‘Cabaret’ a UMaine triumph

ORONO – Every musical has a show-stopping moment. For some, it is a big, flashy production number like the title song in “Hello Dolly!” In others, it is one character, standing alone, center stage – Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady” hitting that impossibly high note at the end of “I Could Have Danced All Night.”

In Maine Masque’s production of “Cabaret,” that moment comes halfway through the first act when the waiters gather onstage to sing a cappella “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.”

Their voices sweetly blend and soar heavenward. Lined up along the stairs of the three-story set, they look more like angels than Nazis.

The lighting, however, casts ominous dark shadows across their fresh, pink faces, revealing hearts filled with hatred.

It is a bone-chilling moment, all the more powerful for its subtlety in a production that is as brash and bold as were the young brown shirts who followed Adolph Hitler and welcomed his rise to power.

Director Sandra Hardy’s production of “Cabaret,” staged at Hauck Auditorium at the University of Maine, is a triumph.

She successfully blends elements from the original 1966 production and the bolder 1993 London revival directed by Sam Mendes, who won an Academy Award for “American Beauty.”

Her mostly student cast of more than 40 actors mowed down the sold-out house Friday night with their edgy performances, raunchy dance numbers and raw emotion. They recreated the hedonistic, avant-garde Berlin of the late 1920s and made it shockingly seductive. Theatergoers yearned to sit at a table in the Kit Kat Club.

Matthew Blake Small is the master of ceremonies. Tall and skinny, with long arms and spindly legs, he moves about the stage like an elegant spider, lovingly gathering the characters into a comfortably lethal web. With his sardonic smile and maniacal laugh, Small represents not only the Nazis who seduced the German people but also those who didn’t care which political party ruled, only that Berlin’s seemingly endless party go on.

Hardy’s decision to cast the communications junior adds an extra dimension to the show, especially for audience members familiar only with the diminutive Joel Grey’s interpretation of the role. Physically, Small is the epitome of the men Hitler said would make up his master race – blond, blue eyed, virile.

Sandra Bisson and Daniel Williams portray Fraulein Schneider and Herr Shultz, the older lovers whose marriage is thwarted by her fear of the Nazi attitude toward Jews and his refusal to understand that what Hitler is planning is not just another program. Together, they are delightful and their parting is more tragic and bittersweet than that of the younger lovers.

Williams, a former state legislator who works in UM’s admissions office, nearly steals the show as he shuffles and seduces the lonely woman who runs the boardinghouse where Shultz lives.

Lovers Sally Bowles and Clifford Bradshaw are portrayed by Jasmine Ireland and Dominick Varney. Ireland captures the hollow, tough party girl who lives for the applause that follows her Kit Kat Club performances and is never without a man. Varney finds the pragmatic, moral artist in Cliff and quietly portrays the writer’s confusion over his sexuality.

Hardy’s triumph with this production is the fine ensemble work she gets from her cadre of young singers, dancers and actors. They help create the mood and depth that are essential in making any production of “Cabaret” successful.

“Cabaret” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday. For tickets, call 581-1755.