Sam Mendes’ Cabaret: It’s Just Politics

In our particular political moment, Cabaret maintains its importance more than ever. Instead of the excess of the roaring 20s, we are surrounded by an endless stream of content, attempting to numb us to lurking neofascism around the globe. Maybe, this number isn’t working. People care. People are fighting back. But what Cabaret reminds us is that we must continue to care. We must continue to fight back. Because politics does have to do with each of us, and when we start thinking that it doesn’t, we allow for supremacy and exclusion.

In 1993, Sam Mendes directed a recorded stage production of the 1966 award-winning stage musical of the same name. It has a simple premise: it follows the life of struggling American novelist Cliff Bradshaw, as he attempts to find inspiration for his novel while living in 1929-1930 Berlin, and the variety of characters he comes across. The British Cabaret performer, Sally Bowles, the mysterious English pupil, Ernst Ludwig, Cliff’s landlord, Fraulein Schneider, and the local fruit vendor, Herr Schultz, all enter Cliff’s life, while the Nazi party rises in the background. The Emcee, played by the astounding and role-defining Alan Cumming, intermittently sings songs to make the viewer feel as though they are watching a cabaret show.

Sam Mendes directs this production as though it were a film, with striking lighting and camera movement that knows exactly when to do a close-up of an individual’s face and when to step back so the viewer can see the whole stage. Each song is memorable and catchy. Though Jane Horrocks’ Sally gives a shaky vocal performance, Alan Cumming’s Emcee shines with his outstanding vocal performance and his seductive yet comical acting. The lighting and colors are generally vibrant, popping on the screen, during the early musical numbers, have vintage tint in the scenes within Cliff’s house, and a stark contrast between dark and light in the most devastating moments. However, in this review, I want to focus less on the technical aspects and more on the message of the film, and how it can be applied to today.

For the first half of the show, the viewer is caught up in the revelry and debauchery of the frivolous songs and parties of Berlin, like the characters themselves. Songs like the opening number, Willkommen, Don’t Tell Mama, Two Ladies, and Money, seem to mean almost nothing but seek to engross the viewer — to make them forget about politics and only have fun at the Cabaret. Outside the songs, in the first act, there are a few instances where the political context slips through: in one example, Cliff claims he is learning about German politics by reading Mein Kampf, but otherwise, the only reference to politics is that Ernst, a friend of Cliff, goes on trips to Paris from which he smuggles briefcases back into Germany for a “political party.” Politics in the first act is nevertheless generally relegated so far in the background that viewers knowing nothing about Cabaret might not even realize what is about to happen. The engagement party changes everything.

The engagement party (in my opinion, the greatest scene in musical theater) is a wake-up call for both the viewer and the characters themselves. Fraulein Schneider, and Herr Schultz, have decided to get married. As Ernst arrives at the party, he takes off his coat. First, you see the Nazi armband almost nonchalantly, like it means nothing. No one except Cliff seems to pay it any attention, but Ernst simply rebuffs him by saying that they are “friends” and “it's just politics.” After his confrontation with Cliff, as he dances with Kost, one of Schneider’s other tenants, Kost says, referring to Schultz, “They have all the money in the world…the Jews.” Afterwards, complete silence. No longer is this “impersonal” politics. Ernst cannot stand for it and threatens to leave because of Schultz’ Jewishness. Kost, attempting to keep him at the party, starts to sing a nationalist hymn in which much of the party joins in. Like many in our current day, Ernst initially tries to have it both ways. He wants his beliefs to just be a “difference in political opinion” from Cliff while he doesn’t believe in the very humanity of another individual. Meanwhile, the other characters, Schultz, Sally, Cliff, and Schneider, look away in silence as their friends and neighbors sing a song representing the emerging status quo of hyper nationalism, fascism, and Nazism. The Nazis are their friends and neighbors, and they begin to realize the current reality —, that politics can no longer be ignored. As all of this happens, the camera moves far back, so one can see the truly overwhelming nature of those singing the Nazi like hymn.

The second act is entirely shrouded by this realization. Even the Emcee’s songs become darker: “If You Could See Her” is an entire song about how the narrator wishes society would accept his relationship with a gorilla because “at least she wouldn’t be Jewish at all,” and “I Don’t Care Much” is an entire song about apathy. Meanwhile, Cliff decides he must leave Germany for the United States. Schneider calls off the wedding. Schultz attempts to reconcile and justify his situation by saying that “it will pass,” just like many other German Jews at the time. Sally does not realize or care about what is going on around her because it’s “only politics” and she will keep living her life the way she wants to. Each character represents a different response to rising fascism, but none represent true resistance.

You can’t blame any of one of these characters (besides Ernst, the perpetrator, of course) because each of their rationales does make sense. They each basically have a song about it, in fact. You can’t blame Schneider for wanting to keep her business and stay alive through her old age (Song: What Would You Do?). I can’t blame Cliff for wanting to go home, especially after the failure of his attempt to fight back against Nazis in the street, and I can’t blame Sally for wanting to continue the life that makes her “happy” (Song: Cabaret). And most of all, I can’t blame Schultz, who with no one to defend him, can only cope with the dangerous future ahead of him, hoping it will pass. But you can blame a society that treats people’s dignity as “just politics.” Cabaret ends with a striking reminder of what happens if we let politics fall into the background and allow ideologies like fascism to arise right from under our noses: in the final number, the Emcee appears on stage wearing a concentration camp uniform implying his and many of the other characters’ deaths.

In many ways, our current society faces a similar dilemma to Cabaret. Are we going to ignore the threats against gender, racial and religious minorities and pretend their dignity is just “just politics”? Or are we going to fight back with our voice, our vote, and our action? I have hope that it’s the latter. Cabaret reminds us what happens if we don’t continue this fight. As vice presidential candidate Tim Walz recently said, even if you don’t care about politics, “politics cares about you.” Continue to learn. Continue to be engaged. And continue to care. If you don’t, then who else will?