Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz (9 page)
Authors: Greg Lawrence,John Kander,Fred Ebb
BOOK: Colored Lights: Forty Years of Words and Music, Show Biz, Collaboration, and All That Jazz
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Cabaret
and
The Happy Time
and
The Happy Time
P
roduced and directed by Harold Prince,
Cabaret
was based on John Van Druten’s play
I Am a Camera
as well as Christopher Isherwood’s stories about Weimar Berlin and the rise of Nazism. Prince commissioned Kander and Ebb for the score and Joe Masteroff for the book. The original cast featured Joel Grey (the epicene Emcee), Lotte Lenya (the gruff landlady), Jack Gilford (the Jewish grocer), Jill Haworth (the English cabaret singer Sally Bowles), and Bert Convy (the American writer). The show opened at the Broadhurst Theater on November 20, 1966, ran for 1,165 performances, and won eight Tonys, including Best Score for Kander and Ebb.
roduced and directed by Harold Prince,
Cabaret
was based on John Van Druten’s play
I Am a Camera
as well as Christopher Isherwood’s stories about Weimar Berlin and the rise of Nazism. Prince commissioned Kander and Ebb for the score and Joe Masteroff for the book. The original cast featured Joel Grey (the epicene Emcee), Lotte Lenya (the gruff landlady), Jack Gilford (the Jewish grocer), Jill Haworth (the English cabaret singer Sally Bowles), and Bert Convy (the American writer). The show opened at the Broadhurst Theater on November 20, 1966, ran for 1,165 performances, and won eight Tonys, including Best Score for Kander and Ebb.
With its dark subject matter and innovative form—the phantasmagoric musical within a musical —
Cabaret
was hailed as a startling breakthrough that pushed musical theater into a more conceptualized realm. The songwriters added several new numbers—“Maybe This Time,” “Mein Herr,” and “Money, Money”—to Bob Fosse’s 1972 film version, which refocused the drama for its stars, Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, and Michael York. Under Harold Prince’s direction, the first Broadway revival of
Cabaret
opened on October 29, 1987, and ran 262 performances despite being panned by
New York Times
critic Frank Rich.
Cabaret
was hailed as a startling breakthrough that pushed musical theater into a more conceptualized realm. The songwriters added several new numbers—“Maybe This Time,” “Mein Herr,” and “Money, Money”—to Bob Fosse’s 1972 film version, which refocused the drama for its stars, Liza Minnelli, Joel Grey, and Michael York. Under Harold Prince’s direction, the first Broadway revival of
Cabaret
opened on October 29, 1987, and ran 262 performances despite being panned by
New York Times
critic Frank Rich.
A much revised version of the show returned to Broadway by way of London in 1998, choreographed by Rob Marshall and
directed by both Marshall and Sam Mendes. New scenes were added, and four of the original Broadway songs were replaced by three from Fosse’s movie and “I Don’t Care Much,” which had been cut from the original production. The musical became more daring and brazenly erotic. With the leads played by Natasha Richardson, Alan Cumming, Ron Rifkin, and Mary Louise Wilson, Cabaret was once again lauded as an exhilarating triumph.
directed by both Marshall and Sam Mendes. New scenes were added, and four of the original Broadway songs were replaced by three from Fosse’s movie and “I Don’t Care Much,” which had been cut from the original production. The musical became more daring and brazenly erotic. With the leads played by Natasha Richardson, Alan Cumming, Ron Rifkin, and Mary Louise Wilson, Cabaret was once again lauded as an exhilarating triumph.
KANDER:
Cabaret
evolved from Hal Prince’s concept.
Cabaret
evolved from Hal Prince’s concept.
EBB: The concept was something that we were never as self conscious about as the people who were guiding our careers were. We didn’t have the idea of a concept musical in mind when we were writing
Cabaret.
Cabaret.
KANDER: We were just trying to write an entertaining piece.
EBB: It was made to order. Hal would say, “Maybe we should have a number here for this moment.” We were working in a form which was very accessible to me, the revue form, where performers just come out and do a number. I was comfortable with that. I don’t think that I appreciated the portentousness of the subject we were treating with a cabaret in Hitler’s Berlin, or the seriousness of it, until that was pointed out to me.
KANDER: Unlike the integrated musical where everything grows in a very natural way out of each situation, Hal’s musicals, beginning with
Cabaret
, are often a conceptual presentation with actors observing and songs that comment on the action. I think in a way that may have been his reaction to the more traditional musical form. His concept certainly influenced us a great deal.
Cabaret
, are often a conceptual presentation with actors observing and songs that comment on the action. I think in a way that may have been his reaction to the more traditional musical form. His concept certainly influenced us a great deal.
EBB: It dictated our whole style. We were writing vaudeville.
KANDER: All of
Cabaret
is vaudeville.
Cabaret
is vaudeville.
EBB: Like a German music hall.
KANDER: What I remember most is that for months Hal and Joe Masteroff and you and I would sit in a room and play a
game that I call “What if?” The director, writers, and composer sit in a room together and imagine the characters and elements of the story. That’s an area where Hal’s strength as a leader of collaboration shone through. We were inventing incidents that were going to be part of the story. What if such and such happens? What if somebody throws a brick through the window?
game that I call “What if?” The director, writers, and composer sit in a room together and imagine the characters and elements of the story. That’s an area where Hal’s strength as a leader of collaboration shone through. We were inventing incidents that were going to be part of the story. What if such and such happens? What if somebody throws a brick through the window?
EBB: That was how we started to hammer out what the show would be. Out of those meetings came the Emcee, the master of ceremonies, as well as many of the theatrical devices that have worked to the show’s enormous advantage.
KANDER: We wrote a long series of songs that we called “Berlin songs.” We wrote many of those before the Emcee had been conceived, really Initially they were going to be sung by different characters, and at some point in our conversations they were conceived for one person, the Emcee. That seemed like a really terrific solution. We wrote a lot of Berlin songs and we were fortunate that most of them were not used. “Wilkommen” was the first one.
EBB: That wasn’t really a single song but a whole series of numbers. It was “Welcome to Berlin,” and all these songs welcomed you to town. I don’t remember specifically who thought of what because it was so collaborative in the backyard of Hal’s house, sitting around with everybody just talking about what we hoped the show would be. At some point all these songs became one song sung by one person. I couldn’t say specifically when that happened, but that was how it evolved and that was really the glory of that whole piece. I believe the idea of Sally’s having an abortion came from you, but I couldn’t swear to it. A brick being thrown through Herr Schultz’s window—that may have come from me, though I’m not positive. But these were all events that came out in the shaping of the libretto. Joe’s contribution was enormous. Of course, he wrote the damn thing while Hal and you and I threw pieces in. There was such joy in that process.
KANDER: It was to this day as far as I’m concerned the ideal way for collaborators to work on a piece.
EBB: I think
Cabaret
was the best collaborative process we ever had.
Cabaret
was the best collaborative process we ever had.
KANDER: Because eventually what that kind of work really means is that everybody ends up doing the same show. In other words, it’s not the book writer doing one thing and you and I doing something else.
EBB: You know the horror of a musical is when you’re out of town and the show’s not working, and you get together and you find out, “Oh, my God, I didn’t have that in mind!” Then you worry about how to fix it because you weren’t writing the same piece.
KANDER: Hal was a master of that process. He was able to free us in a way that we all jumped in without any inhibitions whatsoever. If it was a bad idea, it was a bad idea. One of the reasons that we wrote so many songs for that piece is that we were writing our way into it. The more we wrote, the more we found out what the piece was. As the captain of the collaboration, Hal was able to be selective and to bring us together in agreement about what should be done.
EBB: Our songs were going to depend on those decisions. I think we knew that Hal had a kind of sublime faith in us, and that was terrifically inspiriting, to know that this master of the musical form believed that we could do it.
KANDER: I think in every show we’ve done, we’ve tried to at least partially re-create that with the “What if?” sessions.
EBB: It doesn’t always work, but we hope for that. It depends most on having the right idea.
Cabaret
was the right idea. You work on other things with the same modus operandi, and if you have the wrong idea you don’t succeed.
Cabaret
was the right idea. You work on other things with the same modus operandi, and if you have the wrong idea you don’t succeed.
KANDER: Terrence McNally is a writer who also works that way with us. We often sit around this table with Terrence to plan out a piece. I don’t know that we would know how to do a show if someone just handed us a script and said, “Put songs in it.” We like having the director be captain.
EBB: Oh, it would be foolish to say, “Here’s a script. Add songs.” We should all agree this is how we do it.
Harold Prince on creating
Cabaret
:
Cabaret
:
We created a show with a character who I introduced to them, the Emcee, played by Joel Grey. He started out as this pathetic bad-taste entertainer and then became a Nazi. We had an early version that was a much more conventional musical in which basically that character came on and had a six-minute number during which he imitated all of the famous entertainers in Weimar Berlin. That summer I went off to Russia on vacation and saw a revue,
Ten Days That Shook the World
, and it shook me because it showed me that there was another way of structuring theater. It invited me to express myself as a director in ways I had not witnessed firsthand. I know there is nothing new under the sun, but this seemed new. When I came back, we took all those numbers and peppered them throughout the show, dividing the stage between the real world and a limbo world. I suppose it was a brave design, but it was personal and thus exciting to contemplate.
Cabaret
influenced the form of many Broadway shows, including other Kander and Ebb shows, not just
Zorba
and
Chicago
but
The Act
as well. Now, oddly enough, that concept has almost become a cliché. But that’s what happens.
Ten Days That Shook the World
, and it shook me because it showed me that there was another way of structuring theater. It invited me to express myself as a director in ways I had not witnessed firsthand. I know there is nothing new under the sun, but this seemed new. When I came back, we took all those numbers and peppered them throughout the show, dividing the stage between the real world and a limbo world. I suppose it was a brave design, but it was personal and thus exciting to contemplate.
Cabaret
influenced the form of many Broadway shows, including other Kander and Ebb shows, not just
Zorba
and
Chicago
but
The Act
as well. Now, oddly enough, that concept has almost become a cliché. But that’s what happens.
KANDER: Researching
Cabaret
, I listened to German jazz and vaudeville songs more than anything else, and then I just forgot about it. On any show, I may listen to the music of a particular style or a region, and then I forget all about it. I trust that there will be some kind of stylistic influence in what I’m doing, but it’s a thing I do unconsciously while listening.
Cabaret
, I listened to German jazz and vaudeville songs more than anything else, and then I just forgot about it. On any show, I may listen to the music of a particular style or a region, and then I forget all about it. I trust that there will be some kind of stylistic influence in what I’m doing, but it’s a thing I do unconsciously while listening.
EBB: For that show I read as much as I could and listened to as much as was available to me, much of which you supplied. We
would listen to those German vaudeville numbers, and songs like “Two Ladies” stemmed directly from that process. We filter all of that through our own sensibility and out comes what we do. Sometimes people don’t realize that. With the song “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” I received letters accusing me of using an actual Nazi anthem. That was completely false.
would listen to those German vaudeville numbers, and songs like “Two Ladies” stemmed directly from that process. We filter all of that through our own sensibility and out comes what we do. Sometimes people don’t realize that. With the song “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” I received letters accusing me of using an actual Nazi anthem. That was completely false.
KANDER: There were people who claimed they had heard the song in Nazi Germany—
EBB: They said, “How dare you put that on the stage!” But the song didn’t exist before we wrote it. Of course, there is always an unconscious element as well. I dream all the time. While we were working on
Cabaret
, I had a dream one night that took place on the set of
Hello, Dolly
. Joel Grey came out with a gorilla in a tutu, and it kept walking around the apron. I thought,
My God, how wonderful that is!
It’s baroque. It’s bizarre. It was everything that I could have wanted. So I told you about it, and you also loved the image. But then you asked me a key question, “Well, what’s the song?”
Cabaret
, I had a dream one night that took place on the set of
Hello, Dolly
. Joel Grey came out with a gorilla in a tutu, and it kept walking around the apron. I thought,
My God, how wonderful that is!
It’s baroque. It’s bizarre. It was everything that I could have wanted. So I told you about it, and you also loved the image. But then you asked me a key question, “Well, what’s the song?”
KANDER: Right. What’s the song about?
EBB: That never occurred to me. I called Hal Prince on the phone, and I said, “Hal, I want to do a number for Joel and a gorilla!” He said, “Oh, that’s great. What’s it about?” Again, I didn’t know. Hal was like a god and mentor to me. If he had said, “I don’t think that will work,” for whatever reason he might have had, I would have killed it. But he giggled and said, “That sounds like fun. What’s it about?” I realized that the two people who meant the most to me, you and Hal, both asked the same pertinent question. Then I really had to think of what the number was about. I wanted it to be about anti-Semitism, and it all worked from there, to show how anti-Semitism had crept into the cabaret. That was my intent, and eventually the line “If you could see her through my eyes, / She wouldn’t look Jewish at all” generated the whole number:
I know what you’re thinking,
You wonder why I chose her
Out of all the ladies in the world.
That’s just a first impression,
What good’s a first impression?
If you knew her like I do,
It would change your point of view.
You wonder why I chose her
Out of all the ladies in the world.
That’s just a first impression,
What good’s a first impression?
If you knew her like I do,
It would change your point of view.
If you could see her through my eyes,
You wouldn’t wonder at all.
If you could see her through my eyes,
I guarantee you would fall (like I did).
When we’re in public together,
I hear society moan,
But if they could see her through my eyes,
Maybe they’d leave us alone.
You wouldn’t wonder at all.
If you could see her through my eyes,
I guarantee you would fall (like I did).
When we’re in public together,
I hear society moan,
But if they could see her through my eyes,
Maybe they’d leave us alone.
How can I speak of her virtues?
I don’t know where to begin.
She’s clever, she’s sweet, she reads music,
She doesn’t smoke or drink gin (like I do).
Yet when we’re walking together,
They sneer if I’m holding her hand,
If they could see her through my eyes,
Maybe they’d all understand.
I don’t know where to begin.
She’s clever, she’s sweet, she reads music,
She doesn’t smoke or drink gin (like I do).
Yet when we’re walking together,
They sneer if I’m holding her hand,
If they could see her through my eyes,
Maybe they’d all understand.
I understand your objection,
I grant you my problem’s not small;
But if you could see her through my eyes,
She wouldn’t look Jewish at all.
I grant you my problem’s not small;
But if you could see her through my eyes,
She wouldn’t look Jewish at all.
KANDER: One of the things about Hal generally in our work with him, as opposed to a lot of other smart directors, you
could never be too bold for him. You could never have an idea too brazen or too far out. He was never going to say, “Oh no, we mustn’t do that.”
could never be too bold for him. You could never have an idea too brazen or too far out. He was never going to say, “Oh no, we mustn’t do that.”
EBB: He was not cowed by anything.
KANDER: The bolder the better.
EBB: Except once in
Cabaret
. During tryouts, that line, “She wouldn’t look Jewish at all,” got the exact reaction that I had hoped for from the audience. There was a collective gasp, which was followed by a moment of silence, and then applause. But when we were about to open in New York, we received a letter from a rabbi who claimed to represent millions of Jews. He found the line decidedly anti-Semitic and threatened to encourage all the Jewish groups to boycott us if it wasn’t changed. This same rabbi had earlier disrupted a performance in Boston apparently because he was outraged that a swastika appeared in the show.
Cabaret
. During tryouts, that line, “She wouldn’t look Jewish at all,” got the exact reaction that I had hoped for from the audience. There was a collective gasp, which was followed by a moment of silence, and then applause. But when we were about to open in New York, we received a letter from a rabbi who claimed to represent millions of Jews. He found the line decidedly anti-Semitic and threatened to encourage all the Jewish groups to boycott us if it wasn’t changed. This same rabbi had earlier disrupted a performance in Boston apparently because he was outraged that a swastika appeared in the show.
At the first preview, I walked into the lobby of the theater, and a lady wearing a checkered skirt accosted me: “Do you have anything to do with this show?” I told her that I wrote the lyrics, and she said, “Well, I represent the B‘nai B’rith, and we are here to protest the use of that line ‘She wouldn’t look Jewish at all.’ You are suggesting that Jewish women look like gorillas. That is blatantly anti-Semitic, and if you don’t take it out, we will cancel all of our theater parties.” The truth is, after that we ran scared. I was frightened. Hal was frightened, and he is not someone who is easily intimidated.
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