I've seen half a dozen productions of Cabaret and today's was slicker than any of them, all the individual parts of high value, especially the performances. But the parts didn't add up. There was no menace whatever in Act One, not even a hint of decadence. Or rather, it was Decadence at Disneyland, all stylized and slick and glitzy. All this was distancing. Cabaret needs rough edges. It needs to sweat, especially in Act One in order to set up the more explicit menace in Act Two. Otherwise, as here, the two acts seem to belong to different plays.
I've seen far more effective "amateur" productions, especially my favorite, which took place in a basement tavern-theater in a cabaret setting.
You can spend lots of money on a play like this, as they did, but give me the one I saw for a three-dollar ticket in a dark, dank basement where the menace and decadence felt real and not this hip, cute reenactment of the real thing. Money doesn't buy everything.
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