once again, you don't trust the material. And so you're just like working really, really hard to create that raw, vulnerable feeling that you want the audience to have, I guess, forgetting that it's built into the show. Like it's already there. Yeah. Like you have to trust that like they know what they're doing. I just don't think we ever get to subvert the artistic intention of the show.

[26:15] Richard Israel: Yeah. You know, fair enough. Fair enough. The other important thing is that there does need to be a seediness to the Kit Kat club. There needs to be a raw sexuality to the show. And for me growing up in like a conservative place, that is probably why I didn't see Cabaret produced very often. And yet I will stand by it and say that it needs to be produced that way. And here's why. When I did the research on Isherwood and the Berlin stories, I realized, or I didn't realize, I realized by reading someone else telling me that so many of the characters that he chose to represent were people that would be directly persecuted by the Nazi regime. So he picked prostitutes. He picked gay people. He picked Jews.

He picked people that were most in danger. And to present these types of people in the Kit Kat club, raucously sexual, perhaps addicted to drugs. And then, of course, in the subplot of the show, an older Jewish couple, all of these people, as much as you may want to judge them at the end of the day, you have to then be reconciled with the idea of do they deserve to be exterminated off the face of the planet? And that I think is incredibly confronting for an audience, regardless of what they believe.

[27:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely. Which is why I kind of have to love Bobby and Victor. I have to be rooting for them. I have to be rooting for the people who are existing in that environment. So if you distance me too much from them in service of sort of like shock value, I think the show doesn't land as firmly as the show could land. And that's what the 98 revival did really well. And part of it was because Sam Mendes, who is a genius, the fact that the Kit Kat girls were playing their own instruments immediately puts me on their side. Because just as an audience member, I'm like, look at that woman playing the banjo. She can sing. She can dance. She's gorgeous. She's going to drop into a split. She's got the clarinet her way out of it.

Exactly. She's got the requisite number of heroin bruises and she is strumming on that banjo like she was born to do it. And again, because it is a very hardworking ensemble, we are so on their side. And Sam Mendes did such a great job of just making sure that our allegiances were always with the people in the Kit Kat club. And believe me, like that place was not a library, like it was plenty seats.

[28:49] Richard Israel: But you were on their side so that at the end of that show when you realize, oh my god, I don't know if we're at this part of the conversation, but like the most masterful part of that show was you seeing the band on stage up on a platform for the entire show. And then at the end of the show, you hear the music, but this scrim goes up and it's just a white space, and you know that all of those people have been exterminated. And it's surely visual; it also completely messes with you because you're hearing the same exact music that you've heard all the way through, so you're just assuming that that scrim is going to come up and you're going to see the band. He's talking about, you know, the girls are beautiful; even the orchestra is beautiful.

And that scrim goes up, and it is a white empty space where all of those living, breathing actor-musician people used to be. And it's like, I'm getting chills talking about it right now. Like, I saw it; I saw it twice, and even the second time when I knew it was coming, I was still like, so like that is called direction in service of what the show is about. And I don't think I had even put this together. I always cry on the show, don't worry. I know I'm so happy because, you know, I'm a big crier from way back. But the fact that, oh sorry, who, the fact that it's white is this idea that they think that they've cleaned the space of like these wretched people.

[30:15] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely, yeah.

[30:16] Richard Israel: And it is, it is the dictionary definition of void. I mean, when you see that, and it is inhabited by nothing. Yeah, and that was not in the original. And again, not again, not saying one was better than the other, but it is a great illustration of how somebody with vision can take what is on the page and amplify it in a way that, you know, that was 1998; this is 2020, and you and I are still crying about it.

[30:50] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Exactly, crying about talking about it, right? I'm not even seeing it.

[30:57] Richard Israel: So that's it. That's like, I mean, again, that's what art can do, and that's what musical theater uniquely can do, I believe, or I wouldn't be doing it. And Cabaret, I was thinking about this too, Cabaret is a show that really does consistently pull the rug out from under us as an audience, like, yeah, in the best way. And it's hard to do that, man. It is hard to dramaturgically defy expectations. You can do it maybe twice successfully, but they do it all the time.

[31:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: You know, it's a good point, and they do it in ways, it's almost every number.

[31:34] Richard Israel: Absolutely. And you know that brick comes through the window. Like, you think that Schultz and Schneider have fixed it, and just like the world, a brick comes flying through the window. And it's like, no, it is not fixed. You know, what's his bucket, Ernst takes off the overcoat and there's a swastika. I didn't see it coming. Yeah, and I know the show, but I like, and I knew he was a Nazi clearly. I mean, I knew he was running money for the Nazis, but nope, didn't see the armband coming. Like, you just don't see these things coming, and that is how the world works. And that is also how things like Nazism work, is that you don't see it. Great, and it's great, and it's great, and then it's terrible, or it appears to be great.

We tell ourselves it's great; we willfully make ourselves ignorant until finally a brick comes through the window. You know, so that, I mean, that's why the show—here's what I believe. I believe that after everybody cycled through Mamma Mia, when the world starts turning again, I actually think a lot of people are going to start doing Cabaret because it's because this notion of how we choose to blind ourselves to things until they're right in our own backyard. Like, this is what much of the country is doing right now. Yeah, everybody should be revisiting the show, and I do think like it's going to bubble up. I think more as we have to reflect on what this time has done to us as a society and how we have been complicit in our willful ignorance, you know?

[33:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, because that's happening all over every day.

[33:16] Richard Israel: Yeah, I love what you said because we are currently suffering consequences. They may not be as easy to define as the Holocaust, but emotionally, I know that there are consequences.

[33:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, absolutely.

[33:24] Richard Israel: The idea of having leaders tell you that you can only succeed if you are a bully, right? Those hold real consequences, and to convince yourselves otherwise is just waiting for something like this to wake you up.

[33:38] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Absolutely. And it's sort of like the blessing and the curse of being human, right? Because we're really adaptable.

[33:48] Richard Israel: So we are as a species. Have you seen My 600 Pound Life? The body is incredible. It's just like, oh, I guess I'll make more room; that's fine.

[34:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh my god, that's amazing. I'm glad that worked its way into this conversation.

[34:10] Richard Israel: My Angelou and My 600 Pound Life. You're very good at your job.

[34:14] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you.

[34:15] Richard Israel: But it's true. Like, we are adaptable, and thank god for it. But the problem is that it is, you know, it's the frog in the boiling water. The frog doesn't know that the water is getting untenably hot until the frog is dead because the frog adapts. So what we are doing, because we kind of have to, I guess, is like for myself, well, you know, just being honest, is that I, you know, I'm terrified. I'm not, you know, I wake up and I'm scared a little bit just because it's like I don't know how this is going to work itself out, and I don't know if we are permanently damaged as a country, as people who live in this country. I'm not, I don't know that the rending of us is going to knit itself together, but because I'm a human being, I have to get up, I have to make coffee, I have to go for a run, and then I have to get to emails because I can't live in like paralyzing fear.

Like, I just, I can't. I know some people do, and my heart goes out to them; I just can't. And by the same, but the flip side of that is that I'm making my coffee, I'm going for a run, I'm checking my emails. What does that mean? Does that, like, on some level, yes, we do need to pay attention to that fear, and we do need to try to channel it into something because on some level, that's what the Germans did in the '30s, is they made their coffee and they went for runs, and they didn't check their emails, but they, you know, went to the post office or whatever, and they lived their lives. And it's like, I—so yes, we do have to live our lives because otherwise we'll just become paralyzed and like, you know, in a fetal position in the corner of the room.

But we can't ignore, you know, we do have to listen to that fear, and we do have to figure out, okay, what do I do with this so that I'm not somehow complicit? And the answer is different for everybody, and that's cool. Like, that's absolutely, you know, different people have different resources at their disposal to make that happen. But I think getting back to Cabaret, not to be gross or soapboxy, but it's the power of musical theater that I would contend, and I will fight anybody on it. But I just do think that because musical theater lives at a certain height, that it threads the needle between, you know, it's like you never ask why the person's singing if it's done properly. So it lives at height, but it also lives at humanity.

And so it's able to take on something like the rise of Nazism and do it in a way that, as an audience member, I listen, and I have been entertained and illuminated and educated and slapped in the face. I don't know, man. I don't know what other art form does that. I really don't. Like, I know I'm being a gross musical theater person, but I just like—

[36:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, you're on the right program to do it.

[37:00] Richard Israel: Thank god you asked me on and not some visual art podcast that would have sucked. They're like, Richard Israel, let's talk about basket weaving, and you're like, musical theater. Nobody sings in basket weaving. I mean, they can, but they don't have to.

[37:19] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: To your point though about how different people react differently, that's one of the things I think Cabaret does so well is that you have these different characters all reacting to what's going on around them differently, and it's both entertaining and enlightening. And so I'd love to talk through the show and these characters, great to just kind of identify some of those differences. At the very beginning, like we said during this Phil Coleman number, we have the Emcee who steps forward and is welcoming the audience into this Kit Kat Club, which is also incredibly symbolic because the Kit Kat Club itself is symbolic of what is happening outside of it. It's this great kind of meta moment in musical theater. How would you describe the Emcee? Because he is a character unlike any other in musical theater.

[38:08] Richard Israel: Yeah, I mean, he's totally Brechtian, right? He talks directly to us; he's not bound by time and space at all. He's so, I mean, in theory, he's sort of our sherpa through the show. I mean, he brings us into the world and he takes us out of it, and he is, yeah, he's sort of like the spirit guide of the show and is also, you know, just in—I think he's sort of the personification of just like the, oh, I don't want to say decay, but just like where Berlin was at that particular time. And so he's sort of the personification of that, you know, in varying levels of danger.

[39:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: It's so true. He's both godlike in that he seems to be a puppet master of this area that he has welcomed us into, and yet at the same time is completely fallible. He seems to, like you said, deteriorate with the society. He is not immune from the consequences of the place where he lives.

[39:30] Richard Israel: Right, absolutely. We sort of think he is because I think we consider like, oh, there's no way that our friend who's guiding us through this, anything bad's going to happen to him, right? You know, we just, we think he's godlike to your point. So, yeah, I mean, it's a masterfully put together character. It's set in 1931 Berlin. They're coming out of a huge Great Depression, right? They created an entire new constitution, which is where the Weimar Republic came from. Out of that is how the Third Reich gains power when Hitler rises to being the dictator, and he's promising essentially a way out of this disgusting way of life. Yeah, meanwhile, you've got really interesting weird kind of artistic people living in Berlin and the underbelly who honestly don't really feel like that has anything to do with them because when you are an ignored person in society, let's be honest, you're used to people not looking out for you.

[40:12] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh sure.

[40:13] Richard Israel: So you just assume that anything to do with the bourgeois has nothing to do with you, right? The other thing that's really quickly that, yeah, really helped propel Hitler to power was Germany was so demoralized after World War I.

[40:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh fair enough, yeah.

[40:23] Richard Israel: And the world really, really punished Germany. Like, the reason that they entered into the depression was because the world demanded astronomical financial reparations from Germany after World War I. And so as a nation, they were completely demoralized. So what Hitler also promised them—and I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but obviously there was revert—he promised to make Germany great again. If you listen to some of his speeches, it was all about restoring the German people to their rightful place in the world because they honestly—who doesn't want that?

[40:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: I know, right?

[41:00] Richard Israel: So it was very much about that, about taking this people who had been—and again, like, I don't—I'm not blaming the world for forcing Germany to make reparations, but they just kind of really crushed Germany under the world's heel. And so the German people as a nation, they were just feeling so downtrodden, and Hitler knew exactly what to say, and he knew exactly how to appeal to their sense of victimization. And, you know, the world was not on their side, and the world was mistreating them, but he alone could bring Germany back to its former glory and make the world pay attention to Germany. So that was a huge part. Like, he told the people what the people needed to hear.

[41:42] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Thank you for sharing that. I don't think I realized that in those words. After we meet the denizens of the Kit Kat Club, which include a lot of the Kit Kat Club girls, and they have interesting names and backstories, of course, who knows if they're true, but that's like their personas that they're bringing to the table, you've also got Sally Bowles, who is not German. She is an English cabaret singer who is kind of a headliner at the Kit Kat Club. I always love that traditionally she's been cast as someone who's not that great of a singer.

[42:22] Richard Israel: Right, right.

[42:23] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Because if she was an amazing singer, I mean, with the exception of Liza Minnelli, like what would she be doing in the Kit Kat Club in Berlin?

[42:32] Richard Israel: That's exactly right. Like, her talent has to be commensurate with where she's performing, you know?

[42:36] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, and Sally is someone who's a total mess and yet totally lovable. She's dating the owner of the club, Max, right?

[42:45] Richard Israel: Right, right. And I think she's just charismatic, right? I know a lot of people who, thank god they're charismatic because they're not super talented. She just knows her audience and she is, I mean, she's very—she's charming and racy and knows how to appeal to her audience and has like a little fan club who loves Sally at the Kit Kat Club. So of course, like she's happy being that big fish in the pond.

[43:13] Richard Israel: Enter, what's his name? Enter Cliff. He's an American writer who's come to Berlin, which is where the whole "I am a camera" comes from, right? Cliff is coming as an observer to write about what he sees. On the train, he meets this guy named Ernst who's looking for English lessons. Cliff, as an American, can teach English, so they kind of strike up a friendship. Ernst also gives him the name of an older woman by the name of Fräulein Schneider who owns a, what is it, like a housing house? Yeah, a boarding house. And she doesn't charge all that much, so he'll be great to go there. Before he goes there, though, he goes to the Kit Kat Club. And the Kit Kat Club has this really cool thing where there are phones at the tables and they like call each other, which I think is kind of cool.

I want to open up a really nice bar with tables and call it Isherwoods and have each of the tables have a phone on it. Please don't steal that idea. It's copyright. It's Richard Isherwoods. That's great. If I find a fancy bar with tables and phones called Isherwoods, I will find you. Track you down. I will. But anyway, so yeah. That's a great idea. And actually, it is something that seems really cool about the intimate nature of the club, is that you can kind of hit on anybody you want and you don't have to walk up to them. Which is why my idea is going to be amazing. I'm going to make so much money. But of course, you'd have to sanitize the phone. That's right. You're right about that. All right.

Maybe I won't do it in the next year. So Sally sees Cliff sitting over at the table and calls him up. Originally, there was a song here called The Telephone Song. There was. And it's since been cut, but it kind of sounds like a PG-13 version of Telephone Hour from Bye Bye Birdie. It was probably not even as interesting as that. Shoot. Yeah, it was. But it was sort of a number. It was like everybody sort of calling each other on the phone. Like an ensemble number. And then there was like a dance. It was a whole thing. So I don't think it's missed. It's not necessary. What is necessary is that Sally calls Cliff. They have this conversation in which she asks him to recite poetry because he's got this American accent.

And so he does Casey at the Bat. And there's this whole connection. There's a little spark. She tells him that she's taken because of Max. But maybe he tells her where he's staying. And when he goes to Fräulein Schneider's, she ends up showing up at his place. Sally Bowles does because she and Max have had this huge fight. And so she's kind of invited herself into his life, which means they need to convince a very conservative person like the older woman, Fräulein Schneider, to let both of them stay in the same room when they're not married. And if I can really quickly point out, because so much of the show is about compromise, which weirdly, merrily is also about compromise. I know I keep coming back to that.

But like Cabaret is all about how small compromises become a very slippery slope, small compromises. So it's like on the train between Cliff and Ernst, Ernst actually sort of like sends one of his briefcases. He puts one of his briefcases next to Cliff so that it doesn't get caught by the border control. And Cliff could very easily have called him out, but he doesn't. And then Cliff goes and takes the room at Fräulein Schneider's. And he's like, I'm going to work. He sets up his typewriter and then he's like, no, I'm going to go to the Kit Kat Club compromise. Then Schneider says, no, I will not have a man and a woman living in sin under my roof until she gets 80 marks to do it. And then she says, OK, you have the money.

You have the money. Sure. So right. This is true. So you can see over the course of the show how all of these people make these tiny little compromises and those compromises just like chip away at the entire society until finally six million Jews are being killed. So it's really like I love the show because of that, because it's filled with those things. She sings the song called So What, which is actually a perfect thing for her character and for the situation. And it's like, well, that's the rally cry of a society that's hurtling towards tyranny. It's really fascinating to hear people try to applaud after that song.

[48:04] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, because like what a button. So what? It's like a song about apathy. OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And honestly, you know, in musical theater, we have the secondary characters. We have like a B plot, a subplot. And the main relationship in the show is Sally and Cliff. But then we have the secondary relationship, which is an older couple, Fräulein Schneider, who owns the rooming house and one of her tenants by the name of Herr...

[48:26] Richard Israel: Herr Schultz. Herr Schultz. Thank you. And honestly, it's my favorite secondary. Like, get out of here, 80 Annie Will Parker. This like B storyline adds so much to Cabaret because for all of the drama and dysfunction of Sally and Cliff, you have this great contrast with this older couple. Right. Having their own experiences. And it's so great. And if they had followed Jerome Robbins' idea of not having any music outside of the kick-ass club, this storyline would have been completely eliminated, which is ultimately what happened in the film. And I mean, that storyline carries a lot of dramatic weight. I mean, without them, there's very little heart.

[49:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Well, yeah. And you're also missing like a lot of plot about Fräulein Kost sort of calling Schultz out for being a Jew. And then Fräulein Kost, also one of the other roommates or not roommates, but one of the other tenants at the boarding house. Right. She is a well-known... Everybody knows that she's a hooker. And that's another thing where Fräulein Schneider is like, oh, you and I'm going to wag my finger at you because I have morals. But at the end of the day, she pays her rent, so she lets her stay. So, yeah, I mean, it's weird because I do think that like to the naked eye, you don't realize how important Schultz and Schneider are just in terms of A, they are a huge part of the heart of the show, but B, the descent into the rise of Nazism, they carry that storyline very much on their back. So they're kind of important.

[50:06] Richard Israel: For sure. As all of this action between either Fräulein Schneider and Erich Schultz or Sally and Cliff happens outside of the Kit Kat Club, we then go back inside the Kit Kat Club where the MC will lead the ensemble in some sort of number that comments on the action that we just saw. In the case of Fräulein Schneider and Erich Schultz falling in love with each other, this older German woman and an older Jewish man, in the second act, they do this number called If You Could See Her, in which the MC is trying to convince everybody that they should love his newfound fiancée who is a dancer dressed up like a gorilla. So like the symbolism of how ridiculous that is in contrast to the prejudice of what is facing the actual relationship outside of the club. Just these incredible metaphors and great and yet really entertaining numbers at the same time.

[51:02] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Sure. But again, like that's one where they pull the rug out from under you because you're watching it and it's the MC dancing with this gorilla in a tutu and you're like, oh, it's hilarious. And you don't equate it to the Schultz and Schneider stuff in your brain until the very end, at the very end when he says, If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all.

[51:23] Richard Israel: And then as an audience member, you're like, wait, what? This air gets sucked out of the room.

[51:27] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. And this bomb drops on you and you go, and also you also feel super betrayed by the MC. If it's done right, because he's been like your friendly neighborhood, like he's the guy I'm supposed to be following and with. And then he says that and you're just like, oh, I feel totally betrayed by you. And now I don't quite know what to do. And by the time at the point in the show when that happens, you as an audience, you're like, I don't know what is what, which is the best way.

[51:57] Richard Israel: OK, well, let's see what else do we need to talk about in terms of the plot. Sally and Cliff are living together. Everything's great. I think they start. I think we are to understand that they start sleeping together, which is sort of weird in that there have been intimations that Cliff is bisexual, if not gay.

[52:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, they actually took out any specific references to his bisexuality in the original version.

[52:18] Richard Israel: Right. But as times change, they started putting them back in. Right. Because he does flirt with some of the boys at the Kit Kat club. And the only thing that's kind of left over in the original is the fact that they do two ladies, is that the emcee and these two females sing about their perfect relationship. That is actually a threesome. Right. That was kind of as far as they could push it. Right. Although between the '93 and the '98 Mendes, they changed. Two ladies was the emcee and a guy and a woman and a guy and a woman. Right. Yeah. I think like Bobby or Victor, one of the club boys may have been performing in drag. Is that right?

[53:05] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I think if memory serves, I think so. But you it was a guy.

[53:11] Richard Israel: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Now we do get to see the courting of Fräulein Schneider and Erich Schultz. And it all happens over a pineapple.

[53:16] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my God, that somebody should write a show about Cabaret and that should be the title. It all happens over a pineapple.

[53:20] Richard Israel: But it's such a sweet moment because he brings her this pineapple and it's this beautiful little scene song in which you see this older woman blush and become a young girl again. And right after that is a Nazi soldier singing Tomorrow Belongs to Me. So there's always this doom following the hope of this relationship. It happens here in the pineapple scene. And then later in act two, when they're talking about getting married, they're engaged, it's going to happen. And then a brick gets thrown through their window. All of those moments are interrupted by the reality of what's going on around them.

[54:11] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: What's really interesting is that originally Cliff would sing a song called Why Should I Wake Up? Kind of around this point, which is I'm having such a wonderful time with Sally. Everything's fine for us. But then, of course, it's also a great symbol for everyone else around them.

[54:29] Richard Israel: And also that's right around the time where Sally reveals that she's pregnant.

[54:32] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Correct. And then that's where she sings Maybe This Time, where you really start to invest in her because we invest in people who hope. That's why you start a musical with an I Want song, so that we invest in you as somebody who is aspirational and is trying to achieve something. And that's the first time that we actually see Sally as somebody who is more than just green nail polish and a bob wig and B-level talent, but as somebody who actually wants something real. And it's become this really anthemic song, and it should be. But there's also something so great about how that song changes our mind about her as somebody who is to be taken seriously. Regardless of what the dream actually is, whether or not Sally Bowles is going to end up with a white picket fence and 2.5 kids, the idea that she believes in her ability to self-reinvent, that we can all latch onto that, right?

[55:25] Richard Israel: Absolutely.

[55:25] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: We've looked at her as somebody who's sort of like, I'm having a great time and I'm good the way it is and everything's great. And then she finally is maybe this time?

[55:34] Richard Israel: It's a moment of honesty for her because she's saying maybe this time I'll win, which then infers that she's always felt like a loser.

[55:40] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right.

[55:41] Richard Israel: So yeah, that's a confession in and of itself. And I can't picture the show without it. And they did the show without it.

[55:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. Didn't come into the cabaret until the movie.

[55:51] Richard Israel: Right. Thank goodness it did.

[55:54] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: When Fräulein Schneider and Erich Schulz announced their engagement, that they have these intentions to be married, they have a party. And Cliff and Sally bring a bowl, like a beautiful bowl for them. And they're having a great time. Erich Schulz gets a little too schwasted, he drinks a little too much, and starts acting in a way that people find offensive, especially if you don't like juice.

[56:22] Richard Israel: Well, I think if memory serves, he's tipsy and he's being a little bit loose with himself. But I think when it really hits the fan is Ernst is there and he reveals the armband, which freaks Cliff out a little bit. And then Ernst is dancing. This is so chilling. Ernst is dancing with Fräulein Kost, the prostitute who lives in the boarding house. And they do start talking about Schulz's behavior and he's a little bit tipsy. But what does it is that the party, there's all of this great food at the party and Ernst kind of says, wow, this is an amazing party. So much food, so much drink. And Kost says, well, he could have afforded 10 times as much. You know, the Jews have all the money. And Ernst has not been aware that Schulz is Jewish.

And so there's a confrontation, not really a confrontation. Ernst is like, I have to remove myself from this party. I wasn't aware that this was being hosted by a Jew and I need to leave. And he goes to leave and Fräulein Kost brings him back by singing Tomorrow Belongs to Me, which we've heard previously. Right. The song that the soldier sang. And so she starts singing it. And it's this really interesting dichotomy where she is a prostitute, like she is not like a paragon of German.

[58:07] Richard Israel: Now, now that Ernst does. And they have taken it over.

[58:13] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, it's genius in its construction. Act two begins with a kick line. There's an extra chorus girl by the name of the MC.

[58:24] Richard Israel: And in a great feat of staging symbolism, the kick line turns into a goose step. Sally is still pregnant. Cliff is looking for more money. And Ernst gives him the opportunity to make a little bit of money. This may have actually happened in act one, now that I think about it, by taking one of his suitcases, like he did in the first scene, and illegally transferring it. He doesn't know what's in it, but just that it needs to somehow get across the border. And in doing so, he'll make a lot of money.

[58:57] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah, I think at the party, that's where Cliff is like, I want nothing, like you're wearing an armband. I want nothing to do with you.

[59:03] Richard Israel: That's true. That's exactly right. Ton of money in it. And Cliff is like, absolutely not. And so in act two, Sally is like, just do the run for Ernst. Like, we have no money. We have a baby on the way you should do this. And Cliff is like, do you read? Are you aware of what is going on around you? And she's like, I just I'm not interested in politics. And I see no reason. So it is like a place where Cliff actually does not compromise. He's like, I am not going to run money for the hard stuff. And in doing so, he drives Sally out and also gets the crap beat out of him.

[59:35] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cliff is like, we're going to America. I'm taking you home with me. And Sally's like, I'm not going to America. And they have this huge fight in which Cliff does say, Sally, wake up. Because Sally's thing is, I can't leave my career. And Cliff is finally like, what career are you talking about? You're like a third rate singer in a fifth rate club. And things are getting terrible. And I am taking you out of here. So they have a nasty, nasty fight. He runs off. The MC comes on and sings, I don't care much, which is basically a commentary on sort of where Sally is at emotionally in terms of she has a decision to make here.

[1:00:15] Richard Israel: And you know that that song was originally written, like Kander never originally wrote, like the Berlin songs, where like Cliff was going to come into Berlin and see all of these different characters singing the song and I don't care much was written for a prostitute.

[1:00:31] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: No way. Isn't that interesting?

[1:00:36] Richard Israel: Oh, I love that. And then it was repurposed for the MC to be singing it. In many ways, he is Sally. It's done, right? So yeah, so they have that big old fight. He runs out, she runs out. They both end up at the Kit Kat club. Cliff gets a crap beat out of him.

[1:00:46] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: She sings cabaret.

[1:00:47] Richard Israel: She sings cabaret, which, you know, is sort of like her rally cry to herself about I have no interest in change. And I'm just going to stay here and I'm going to live in my ignorance.

[1:00:59] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. What it does for Sally's character is what it has done for musical theater audiences as a whole. You get a compilation. Like I said, one of those CDs that my grandparents would listen to. You better believe that cabaret is on there as one of the all time best songs, of course, a musical. But then, like you said, you take a second to think about what it's actually saying, and then even putting it where it lies in the story. Why on earth is this song a feel good number?

[1:01:31] Richard Israel: Totally. And that's I mean, that is the genius of Kander and Ebb, is that if you remove them from their context, you're like, that is a delightful song.

[1:01:43] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And then if you place it in its context, that's why what you know, just really quickly sidebar is like that doesn't really work with Sondheim because Sondheim songs are so contextual, like they are they are inextricably linked with what is going on in the show. So it's like Sondheim's had very few back when a Broadway a song on Broadway could become a hit. Sondheim had like Send in the Clowns and that's kind of it. But Kander and Ebb, so many of their songs crossed over because you could just listen to it in your 68 Impala and be like, oh, this is great. Not realizing that it's a song about a woman deciding to have an abortion.

[1:02:25] Richard Israel: Right. You're exactly right. So that's the genius of Kander and Ebb. And that's her decision. That's what she decides to do. She goes and has an abortion. She shows up. Cliff is all beaten and bruised from his confrontation with Ernst. He's packing. And when Sally comes in, he's like, thank goodness you're here. Let's go. Let's do this. And she says, I had an abortion and he slaps her.

[1:02:47] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Right. This scene, this mother effing scene. And it's just a scene. They don't have a song with it. Who needs one? Right. Because there's nothing to sing about. And I think that that's ultimately what we get from the demise of this relationship, is that it's sterile and lifeless and everything that the society around them has become.

[1:03:07] Richard Israel: Right. I love that. That's so smart, Jeff. It's a perfect scene. And it's another example of how she never says I had an abortion. What she says is, I left my fur coat at the doctor's office.

[1:03:28] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And Cliff says, were you sick? And she says, no. And then there's a little bit more very economical conversation. And then she says, oh, that greedy doctor, I'm going to miss my fur coat. And that's what makes him slap her.

[1:03:43] Richard Israel: Oh, my gosh. You're so right. Yeah. Because she's cavalier about it. It's her cavalier attitude towards it that tells Cliff exactly who she is and is always going to be.

[1:03:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And then my favorite part of that scene, it's such... What I love is that, again, it's Mastroff. He writes like they would talk, but he does it. There's such an elegance to that scene. I've directed the scene a number of times, and I don't know that it ever gets yelly, screamy, because I think they're sort of past that. But when Cliff sort of finally realizes who she is and what she's done and that this is doomed, and he sort of goes back to the baby and he sort of says, but if we'd had the baby and she cuts him off and she says, a baby to keep us together, what a terrible burden for an infant.

[1:04:26] Richard Israel: And he has lost the argument because she's totally right. Like, the whole thing was ridiculous. The whole construct of them having a baby and being happy together, the fantasy, like those two people were ever going to end up together. But because it is masterful musical theater writing, we believe they're going to end up together. We are rooting for them to end up together. We somehow believe that Sally, that leopard, is going to change its spots. She sings Maybe This Time, which tells us that she might just change her spots. We want her to get out of Germany because she's going to be one of the first people to go. And they mess with us. They totally mess with us. And then in that one scene, which is not a very long scene, we realize she will never change.

He will never change. A baby was not going to fix this. And that as tragic as it is, she's going to stay in Germany and probably should. And he's going to go back to America and he probably should. So it's so heavy with sadness for the audience because we're like, this is inexorable. There was no fixing this.

[1:05:34] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Mm hmm. There's no fixing the oncoming storm of what's about to hit Germany. You're not just feeling for these two people. You're just feeling for like the world because that's what that represents. To wrap up Erich Scholz and Fräulein Schneider, she breaks things off with him and he moves and he has this last encounter with Cliff where he's like, everything will be OK because I am German, too. I may be Jewish, but I'm also a German. I'm crying again. And it's like, and there's no way that my people would do that to me. And then they do. And he and he moves just to a safer part of town like he doesn't leave Berlin. He just he just moves to a little bit of a safer part of town. And it's like you and the scariest part for me is as I was sort of rewatching it was he says these things pass. They always do. And it's like, no, they don't. They don't always.

[1:06:57] Richard Israel: Which again, like going back to my daily waking up in fear, it is like I understand that where we are at from a health crisis standpoint. Yes, I do believe that that will pass. But in terms of like where we are as a sundered nation, I am not always convinced that this too shall pass because sometimes it doesn't. You know, sometimes it ends in a world war and sometimes it ends in six million Jews and millions of gypsies and people who are not Jewish, but also we're not Aryan like 20 million Russians. You know, it's like it doesn't always pass.

[1:07:09] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: So anyway. Right. And at this low point, I mean, can it can we get to any lower point is the moment that they reintroduce the music that we heard at the very beginning? And then, of course, we know how it ends. Right. It's cabaret is, I think, maybe the only show I know of, honestly, where by the end of the show, we are so fraught with what we've just been through. But it's not about what we've just been through, but also about like the car ride home and how we are looking at each other and our lives and all of that stuff. Like if it if we've been paying attention, like this show is unique, like it's its own thing.

[1:07:55] Richard Israel: You know, in terms of the car ride home, I was thinking this morning about how how opinionated we can be as theatergoers. And I just thought about if we go and see a production of cabaret and the ride home, all we can talk about is whether or not we like Sally Bowles. To me, it feels like going to church and coming out hating gay people or criticizing them. I know that it may be seem like a false equivalency, but it is based in the same patterns. When what we do takes precedence over who we are, we have lost ourselves. And if you go to a piece of art that has been created and presented with the intention of inspiring us and making us feel us look at who we're surrounded by and where we live in a different way. If we have taken that and polluted it because we don't want to be brave and it's much easier and much safer and much more Sally Bowles to stay in our manageable fishbowl, then we're really lost.

[1:09:07] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: And I don't know, I feel like that's just what I want to encourage us as a podcast family. We can't really do theater right now, but we can set up those patterns that when theater comes back, we are the kind of audience that is brave enough to look inward instead of criticize outward.

[1:09:20] Richard Israel: Yeah. Amen, brother. Because musical theater, it's a nuanced art form. And so I think that it allows us opportunities to do that in a way that we would be foolish not to take advantage of. And I do think as crappy as this particular time in our lives may be, it does offer us an opportunity for some self-reflection and to at least ask some questions about how is our art intersecting with our audience and is there more that we could do? I think that would be a great unintended consequence of all this.

[1:09:48] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Yeah. And you are someone who I deeply respect and whose work I love. So I can't wait to see what you come up with next.

[1:09:56] Richard Israel: Thank you. Likewise. As always, if you have recommendations for shows that we cover here on A Musical Theater Podcast, you can always email me at amusicalpodcast at gmail.com. Don't forget to follow us on social media, on Twitter and Instagram at Amusical Podcast. And while you're at it, head over to our Tee Public store where you can find lots of great designs based on great moments of episodes past and present.

[1:10:22] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Richard, how can we follow you and what you're up to? You have a great website.

[1:10:26] Richard Israel: Oh, thank you so much. You have no idea what that means to me because I basically have torn out much of my hair trying to get that thing into some sort of shape. It's like a great reel to see all of your work. It's cool. Thank you.

[1:10:39] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Oh, my God. Honestly, you said exactly the right thing. I just need everybody to compliment me.

[1:10:48] Richard Israel: Yeah. RichardIsraelDirector.com is where you can find out more about me. It's just super quick. The up next section is looking a little bleak right now, but I have to remind myself that it's looking bleak for all of us, so it is okay. That's where you can find out stuff. I do post fairly regularly about little known musicals that were sort of overlooked on my Facebook, so if you want to check that out, once every three or four days, I just pop off with some weird little musical that ran for three performances in 1992 that was actually awesome, so those are up on my page as well.

[1:11:29] Jeffrey Scott Parsons: Fantastic. I adore you. Thank you again, and to everybody out there, wake up! I don't know. That's how I'll end it.

[1:11:37] Richard Israel: That made me super happy, so this audience of one thought that was amazing.