ABSTRACT
Cabaret began life as a short novel by Christopher Isherwood called Goodbye to Berlin. Written in 1939, the book is a thinly veiled fiction of Isherwood’s time in Berlin in the waning days of the Weimar Republic. The audience entered the theater to be met with blackness and a hanging mirror in which the audience saw themselves – it was unnerving in just the right way. The work from all the others on the creative team was equally astounding. The film was a huge hit and won Oscars for Fosse, Minnelli, and Joel Grey. It had a major revival in 1987, also directed by Prince and choreographed by Ron Field, and starring Joel Grey, but while it did okay it didn’t seem to have the passion the original production had and, of course, many musicals had come along using many of the techniques Prince had used in that original production.
