Wednesday, September 18, 2024

@AdamLambert in cabaret

 


I don’t know if you could say that this review includes spoilers. It actually says very little about the plot. However, obviously, I had seen the show before with other performers, so I’m not so worried about whether there might have been spoilers. If you’re very worried about that, you might not want to read this.


I saw “Cabaret” once before. It was a movie with Joel Grey and Liza Minnelli. I didn’t remember it too clearly. Yet, based on what fuzzy memories I had, I thought that the Emcee would be the perfect role for Adam. 


It was a role traditionally seen as possibly gay; and Joel Grey later came out as gay. Adam has always been interested in historical gay performers and other queer artists. 


Moreover, it was a role where Joel Grey wore a lot of makeup; and Adam loves makeup.


There was something eerie about Joel’s portrayal of the emcee, which I also thought would be right up Adam’s aisle


I was somewhat interested in their choice of a Pacific Islander to play Sally Bowles. 


One key difference between Adam and Grey is height. Adam is quite tall, 6’1", and, even having lost weight, built like a football player. Joel Grey was 5’5” and slight, with a narrow face. 


Interestingly, the production chose to exaggerate Adam’s height, by frequently putting him on a raised platform and giving him expansive clothing, in one case a puffy clown outfit with mime type makeup. 


It was good that I brought binoculars. I was in the back row and, with the frequent costume and makeup changes, did not always recognize Adam. When he first came out in an ordinary suit with ordinary shoes, I thought “That guy sings very well also. I wonder who that is;” but, then, after I pulled out the binoculars, I recognized it was Adam. 


Some fans may wonder why I went to see him. I’ve been vocal about being angry with him for having titled one of the songs on his latest album with a pejorative term towards women. He claims that it’s not a pejorative term in his echo chamber, which is presumably mostly gay men; but to me that isn’t dispositive. If a bunch of white people decided that the “n” word was not pejorative in their echo chamber, that wouldn’t make it any less pejorative. I don’t see how this is any different from that. 


Still, that doesn’t change the fact that he’s an extraordinary performer with one of the best voices out there — and this was a perfect role for him


Also, he mysteriously decided to follow me on X recently. Did he do this by accident?  I sent him some DMs. He didn’t respond. Was he trying to learn more about my concern with the name of his song?  Did he want to give me an opportunity to vent? Was he interested in my #QuixoticQuest for the world anthem? It’s a big dream of mine that a major pop star would get interested in the QuixoticQuest, and take up the mantle the MJ dropped through his premature death.  Would Adam do that? Or, probably most likely, he still hasn’t noticed that he followed me by accident. He’s been busy. He probably hasn’t checked his X account recently. 


I did DM him that I would be at the show today. Still no response. 


They were very strict about no photos in the theater at all. They put a sticker over the lens of my cell phone. The selfie camera would still work, but I didn’t push it. I saw some people taking a selfie. The usher got on it right away. No pix whatsoever, even after the show and only selfies.


The theater was mostly lit in orange. There were seats, maybe tables, on stage, to make the stage look more like a cabaret. The performance are in fact performing in the round. They did that for Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 as well. Maybe, if I go again, I’ll sit on stage as I did for that one. 


There were small, orange lights scattered about the stage, probably on tables, but it wasn’t really bright enough for me to see any tables clearly, even with the binoculars.


For this performance, I did my germaphobe thing, where I sit in the very back row, where no one breathes on me, and I hope heavier than air pathogens will tend to fall downwards. I switched a lot between glasses and binoculars. The latter were better for solos while the former were better for ensemble pieces. 


In the emcee role, my recollection was that Grey was slightly eerie, but Adam was *very* eerie, a force of nature, a supernatural being with a strange fate-like aspect


One feature of the movie was a blond teen or young adult singing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” symbolizing the rise of the Nazi movement — Hitler jugen. 


Yet, in this version, Adam sings that song. 


Usually, young tenors are chosen for certain roles, because their voices haven’t changed entirely. There’s a certain high sweetness to a young voice that an older person usually can’t manage to captured; however, Adam has the exceptional voice. There’s no one who is higher or sweeter than he is -- singing in chest voice.  There are lots of singers with fine falsettos, but I don't think this was falsetto. Therefore, more beautiful could not have been obtained by hiring a younger tenor.


Normally, Adam prefers a rowdy performance, which is well suited to this emcee. However, for this song, he went into his sweet, gentle type of voice, which he doesn’t often choose. This was, to my mind, the most extraordinary sound. He was strong, beautiful, and smooth in all of the songs; but this one was unworldly and spooky. There was a certain amount of reverb applied, I think. I’m sure I’ve never heard anything like it. I hope there will be a cast album. I would like to hear that song again, probably many times..


In the movie, when young man sang this song, he had a very healthy, outdoorsy look. Adam was in a dressing gown with a wig cap, heavily made up -- a dark, menacing presence. Since there were audience members all around the stage, I suppose some people saw him straight on, but the majority of audience members would’ve seen him in profile, as I did. Strange, beautiful — Adam, looking extraordinarily large and imposing, possibly even with padding under his clothes, was very affecting.


They typically had Adam rising out of the centerstage for most of his numbers. This increased the impression there was something supernatural about his character, omnipresent, giving a kind of ghastly, bawdy echo of turns in the plot. 


One of the songs Adam has to sing is very anti-Semitic. Adam is, of course, himself, Jewish. I wonder how he feels when he sings that song. I wonder if a Jewish person has ever played this role before.


It wasn’t entirely clear to me  why everybody ended up in suits at the end. Maybe that was a reflection of having to dress more conservatively in response to the Nazi movement. 


Yet, when Adam was in the suit with a blond wig, at the end, looking quite like an ordinary person, with ordinary shoes, one could see that he was actually shorter than the actor (Calvin Leon Smith) who played Cliff. That was totally not apparent earlier in the show, where Adam  was typically raised above the other actors.


It’s funny, when I saw that movie, I felt Liza Minnelli was playing the lead character. Yet, in this version, it’s quite apparent that the MC is the lead, at least having the most songs, and seemingly shepherding the plot -- or at least accentuating the moral context. 


I should say something about the other performers, I suppose.


I was very interested in the portrayal of Fraulein Schneider (Bebe Neuwirth), particularly because that’s the only role in this show that I would be considered for if I were to audition. She was the thinnest actress on the stage. She was also played by a woman who was old enough to have a shaky  voice. it’s not common that you see someone cast in a Broadway production who really isn’t quite on pitch a lot of  the time. Yet, it seemed to fit the character. She was an old woman, stuck in a particular way of living, who couldn’t escape.


Sally Bowles  (Auli'i Cravalho) was interesting also. I seem to remember from the movie that this character was an American, but in this production no. I saw an ad for the show where she said she was the youngest person ever cast in this role. You could hear that in her voice. There was a sort of youthful vulnerability in her voice. Also, she was not thin. I wouldn’t say she was overweight, but she was not thin. I noticed this because thin women are so often cast in movies. I don’t think thinness particularly helps singing. Moreover, she was especially generously endowed in the chest, which seemed appropriate for the character. Obviously, tho, a Pacific Islander would not be welcome in Nazi Germany. Broadway's desire for diversity isn't exactly consonant with the plot.


The actor who played Cliff was black. In Nazi Germany, that would’ve been probably even a bigger deal than being Jewish. Yet nothing was said about it, which was unrealistic. I remember my mother talking about the American runner, Jesse Owens, in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, who beat white runners. She said that was a *very* big deal at the time.


Cliff  came across as quite mousey. I don’t remember this character being so mousey in the movie, but it was a long time ago. That mouseyness made the fact that he was actually taller than Adam Lambert all the more striking towards the end.


The ensemble had more women than men. I have auditioned for Broadway shows, and I have noticed that there are generally many more women auditioning than there are men. Yet, they often hire as many or more men, than they hire women. It was good to see that they had an ensemble that was more reflective of the applicant pool. For the most part, the male and female dancers in the ensemble wore the same costumes, which were more commonly skirts than pants.  From a distance, it was hard to tell who was male or female, which was probably the desired effect.


They also had an overweight dancer, who they referred to as “Texas.“ They pointed out that everything was bigger in Texas. I don’t remember if that was a feature of the movie or not. Still, I was glad to see that they gave an overweight dancer a chance to perform. Broadway is good about these things


One very nice thing they did was to have members of the ensemble performing various dances and music on stage before the show, and during intermission.  That was especially useful, since they  said there would be no late seating and they encouraged people to come an hour early.  I think they actually did allow some late seating in the balcony, where I was.  They would have to be stricter about that for tables on the stage, to avoid disrupting the performance.


The theater was quite chilly most of the time. I did not take off my coat.


The restroom had interesting lights over the stalls, which were red when the stalls were occupied and green when the stalls were empty. The lights didn’t always work, and sometimes indicated the stalls were empty when they were not. Still, it was a good idea.


Generally, I felt that Adam gave a masterful performance. There was one detail that bugged me, because I am fluent in French. He mispronounced the French word "bienvenue." He used an American sounding “u” at the end. A German MC would not do that, because they have the same sound in German, which we do not have an English.  I looked at a video on YouTube and saw that Eddie Redmayne did the same thing.  


So, Adam, if you do happen to read this, this “u” sound is pronounced with the lips in a broad O position, as if you were going to kiss someone, but the inside of the mouth is like the English “EE.” Go into Google translate. Write in the word “bienvenue,” with detect language.  Then have Google read it for you.


I joined the crowd at the stage door who were hoping to get autographs,  after the show, but no one came out. I suppose that’s understandable. They don’t have that much time available between shows on Wednesday.


I wore my sparkly sandals, because I thought Adam would prefer them. They are a bit harder to walk in than some of my others, because my feet slide around a bit. Then unfortunately I never got to show them to him.


I also brought some flyers about the propositions that are on the ballot in New York this fall to enshrine equal rights for women and LGBTQ, and reproductive rights, in the New York State Constitution. I thought maybe I would pass them around in the crowd, during autographs, but I chickened out. More info on proposition one  It's worded a bit oddly, grouping reproductive rights together with women's and LGBTQ rights, in a way which I'm not sure makes grammatical sense.  It would likely have been better to have more than one proposal, or more than one clause.  Still, it's what we've got.


I think that were some empty seats in the theater. I don’t understand why Adam doesn’t post the actual direct link to buy tickets for the show on his social media accounts. However, it is a bit complicated, because you have to use SeatGeek, and resale of  tickets is not possible Therefore there’s a bigger risk to buying a ticket. I wasn’t too wild about having to install a new app on my phone. You literally could only get into the theater with the SeatGeek app. I guess if you’re one of those rare people who has not yet purchased a smart phone, you would not be able to go to the show. link to buy tickets


You can buy food and drink at the venue.  It is horrendously expensive.  Fortunately, it's optional.  I found a nice, moderately priced (by NYC standards) Indian restaurant nearby that I really liked.  Saar restaurant link


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 I just saw this post on X about the show.  I would like to say that the actual stage is really not so large as what this video makes it seem  The performers are really constrained to a pretty small space, because of all the tables and audience members on stage







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