Center Repertory Company Concludes Its 2023-24 Season with Musical Masterpiece “Cabaret”
by Jan Miller
Center Repertory Company concludes its 2023-24 season with the Tony Award-winning musical masterpiece “Cabaret”, currently performing at the Lesher Center for the Arts (1601 Civic Dr.), Walnut Creek, CA. through June 23, 2024.
This stunning production features a stellar ensemble, as well as a marvelous musical direction and superb technical crew which provides excellent choreography. “Cabaret immerses the audience in a vibrant energy of Weimer Berlin, an era marked by artistic liberation and social progress, particularly for the queer community,” says director Markus Potter.
Set in Weimar Germany in the late 1920’s with the rise of Naziism, Rotimi Agbabiaka convincingly portrays the role of the Master of Ceremonies, while Monique Hafen Adams plays the brassy, carefree, vivacious cabaret singer Sally Bowles, who performs at the Kit Kat Club. Adams has an exhilarating voice, especially as she belts out “Maybe This Time,” “Don’t Tell Mama”, and, of course, “Cabaret.” Then there is Jacob Enrie-Naffaa, who is excellent in the role of Cliff Bradshaw, an American writer and English teacher from Pennsylvania who becomes emotionally entangled with Sally Bowles, which this production centers around.
Other actors who are equally superb in their roles are Kelly Ground, who portrays Fraulein Schneider, a landlady who rents rooms in her large flat, and Richard Farrell as Herr Schultz, a Jewish fruit vendor, the two of whom are featured in the script’s secondary plot as a doomed love story. A brick is thrown through Herr Schultz’ window and is dismissed as ‘childish mischief’. This is followed by an antisemitic tune “If You Could See Her Through My Eyes” in which Agbabiaka moons over a donkey (a gorilla, in the movie version of “Cabaret”). Ground, who has a wonderful voice, brilliantly sings “So What”.
Michelle Drexler performs as Fräulein Kost, a quick-witted, and sharp-tongued prostitute who is renting in Fraulein Schneider's boarding house. Paul Plain plays Max, a wealthy German baron playboy. Charlie Levy appears as Ernst Ludwig, a friendly German who takes English lessons from Clifford.
Landan Berlof, Faustino Cadiz III, Syndey Chow, Jesse Cortez, Elizabeth Curtis, Elizabeth Cowperthwaite, Andrio Jordan Fong, Antonia Reed, Jillian Smith, Adria Swan, Anne Warque, and Dedrick Weathersby round out the ensemble as dancers and inhabitants of the Kit Kat Club.
The production features many famous numbers, including “Two Ladies” and “Money”, both brilliantly sung by Agbabiaka, as well as “Mein Herr”, “Money Makes the World Go Around.”
As it turns out, both love stories are doomed, as Sally Bowles, who at first is optimistic about having a new life with Bradshaw, comes to terms that it won’t work for her; and Fraulein Schneider becomes terrified of the consequences of marrying a Jew with the rise of Naziism. Basically, “Cabaret” offers a dark plot that shines on the fragility of liberty in the face of authoritarianism; something that is as relevant today as ever.
The production’s scenic design (David Goldstein) and lighting (Wen-Ling Liao and Charlie Mejia) are excellent while the costume designs (Becky Bodurtha) definitely fit the times of the show.
For tickets or more information please phone the box office at (925) 943-7469 or visit CenterREP.org.
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Photo caption: Hedonistic nightlife thrives at the Kit Kat Club in Center Repertory Company's "Cabaret," currently performing through June 23 at Lesher Center for the Arts. (Photo Credit: Kevin Berne)