From November 5th through 7th, Vassar’s Drama Department is performing the musical Cabaret. On the Vassar website, Cabaret is described as a “dark historical drama and cautionary tale about the hedonistic nightlife of Berlin from 1929 to 1930, as the Nazi Party rises to power.” So how is a musical written in the 1960s, set in 1930s Berlin, relevant to us today in the United States?
The musical takes place at the Kit Kat Club in Berlin. It mostly follows the relationship between Kit Kat dancer and “toast of Mayfair” Sally Bowles, and American writer Cliff Bradshaw. As the show progresses, the audience sees Berlin’s descent into Nazism.
One of the key points of the show is that the characters see the Kit Kat Club as an escape from the political turmoil outside. In the Finale, Sally says the iconic line, “After all, it’s only politics, and what’s that got to do with us?” People often want to believe that elections don’t really matter, and that their lives will never be changed by politics.
I’ve seen the internet exasperate the predominance of this mindset. Specifically, I’ve seen a lot of people post that politics should be separate from the media that they consume: books, movies, TV, songs, etc. People see popular media and art as a way to escape their reality, similarly to how the characters in Cabaret see the Kit Kat Club as their escape. Cabaret showcases how this line of thinking is flawed. Politics and the people in power will affect you no matter what, even if you pretend that political problems don’t exist. At the end of the show, the character of the Emcee wears a concentration camp uniform, to show how despite being in the Kit Kat Club throughout the entirety of the show, he could not evade the Nazi regime.
Cabaret tells us that politics are a part of life. We can’t just pretend that bad things don’t exist so that they’ll go away. While it’s good to find a form of escapism, we can’t constantly use it to forget what’s going on outside. No matter how hard we try to ignore them, we will be affected by the decisions that our leaders make.
Cabaret will be performed in the Martel Theater at Vassar from November 5th through 7th, and tickets are on sale now. Both the cast and crew have been working so hard on the performance. I highly recommend going to see it!