thePULSEBeating the winter blues
February 2004 – Got the winter blues? Go to Worcester’s Foothills Theatre and see some top Broadway actors in the premiere of the hot musical “Cabaret”… smell the roses at the Worcester Art Museum’s “Flora In Winter” exhibit… or go French at Bijou Cinema’s February Film Festival.
Finding Broadway’s award-winning “Cabaret” at Foothills Theatre
Okay, so this winter has been pretty brutal. Need some distraction? How about starting off February with the Flora In Winter exhibit, February 5-8 at the Worcester Art Museum, when works of art come to life with flower arrangements throughout the Museum. Or taking in weekly French films at the Bijou Cinema Pub — you can sit back and watch great cinema while sipping wine and snacking on tasty appetizers. And don’t miss the premiere of the Broadway production of “Cabaret” at Foothills Theatre.
For Foothills Theatre this is a real coup. The theatre’s Artistic Director Brad Kenney can barely contain his excitement when he talks about “Cabaret” the 1998 revival of the musical that dazzled Broadway coming first to Worcester’s premier regional theater in late February.
This is the Sam Mendes-Rob Marshall version of “Cabaret”, hailed by critics as a dark, yet glittering masterpiece when it premiered on Broadway in the late 1990s. The original 1966 show, which was re-packaged in a glossy, 1970s, Bob Fosse movie starring a spunky Liza Minelli, gets turned inside out in this much racier incarnation.
Violent forces are at work in this story of a young American writer who falls in love with a self-destructive English party girl in Berlin, Germany as the country careens towards Nazism. The Kit Kat Club where the girl, Sally Bowles works as a third-rate singer, is a microcosm of the struggle between good and evil that soon rips Germany apart.
The show takes place in 1929, just as Nazism is beginning to rear it’s ugly head. Sally Bowles tries to hide from the frightening world outside by pretending that inside the Kit Kat Club, life is an endless party.
This “Cabaret” is pretty raw; there is partial nudity, the characters are dressed in bits and pieces of black leather and lace, wearing torn stockings, tight suspenders wrapped around their private parts — their faces in garish make-up, sometimes leering and sneering as they sing, dance and strut. The story is told in sketches on a two-level, stark stage with dramatic lighting. The riveting characters, the first rate songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb, this “wonderful book” as Foothills Theater’s Brad Kenney says, promise to make this show must-see theater.
We stopped by Foothills recently to interview the two stars of Foothills’ “Cabaret”, both of whom performed in the Broadway and National Tour productions of the show. Elegant, talented Christopher Sloan wowed audiences on the show’s National Tour as the menacing emcee who tells the “Cabaret” story. Sloan also appeared in “The Music of Lloyd Webber” opposite Petula Clark and his resume includes several prestigious New York and regional theater roles.
Nicole Van Giesen, a strawberry blonde with a delicate, pretty face, will be Sally Bowles in the Foothills production which opens February 26. Van Giesen performed in the Broadway production of “Cabaret” as a Kit Kat Girl and was a Sally Bowles understudy on the recent National Tour. She too has performed in several Broadway productions, as well as in several New York and regional productions.
We’ll start with Christopher Sloan who spoke to us from a Foothills dressing room after a photo shoot:
Christopher, Tell us what it will be like for you to perform this show at Foothills:
Sloan: “I am very excited to do this play here. It is going to be interesting doing it in one place instead of traveling around all the time. The theater in essence will become my home. I won’t have to get used to a new theater…it’ll be one place, and I’m looking forward to getting very comfortable because the emcee role is such that he has to be in charge of everything…this is his territory….and it will be great to make the theater my own, to make the house my own.”
What are the biggest challenges of the role of emcee?
“The hardest thing about this role is keeping the stamina up. It’s hard because the emcee is constantly on, constantly changing. He has to be up and he has to be with the audience, keep them happy, keep them energized…building the energy up. It’s one of the hardest things, but it’s also one of the best things about the role.”
How is this version of “Cabaret” different from earlier versions?
“This version is different from the earlier versions because every version up to this one has been an idealized look at Germany in the 1930s, when there were obviously under-lying problems in the world. But this version brings political things up to the fore…shows the darker side of Germany and the darker side of the time that people haven’t really dealt with before, so it’s much more real.
It’s more realistic because these people, these things actually happened and existed and no one‘s really dealt with that, so with Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall — really their vision was incredible, just having them bring the darker side, the underbelly of the society and that time out on stage.”
How do you feel about living in Worcester during the production?
“It will be great to stay in my own place here, get out of Manhattan and relax in a quiet neighborhood and then come in to the theater and do the show every night..which I’m so excited to do.”
Of all the roles you have done, is this your favorite?
“Bar none, this is the best role I’ve ever played. You have to see the show to understand…but it is the singing, the songs we get to sing, the dances…the audience interaction. The emcee breaks the fourth wall. Everyone else is kind of talking to each other on the stage and indirectly to the audience, but the emcee actually talks to the audience, to the people and gets reaction from them — which is exciting and so it makes the show different every night, you never know what the audience is going to say or do and you have to change yourself.
Nicole, what is your favorite thing about “Cabaret’? What’s your favorite thing about the character of Sally Bowles?
“Well, Sally Bowles is…there’s something so hopeful about her, even though she’s very tragic. She still thinks she’s going to be a star and…there’s something so lovable about her, she’s annoying as hell – but still that makes her cute. She’s a lot of fun to play because she tries to squeeze every ounce of joy out of life that she possibly can. But she always winds up getting herself in trouble. She can’t seem to find someone to spend her life with, but as must as she wants that, it will never work for her because she can’t be tied down to one thing…there’s always another party to go to.”
Tell us about your previous “Cabaret” expriences.
“Cabaret was my first Broadway show. I was one of the Kit Kat girls. I was one of the first replacements in the Broadway company at Studio 54. I did that show for about 10 months….and then a spot opened up on the road so I went on the National Tour. I played a different Kit Kat girl, but this time I got to understudy Sally Bowles.”
What are your expectations for this “Cabaret”?
“To have the role and have the role be mine. The hardest thing about understudying is that there’s an expectation for you to be similar to the person you’re understudying – you don’t really get to make your own choices. Another reason is you never get a run of it, that’s what I’m looking forward to. I get a long time to play the role. I can’t wait to be my own Sally.”
How is the Foothills production similar to the Broadway show?
“What’s great about this version is it just doesn’t show it to you in black and white, you have to see the relationships of the people, how they work together. It looks to me to me like the Foothills show will be a lot like the original show…it’s the same script, it’s the same music, they’re using the Kit Kat girls, the musicians and I think they are going to do it as close to the original as possible. I’m really looking forward to doing this show here.”
Art in bloom at Worcester Art Museum’s “Flora In Winter”
Aarrgh. Wintertime in Worcester. Cold. Grey. Damp. Makes you want to just curl up into a ball and wait for spring. Even Worcester’s gem of a museum can feel a little forbidding under the crush of the season. And that’s why this temporary exhibition takes on greater importance. As WAM’s project coordinator, Ellie Ballard puts it, “this show helps get rid of the winter blahs.”
For the second year in a row, the Worcester Art Museum, in collaboration with Tower Hill Botanic Gardens, is producing “Flora in Winter,” a museum-wide display of flower arrangements by area garden club members and floral designers. This year, 22 invited individuals will be given the opportunity to interpret a particular work of art from the WAM permanent collection with a personally designed display of fresh cut flowers. Museum staff members decided in advance which objects from which galleries would be highlighted, and then, on a first come first served basis, the designers chose the works they wanted to characterize.
Sally Pettit of Worcester picked a Japanese image, “Daruma,” to interpret with their delicate style of Ikebana flower arranging. Judith Leyster’s 17th century painting, “Game of Tric-Trac” serves as the inspiration for Cambridge’s Ruth Crocker. Other works as wide ranging as a centuries-old Greek oil flask, Monet’s impressionist painting “Waterloo Bridge,” and Norman Rockwell’s humorous illustration, “The Wonders of Radio,” are also fair game for these floral artists.
Worcester Garden Club member Ulrike Lies enjoys flower arranging as a hobby and has been doing shows like this for years. She has participated in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts “Art in Bloom” exhibits and in previous “Flora” events at WAM, going back more than 10 years. This year she and friend Arlene Sjosten have accepted the challenge of interpreting a Pre-Columbian sculpture, “Woman in a Turtle Shell.” The two women always approach these projects very casually. Working from a picture of their subject, they decide on an appropriate container and then just before the show they go to the Boston Flower Exchange and pick the freshest, most interesting flowers they can find.
In fact, all of the participants do their arranging on site, early in the morning of the show. Some may have made sketches of their arrangements or actually practiced ahead of time – but to maintain the freshness and aroma of the flowers, everyone works rapidly to complete their arrangements by 11 a.m. when the museum opens to the public. Concurrently, other floral arrangers will have displays at Tower Hill.
If you think that these floral designers will be under a bit of pressure, so will you. If you want to see their colorful and inventive accomplishments you have only four days, February 5 through 8.
Go French at The Bijou
At Worcester’s new Bijou, enjoy February with French films, cult flicks and fine food in an eclectic cinema-pub
By Robert Newton, Photo by Jeff Loughlin
Editor’s note: In the interest of full disclosure, Robert Newton, the Pulse’s DVD critic and well-known film critic of Worcester Magazine is married to the new manager of Worcester’s Bijou Cinema. Who better, we figured, to know what’s going on behind the scenes at the Bijou…
From those who fondly recall the days when the Great Glass Elevator in the 1970s-1980s “Galleria” (now the Worcester Common Outlets) transported moviegoers from the shopping mall above to several movie screens below, to those whom have just recently discovered this marvelous subterranean repose, The Bijou Community Cinema is a vital and valid alternative to corporate googolplexes.
After a rocky transition from its previous management, the smoke, as they say, is clearing at the Bijou, as this lovingly conceived cultural notion marches on toward the collaborative glory inherent in it from Day One. Here are some of the things in store for the Bijou in 2004.
1. THE RESTAURANT
Closed since the spring, The Bijou’s food service goes back on line on in February when Veronica Crespo, formerly head chef at The Living Earth’s Garden Café, debuts her La Taqueria Mexican Grill. Crespo, who uses organic ingredients whenever possible, will showcase her formidable culinary skills with a varied menu including theatre-friendly items such as burritos, enchiladas, tacos and quesadillas, as well as a wide selection of sit-down, made-to-order entrees.
2. “BIJOU KIDS”
This weekly Saturday family film series features recent favorites like Scooby-Doo, Looney Tunes mini-marathons and classics like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Animals Are Beautiful People, as well as special kid-friendly events.
3. “BIJOU AFTER HOURS”
The last Saturday of every month at 11 p.m. brings a recent or classic cult favorite, like brilliant Bubba Ho-Tep or the spectacular Hong Kong action blowout, Fulltime Killer.
4. SERIES AND FESTIVALS GALORE!
German, Jewish, French, gay and lesbian — you name it, they’re programming it at the Bijou. To get you out and help you beat cabin fever in New England, here’s a block of French films celebrating the 100th anniversary of [the French-founded] Assumption College, which will begin at the Bijou on February 12.
- When the Cat’s Away [R] – 2.5/5
- L’Auberge espagnole director Cédric Klapisch’s quirky comedy may be inaccessible as a farce, but succeeds greatly in depicting Paris as a scarred, decidedly non-romantic city in transformation.
- To Be and To Have [NR] – 3.5/5
- Director Nicolas Philibert’s moving, observational documentary focuses sharply on a handful of rural middle-schoolers, and effortlessly conveys to us the reality of their lives, their dreams and their fears.
- 8 Women [R] – 4/5
- François Ozon’s delightful, comic whodunit features a cast of France’s loveliest ladies, including Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert and Ludivine Sagnier.
- The Triplets of Belleville [PG-13] – 4.5/5
- Told with nary a stitch of dialogue, this très-odd, animated wonder, despite its characteristic distaste for all things American, is about as good as any film can get.
For more information: www.bijoucinema.org.
Robert Newton is the director of the MassBay Film Project (www.massbayfilmproject.org),a non-profit dedicated to staging a full-fledged, multi-venue film festival in Greater Worcester in April 2005. He has long been a supporter of independent film. He started writing about film for Worcester Magazine in 1996, a job he continues to love.
