London’s Playhouse Theatre is spectacularly transformed into the seedy KitKat Club for an incredible escapist production.
Plastered across the London scene, posters of John Kander and Fred Ebb’s 1966 musical revival were a big hit. Gothic-inspired images of the cast appeared across the city backdrop, teasing a hedonistic theatre world where stalls and stands become an immersive Weimar-era cabaret setting.
Red light bathed the corridors and Cabaret stars lurked around the reformed stage as the audience piled into the pop-up KitKat Club. Expectations around the adaption of the legacy musical were set. The auditorium cleverly intimately redesigned with circular tables and accompanying chairs imitate the closeness of conventional cabaret layout. Soon enough, Eddie Redmayne, cast as the club’s impish Emcee, enters. Contorting his narrow frame, hunched forward, the star enters offering the audience an over-enthused “Wilkommen”. A headlining name for the production, the actor effortlessly absorbs his role. Onward, Redmayne looms throughout, serving as an on-looker, at times, clambered upon the upper dress circle beams. Clasped in a conical red party hat, his forward bearing figure shares an uneasy optimism, matched by his well-sculpted German-washed accent.
As the production progresses, the actor efficaciously mirrors the play’s gradual darkening theme. Scuttling across the stage, Redmayne shifts from a charmingly louche figurehead, later, to a genderless figure of death erupting from the stage floor. Here -and time again- Tom Scutt’s brilliant stage design adds a new dimension to the production. A deathly foreshadowing as we are, once again, reminded of the Nazi politics encroaching on everyday German lives. As the character introductions continue, the cabaret club soon catches glimpse of the famed Salley Bowles (Jessie Buckley). A pronounced leading act, Bowles dreams of stardom. Diverging from the traditional character template, Buckley is confident and overcompensatingly comical. Often decked out in her signature fur coat, the character is brought to life with astonishing renditions that were met with loud applause. Notably, Buckley’s performance of Maybe This Time and Cabaret are incredible.
The post Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley are captivating in West End Cabaret adaptation – review appeared first on GAY TIMES.
0 Comments