![]() ![]() Redmayne creeps around the fringes of the stage when he is not performing, watching scenes from afar. In the far shorter and overly sinister second half, Julia Cheng’s sinewy and soaring choreography is key to the tip from hedonism to hate: high-kicks start to resemble goose-steps and street violence is conveyed in a dance of outstretched limbs and a jacket balled in the fists of the performers. Occasionally, it verges on outre overload. “Two Ladies” looks like a hazy theatrical wet dream, staged amid an orgy of tangled bodies – one character masturbates to Mein Kampf and another makes luridly suggestive moves on a sink plunger. The Kit Kat Club’s dancers are by turns vulgar, comical and sexy with a thrilling blend of genders, and the musical comedy tickles with cartoonish charm, especially as Fraulein Kost (Anna-Jane Casey) smuggles her night trade of sailors into the boarding house. The minor characters are beautifully realised too: Cliff’s friend, Ernst (Stewart Clarke), never loses his affability even after he reveals himself a Nazi. Some of the early scenes seem like discrete warm-up acts, filled with romp, burlesque and transgressive naughtiness. The auditorium is re-arranged with tables and chairs which creates the intimacy of a cabaret club, accompanied by Isabella Byrd’s cleanly sensational spot-lighting. ![]() ![]() “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” has miniature model men standing to attention on the revolve, replaced by real men in its reprise, which is infused with ominous, stomping movements and a martial drum beat, prefiguring the terror to come. Tom Scutt’s stage design is expressionistic and imaginative: a train journey is represented by a model train revolving around the outer part of the three-tiered, circular stage. ![]() Together, they are magnificently tender and tragic. “What Would You Do?” sings the Fraulein, and we feel her caught between the immovable forces of fascism, survival, and love. They become this production’s heart, first surprised to have found love so late and then broken when Nazi fervour drives them apart. Their scenes together feel static and are side-lined by the passion of the show’s older couple: the boarding house landlady, Fraulein Schneider (Liza Sadovy), and the Jewish grocer, Herr Schultz (Elliot Levey). Together, they do not spark romantic chemistry as the central couple. Omari Douglas brings a gentle sweetness to his part as the bisexual American novelist, Clifford Bradshaw, but seems hemmed in by the role, as muted as his beige suit, though there is one flaring moment of passion when he kisses another man. But she sings with astonishing command, and there is an especially breath-taking version of “Cabaret” which is full of zombie-like darkness that sucks all of Minnelli’s froth out of it. Here she is a plummy-voiced Sloane who is emphatically unsexy with an edge of severity. Buckley plays her as the opposite of Liza Minnelli’s fun-loving chanteuse. Jessie Buckley, as Sally Bowles, first emerges as a glassy-eyed, underage sex-bomb – an obscene Shirley Temple in a frou-frou dress. Rebecca Frecknall’s production on the whole lives up to its hype, magnetising us with flamboyant camp and then delivering menace that feels freshly charged. He gives an immense, physicalised performance, both muscular and delicate, from his curled limbs to his tautly expressive fingertips. It does not matter that Redmayne’s voice is drowned out by the orchestra at times. ![]()
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