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Review of the Chichester production in the FT. Things seem to be getting interesting there.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Life has been a cabaret at Chichester this summer. Artistic director Andrew Welch, brought in to wean the local audience off its addiction to Penelope Keith appearing in Noel Coward, chose the imaginatively spiky Lucy Bailey to direct a revival of Cabaret.<P>Bad idea: Welch was so shocked at the nudity at early rehearsals that Bailey retired hurt and Roger Redfarn was brought in as a late replacement, charged with making a musical set in a Berlin brothel during the decadent early 1930s more cosy.<P>Then suddenly Welch announced his own retirement, to be replaced by the most impressive theatrical trio since the Three Degrees, with the very experienced but scarcely cosy Ruth Mackenzie in pole position, supported by the equally bold Steven Plimlott and Martin Duncan. Suddenly Chichester looks cutting-edge.<P><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1028185353564&p=1016625900929" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A><P>And in the Times.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>THIS production of musical theatre’s darkest gem begins with a welcome that could hardly be described as warm. To the pulsing opening bars of Wilkommen, Julian Bleach as the Emcee, ashen-faced and hollow-eyed, rises through a trapdoor. When he sings, or rather snarls, “Bleibe, reste, stay!”, it’s less an invitation than an unsmiling order. Then the dancing girls and boys of the Kit Kat Klub trickle on to the stage, wearing winter coats over their gaudy underwear like cheap hookers on a chilly street corner. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,685-371937,00.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A> <P>And in the Standard.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>One can only wonder quite what Welch expected from this most gloriously seedy of musicals, set in the decadent, anything-goes Berlin of the early 1930s. Replacement director Roger Redfarn has stayed resolutely on message, with the result that, despite the occasional energetic bout of bump and grind, the atmosphere in the Kit Kat Klub is strangely lacking in depravity. Julian Bleach's ill-judged Emcee looks uncomfortable rather than threatening, and even that celebration of the threesome, Two Ladies, is drained of its sexuality by the decision to clothe the three concerned in exercise wear. Coxed pairs, anyone? <P><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/hottx/theatre/review.html?in_review_id=655985&in_review_text_id=626902" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A><P>And The Guardian.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Inevitably no main-house production can achieve the devastating intimacy of Sam Mendes's 1993 Donmar Warehouse revival; that made us guiltily complicit Weimar voyeurs. What we get instead at Chichester is a garish George Grosz-style spectacle. In The Kit Kat Club itself at least half the satin-knickered, fishnet-stockinged dancers turn out on closer inspection to be men. At one point, in an apparent echo of Broadway's The Producers, we are confronted by a line of high-kicking, precision-drilled Nazi chorus girls. Even the contentious Two Ladies is effectively staged on a vaulting horse with the lubriciously mounted Emcee sandwiched between two female gymnasts. <P><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P><A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/reviews/story/0,11712,767830,00.html" TARGET=_blank> <B> MORE </B> </A><p>[This message has been edited by Joanne (edited August 02, 2002).]
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