{"id":108779,"date":"2025-03-31T12:03:51","date_gmt":"2025-03-31T19:03:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=108779"},"modified":"2025-03-31T12:53:47","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T19:53:47","slug":"mmtcs-musical-cabaret-in-novato-comes-as-close-to-ideal-as-possible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/mmtcs-musical-cabaret-in-novato-comes-as-close-to-ideal-as-possible\/","title":{"rendered":"MMTC\u2019s musical ‘Cabaret’ in Novato comes as close to ideal as possible"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Evvy Calstrom-March (center, as Sally Bowles) and Stephen Kanaski (also center, as the Emcee) star in <\/strong><\/em>Cabaret<\/strong>. (All photos by Katie Wickes)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n

By WOODY WEINGARTEN<\/strong><\/p>\n

There\u2019s no perfect show, no perfect production. But the Marin Musical Theatre Company\u2019s interpretation of Cabaret comes within a hair\u2019s breadth of reaching those pinnacles.<\/p>\n

The best Bay Area theatrical work of the year, perhaps the season, it stars Evvy Calstrom-March as chanteuse Sally Bowles, the main draw in Berlin\u2019s shabby Kit Kat Club, circa the Roaring Twenties and the rise of Hitler.<\/p>\n

Calstrom-March is a joy to watch every second she\u2019s on stage at the Novato Theatre Company (which presented Cabaret). She\u2019s a quadruple threat: vocals that might make many a Broadway starlet jealous; dancing that puts a capital \u201cL\u201d in limber; dramatic acting chops that make you feel with her; and a rubberized face that can deliver comic expressions with ease.<\/p>\n

Also completely watchable is Stephen Kanaski, the Emcee, who changes costumes as often as kids check out their smart phones, and who leers and sneers with the best of them \u2014 even though actor\/singer Joel Grey originally \u201cowned\u201d the role.<\/p>\n

Choreography by Katie Wickes \u2014 who also seamlessly co-directed the show with Jenny Boynton \u2014 derivatively reminds theatergoers of Bob Fosse at his peak with an underlay of classic Jerome Robbins (and that\u2019s not a bad thing). She staged and rehearsed each of the four nightclub dancers so well they seemed to fill the spotlights as if there were two or three times that many hoofers.<\/p>\n

Superlative costumes by Krista Lee and Andria Nyland ranged from a military uniform to glitzy, skimpy burlesque outfits to \u201cordinary clothing\u201d that blended so well it became invisible so they didn\u2019t distract from the plotline.<\/p>\n

A trio of instrumentalists, led by music director Daniel Savio just off the stage, doesn\u2019t miss a proverbial beat and couldn\u2019t have supported the cast better with its bouncy jazz rhythms suitable to the era.<\/p>\n

Others worth lauding include Daniela Innocenti Beem, who smoothly injects landlady Fraulein Schneider (who feels pressured by the political upheaval to not marry the Jewish fruit peddler she loves) with humor and pathos and a voice that won\u2019t quit, and Michael Lister, who portrays Ernst, a Nazi smuggler, with appropriate sleaze.<\/p>\n

Cabaret, as most theatergoers know, is a rough-edged tragic double-love story engraved on a backdrop of Nazism. Today, the 1966 musical again acts as a red-flag metaphor suggesting that extreme nationalism, racism, Antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ+ism, and blindness to burgeoning authoritarianism can imperil our frail democracy.<\/p>\n

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Fr\u00e4ulein Schneider (Daniela Innocenti Beem), a landlady, cozies up to Jewish fruit peddler, Herr Shultz (Jere Torkelsen).<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The Marin Musical Theatre Company (MMTC) show isn\u2019t for everyone, certainly \u2014 despite the production\u2019s overall superb quality and the show\u2019s Tony award-winning history. MAGA devotees probably won\u2019t like it just because. And anyone who can\u2019t handle its cornucopia of heavy sexuality, debauchery, homophobia, immorality, hedonism, prostitution, and drugs most likely will stay home.
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Sally Bowles (Evvy Calstrom-March, center) and Kit Kat Club girls come on strong.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Regardless, classic Broadway music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, a team that also spawned another Great White Way blockbuster, Chicago, remain a perfect fit. Several of the tunes, in fact, can be sung or hummed or whistled as you leave the theater, an endeavor that\u2019s almost as dead as the proverbial dodo if you think about more modern musicals.<\/p>\n

Joel Grey, not incidentally, gets cited online by Wickes and Boynton, in lieu of a production prologue, by reprinting an op-ed he wrote for the New York Times last November.<\/p>\n

In it, he sounds an alarm about \u201cthe dangers of apathy\u201d and distraction \u2014 as he simultaneously warns us about being seduced by a sense that we are facing dark times but \u201cthey won\u2019t really affect our own day-to-day lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

That sense, he notes, echoes \u201cthe tragically shortsighted assessment of so many European Jews in the 1920s and \u201830s.\u201d<\/p>\n

The MMTC\/Novato Theatre Company co-production of Cabaret<\/em> will play at the Novato Theatre Company, 5420 Nave Drive, Novato, through April 13. Tickets: $35 to $50. Info: 415-883-4498 or info@marinmusicals.org.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Sherwood \u201cWoody\u201d Weingarten, a longtime member of the San Francisco Bay Area Theater Critics Circle and the author of four books, can be contacted by email at voodee@sbcglobal.net<\/a> or on his websites, <\/em>https:\/\/woodyweingarten.com<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0https:\/\/vitalitypress.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Evvy Calstrom-March (center, as Sally Bowles) and Stephen Kanaski (also center, as the Emcee) star in Cabaret. (All photos by Katie Wickes) By WOODY WEINGARTEN There\u2019s no perfect show, no…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":4.7,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-108779","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"