What makes Fraulein Kost so significant in 'Cabaret'?

[E.Davis]

Also in the original the party scene was much longer because Meeskite was still in the show.

[gravity87]

Thank god they cut "Meeskite"" I remember having to "act" engaged sitting upstage during my HS production. That was tough.

[jayinchelsea]

"Meeskite" was a terrific number, and Jack Gilford performed it brilliantly. And I'm tired of all these years of Jill Haworth bashing. I saw the show several times during its original run, and Haworth was great every time. And yes, the original production was innovative and exciting, far better than the look-at-my-direction dullness of the Mendes version.

[EricMontreal22]

Judging from the 80s revival, which is largely the original version (Meeskite was cut, and I think wisely, it really needs Gilford to make it work), the original staging still holds up, and I dislike that aspect about the revival--that it has seemed to make many people think the original staging was dated. It was wise to open up Cliff's sexuality as the 80s revival did, but...

[E.Davis]

I wish the would put it back into the 98 version. It gives Schultz another opportunity to shine, even though the part is brilliant as is.

[RippedMan]

I really hate that they could never find a good song for Cliff to sing. I get that he's the eyes to which we are all witnessing what is going on, but the character never really gets a moment to himself to reflect on anything. It's interesting. The show - at least the revival version - is most def. Sally's show. She is the "lead" in a sense, which is weird because the show would not exist without Cliff coming to Berlin.

[EricMontreal22]

Don't Go works better for the character IMHO than the lovely Why Should I Wake Up. It is an issue--in the original novels of course the Isherwood voice has little character of his own.

[Musicaldudepeter]

I suppose that's why it makes sense (Tony 'billing rules' aside) for Sally to be called a Featured or Supporting Role because of Cliff's influence and impact on the overall plot... Sally is a product of that plot... And yes the Mendes production made Sally the lead

[Will42]

'Wait, Haworth wasn't even nominated for Sally- something I've always found odd. How can you NOT get nominated playing Sally Bowles?'

Actually, Alyson Reed (nominated for a Tony in featured category) and Natasha Richardson (won in lead category) are the only actresses to date who got any notice from awards group for their performances as Sally. Both failed Kelly Hunter (1986 London Revival) and Jane Horrocks (1993 London revival) to score Olivier Awards nominations.

[broadwaybabytn]

Was Judi Dench nominated for an Olivier?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Jill Haworth also got some pretty middling to savage notices, which is probably part of the reason she didn't get a nomination.

Cabaret is a stunning musical with one wild wrong note. I think you'd be wise to go to it first and argue about that startling slip later...

We are left now with the evening's single, and all too obvious, mistake. One of the cabaret tables is empty, the table reserved for heroine Sally Bowles. Sally Bowles, as the narrative has it, is a fey, fetching, far-out lassie with a head full of driftwood and a heart she'd rather break than shackle. She is a temperament, and she needs a temperament to play her.

Producer-director Harold Prince, in a totally uncharacteristic lapse of judgment, has miscast a pretty but essentially flavorless ingénue, Jill Haworth, in the role. Miss Haworth has certain skills and may be able to use them in other ways. Wrapped like a snowball in white fur and sporting that pancake tam that girls of the twenties used to wear whenever they were going to be photographed having snowball fights, she succeeds-at some angles-in looking astonishingly like Clara Bow. But her usefulness to this particular project ends there. She is trim but neutral, a profile rather than a person, and given the difficult things Cabaret is trying to do, she is a damaging presence, worth no more to the show than her weight in mascara.

The damage is deeply serious and must be stressed. With the kooky heroine canceled out, the tangled love story vanishes. Its disappearance is scarcely noticed during the striking first half, because Miss Lenya and Mr. Gilford are there to take over. But the second act must account for a botched romance and build to a disillusion ending on it and that's a bad time to watch the emotional air being steadily drained from a show that takes its style and its subject matter seriously.




Walter Kerr's review

[Will42]

They were not yet invented at the time. She has won 7 though during her career. More than any other performer.
Dame Maggie Smith on the other hand shockingly has never won one despite 6 nominations.

[CarlosAlberto]

Jill Haworth stated that she stayed in CABARET for over a year to spite Walter Kerr.

[Musicaldudepeter]

Maggie Smith has a Special Olivier Award if I'm not mistaken - she won in 2010

[RippedMan]

True. I like "Don't Go," just wish they could have come up with something much more melodic.

"Why Should I Wake Up" is a pretty sentiment, but the lyrics are tough as hell to act because it's not really saying much. Just pretty words and melody.

[Will42]

Yes, an Honorary one, but not a competitive. For someone who has appeared in God knows how many stage productions and is considered an institution of British theatre this is surprising.
It's like if Angela Lansbury has never won an Emmy Award, can you imagine?...oh, wait.

[goldenboy]

she puts out.

[inlovewithjerryherman]

Re: Cliff's song, I personally would adore it if at some point, "Don't Go" was performed and segued into, "Maybe This Time", which after a chorus, could be performed together as a medley.

[BroomstickBoy]

Cliff does not need a solo. If he really needed a "moment to shine", then they'd have a damn song that would have stuck with the score all these years. Giving him a song to sing in all that madness and debauchery makes him part of the Berlin scene, and he's not. He's really on the outside looking in.

It's not a bad thing to have Sally as the center of the show, technically it's a half and half between Cliff and Sally, because the source material that provided the basis for Cabaret was the "Sally Bowles" story from the Isherwood book.

[EricMontreal22]

I think that's a fair point. Certainly Why Should I Wake Up seems almost too self aware at that point in the show.

[After Eight]

I love "Why Should I Wake Up." My favorite song in the show is "Perfectly Marvelous."

I'm not that great a fan of the show, but I preferred the Mendes production to the Prince original. The original was heavy handed, as is Prince's style. Peg Murray was great, Jill Haworth fair.

[MTVMANN]

Also in the 1998 version she is a Kit Kat Girl and sings the German section of "Married".



But if I'm not mistaken...this is just the actress playing dual parts...It's not actually Kost as a Kit Kat Girl.

[E.Davis]

^^^^

It is Kost. Also Kost is Fritzie. One of the sailors call her it during the apartment scene.