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The AuthorsBook by Joe Masteroff. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Music by John Kander.The Story
The Main CharactersClifford Bradshaw (Cliff). “He is in his late twenties, pleasant looking, intelligent,
reserved.” Much of this character comes from the English writer Christopher Isherwood, full
name Christopher William Bradshaw-Isherwood. Isherwood’s The Berlin
Stories is a fictionalized account of the author’s time in Berlin during 1929-1933, which
was adapted as the stage play I Am a Camera and the musical Cabaret.
Sally Bowles. “She is in her twenties, rather pretty, rather sophisticated, rather childlike,
exasperating and irresistible.”
The SettingBerlin in the late 1920s became the world capital of political struggle and moral vice. The Weimar Republic sprang up as a new democracy at the end of World War I, but the freedoms and hopes it gave were precarious. The deregulated social structures quickly led to the flourishing of avant-garde art, cosmopolitanism, and sexual pleasure. The beginning of the Great Depression in 1929 exacerbated the situation in Germany by increasing unemployment, political extremism, and human intolerance. The country swiftly veered towards nationalism and fascism which were introduced into the state policy with Hitler’s Nazi Party coming to power in 1933. In Berlin, a city with population of four million, ideological propaganda coexisted with decadent behavior. Sex was a cheap commodity and all kinds of vice permeated the streets. It was said that the Berliners thought the air contained amphetamines that let them stay up all night and energized them for their morning activities. “People discussed Berlin . . . as if the city were a highly desirable woman. . . . We called her proud, snobbish, nouveau riche, uncultured, crude. But secretly everyone looked upon her as the goal of his desires. Some saw her as hefty, fullbreasted, in lace underwear, other as a mere wisp of a thing, with boyish legs in black silk stockings…. To conquer Berlin was to conquer the world.” (Carl Zuckmayer, qtd. in Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s by Otto Friedrich, 273) EconomyFRÄULEIN SCHNEIDER: You say fifty marks, I say one hundred marks….
As long as the room’s to let,
The fifty that I will get
Is fifty more than I had yesterday, ya? (1.3)
After losing World War I, the Germans were forced to pay reparation to other countries. In most part of the 1920s, they were straddled with debt. When the world market crashed in 1929, the German Mark became basically worthless. People would have to run to the store after they got paid because by the time they got there the value of products would have changed.
SALLY: I should have let Ernst pay my cab fare. He’s got all that money from Paris.… He smuggles it in for some political party. (1.5)
Smuggling at the time is a common practice. Because of the economic situation in Germany, the people did not have luxury items. Smuggling them was a way of making money during the time of inflation. It appears though that Ernst brings in cash (or maybe counterfeited money) from France illegally, but lies to Cliff that he smuggles only some extra “baubles from Paris—perfume, silk stockings…” He does that for the Nazi party, of which he is a member and ardent supporter. Scene: The Kit Kat Klub.
Time: New Year’s Eve, 31 December 1929 (1.4)
Despite the apparently carefree prosperity of 1929, there had been signs of trouble
from the very start of the year. A new inflation was threatening, and in a fierce
dispute over wages in the iron industry, the manufacturers abruptly closed their
factories, locking out some 200,000 workers. . . . Still, most Berliners preferred to
ignore the portents. They went on sunbathing and picnicking and drinking
schnapps. In the newspapers, they heard of a sudden crash in the Wall Street stock
market, but it was hard to believe that this distant event would soon ruin everything
they now enjoyed. For the time being, they went their own ways. (Otto Friedrich,
Before the Deluge, 298)
Sex Culture“All values were changed, and . . . Berlin was transformed into the Babylon of the world. Bars, amusement, parks, honky-tonks sprang up like mushrooms. . . . Along the entire Kurfürstendamm powdered and rouged young men sauntered and they were not all professionals. . . . Even the Rome of Suetonius had never known such orgies as the pervert balls of Berlin, where hundreds of men costumed as women and hundreds of women as men danced under the benevolent eyes of the police. In the collapse of all values, a kind of madness gained hold particularly in the bourgeois circles which until then had been unshakeable in their probity. . . . But the most revolting thing about this pathetic eroticism was its spuriousness. At bottom the orgiastic period which broke out in Germany simultaneously with the inflation was nothing more than a feverish imitation…. The whole nation, tired of war, actually longed only for order” (Stefan Zweig, qtd. in Before the Deluge, 128-9). “In 1919, Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld won a government subsidy to build an Institute of Sexual Research…. From that fortress, he preached in the daily newspapers on the need for a civilized toleration of all sexual irregularities. He was, in fact, one of the city’s most vociferous celebrities” (Before the Deluge, 234) When the Nazis took power they destroyed the Institut and burned down the library on May 6, 1933. The press-library pictures and archival newsreel film of Nazi bookburnings seen today are usually pictures of Hirschfeld's library ablaze. At the time of the book burning, Hirschfeld was away from Germany on a world speaking tour. Hirschfeld never returned to Germany. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_Hirschfeld) With the thriving of nihilism and cynicism, superficial entertainment pervaded the city. Vaudevilles, musical reviews, cabarets, bicycle races, and boxing matches were the desired entertainment commodity in Berlin throughout the 1920s. Commercialism, eroticism, and violence flooded the culture and set a standard in the film industry as well. PoliticsFRL. SCHNEIDER: I saw that one can no longer dismiss the Nazis. They are my
friends and neighbors. And how many others are there?
SCHULTZ: Of course – many. And many are Communist – and Socialist – and Social Democrats. So what is it? You wish to wait till the next elections – and then decide?” (2.2) Germany at the time was comprised of a large number of conflicting political factions. The Nazis never won by a majority (that is to say more than half). They only received the largest number of votes from any other small political party.
The political time presented in Cabaret is the transition between the Weimar Republic and Hitler’s Third Reich. Following Germany's defeat in World War I, the republic emerged from the German Revolution in November 1918. In 1919 a national assembly convened in the city of Weimar, where a new constitution for the German Reich was written, that was adopted on August 11. The first attempt to establish a liberal democracy in Germany failed with the ascent of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party since 1930. Although technically the 1919 constitution was not invalidated until after World War II, the legal measures taken by the Nazi government in February and March 1933, commonly known as Gleichschaltung, destroyed the mechanisms of a true democracy. So 1933 is usually seen as the end of the Weimar Republic and as the beginning of Hitler's so-called ‘Third Reich’. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic ) Read the Encyclopedia Britannica Online summary of the political events leading to the rise of Nazism here. GeographySCHULTZ: You are an American? I have a cousin in Buffalo. Felix
Tannenbaum. It is possible you know him? He has a wife—Berta… (1.3)
Germany is very small in comparison to America. It could fit into an area roughly the size of Montana.
FRÄULEIN SCHNEIDER: Herr Schultz is proprietor of the finest fruit market on
the Nollendorfplatz. (1.3)
Cliff and Sally live in the boardinghouse of Fräulein Schneider near Nollendorfplatz. This square in the Schöneberg district of Berlin was a “shabby traffic circle, partly proletarian, partly just decrepit and run-down, which Christopher Isherwood was later to make the center of his Berlin stories” (Otto Friedrich, Before the Deluge, 253). Modern director Edwin Piscator built his proletariat Piscator Theatre there in 1927. The place was a magnet for revolutionaries and outsiders. The area south of Nollendorfplatz, around Motzstraße and other streets, is Berlin's most prominent gay village, famous for its sex nightclubs. The Kit Kat Klub in Cabaret is likely situated in that part of the city. CLIFF: My name is Cliff Bradshaw. I come from Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania. You never heard of it. (1.5)
Cliff is from Harrisburg, which is the capital of Pennsylvania. It is the fourth largest city in Pennsylvania and it has been industrialized since the beginning of the 19th century. EMCEE: […] I give you: The Toast of Mayfair—Fräulein Sally Bowles!! (1.4)
Mayfair is probably the part of London where Sally comes from. Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is now known as Shepherd Market. The place is roughly bordered by Hyde Park to the west, Oxford Street to the north, Piccadilly and Green Park to the south and Regent Street to the east. Between the mid 17th and the mid 18th centuries, most of the area was developed into a fashionable residential district by a number of landlords, the most important of them being the Grosvenor family. The mysterious Sally diverts Cliff’s question about what part of England she has come from, by saying: “Oh, Cliff—you mustn’t ever ask me questions. If I want to tell you anything, I will” (1.4). It maybe that Sally wants to dissociate herself from her past and, perhaps, a higher-class upbringing. GlossaryCLIFF: Welcome to Berlin – famous novelist. Open the Remington. (1.3)
ERNST: You know what the trouble with English is? It is not an exact language.
Either one must memorize fifty thousand words either one cannot speak it
correctly. (1.5)
English is a mixed language while German is a pure language in the most basic sense. English has many exceptions to rules and draws from many different languages. What Ernest says is that German is an easier language to learn. Nevertheless, his remark also implies national superiority which Nazi ideology propagates. ‘Hals and Beinbruch. (1.6)
It is a Yiddish phrase that literally means “leg and neck fracture.” It is another way of
saying “break a leg”.
“Gunther Werner” (1.6)
Sally claims he is a film maker, but he is actually a famous German Organist. The real
Sally Bowles however, was in a relationship with a film maker.
SCHULTZ: Good Evening, Fraulein Kost. I am looking for I think I dropped a
small coin a groschen. It rolled this way (1.7)
A groschen is a European common name for a coin. Schultz has probably dropped a
pfennig (equals American cent).
SALLY: Because we never have dinner at Adlon anymore (1.10)
CLIFF: I’ve been reading your leader’s book. (1.12)
Adolf Hitler, leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in Germany, promoted his political image with his autobiographical and ideological book Mein Kampf (title translates “my struggle/battle”). In the early 1930s, Hitler had sent party affiliates to Berlin to win the hearts and minds of the common people there.
Here are some explicit selections from the conclusion of Mein Kampf: “On November 9, 1923, in the fourth year of its existence, the National Socialist German Workers' Party was dissolved and prohibited in the whole Reich territory. Today in November, 1926, it stands again free before us, stronger and inwardly firmer than ever before. If, in the world of our present parliamentary corruption, it becomes more and more aware of the profoundest essence of its struggle, feels itself to be the purest embodiment of the value of race and personality and conducts itself accordingly, it will with almost mathematical certainty someday emerge victorious from its struggle. Just as Germany must inevitably win her rightful position on this earth if she is led and organized according to the same principles. A state which in this age of racial poisoning dedicates itself to the care of its best racial elements must someday become lord of the earth. May the adherents of our movement never forget this if ever the magnitude of the sacrifices should beguile them to an anxious comparison with the possible results.” Get more information on Mein Kampf Read the entire text of the book Production History
Most Memorable Productions
Learn more about the production history of Cabaret:
View the opening song by the Emcee in the performances of Joel Grey and Alan Cumming Additional Dramaturgical ResearchGeorg Grosz and Otto Dix are two of the leading German artists of that time. They
painted expressive visions of Berlin’s night life at the time. Their work speaks to the
dark reality of the world as seen from someone who was living it. Drugs were rampant in Berlin at the time. The drug culture at the time is presented in our production. Here is a list of movies exploiting the theme of drug addiction:
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