thePULSELearning That Out There, Life is Beautiful
March 2004 – It may be hard to imagine, but until Feb 26 of this year, I still had a tenacious scrap of virginity left. I had never kissed another boy on stage. But that cherry was quickly dispensed on the stage of Foothills Theatre in Worcester where I’m appearing in the role of Bobby in Sam Mendes’ version of Cabaret until April 4. It still amazes me that we’ve come far enough to have this happen anywhere, much less Worcester County. And I’m impressed, to say the least.
It is clearly indicative of our cultural evolution. After all, in Christopher Isherwood’s 1929 book Berlin Stories where the first incarnations of Sally Bowles and Clifford Bradshaw were introduced, Cliff is homosexual. Yet, he was “cleaned up” in the first Broadway musical version in 1965 to be asexual. In the 1972 film, starring Liza Minelli as Sally and Michael York as Cliff, he is daringly bisexual. Yet still there is only discussion of said fact, no real visual proof.
But we have grown up a bit since then and what was considered daring in the 60’s is nearly pedestrian today. In today’s incarnation of Cabaret, Cliff is struggling with his definite homosexuality. There have now been millions of gay kisses on Broadway’s mainstream stages. Cabaret’s passionate, center-stage, spotlighted, cymbal-crash-punctuated homosexual kiss between Bobby and Cliff is only one of the most recent, but the kiss in Cabaret is special. The kiss is only one of several issues in the play that deliberately use an audience’s prejudices against itself.
Sam Mendes’ 1998 Broadway version of Cabaret [which Foothills Theatre Company is the first in the country to do in regional theatre] is far different from previous versions of the play. It deals frankly with drug abuse, prostitution, pan-sexuality, abortion and prejudice as a theatrical device. It uses these in full knowledge of the conservative mainstream audience that will likely be watching. They are waiting for that pretty little Liza Minelli to come and sing a pretty song. They won’t get what they came for. Though highly entertaining as musical theatre, hard issues are explored unfiltered throughout the play. It begins in a seedy, cabaret club in 1929 Weimar Berlin but, using the cabaret as a plot device, it casually brings the audience around to voyeuristically glimpse the truth of our collective humanity. The burlesque becomes the grotesque. We see the parts of ourselves on stage of which we are not always proud as well as the things which should not inspire shame at all.
Without giving too much away, I can say that we come to realize that what we see on that stage is an allegory for truths that transcend specific historical events and eras. An astute audience participant will pick up the idea that history has and will continue to repeat itself until the lesson is learned by all.
The characters in Cabaret are all on a path toward escaping their own forms of denial. Each one denies that there is anything wrong until one by one, they are all shown reality. Each character has a different form of denial; some deny the true strength and reach of the Nazi Party slowly coming to power in the late 1920’s, some deny their sexuality, some even deny that genuine happiness exists. They just keep partying obliviously onward until they can no longer escape the lessons they must face.
We as a society are much the same way. Civil rights are not lessons that will go away until they are learned by all. Some may deny them while they can, but the lesson rears itself in a variety of ways until it can no longer be ignored.
Even a simple thing like a kiss can not only work toward facilitating those lessons for our culture; that they exist at all is a clear indication that we are not beginners anymore. We are ready for more complex lessons.
During rehearsals, we did a run-thru of the show which was attended by several guests including the star of Foothills’ previous show The Sunshine Boys, actor Dick Van Patten of TV’s “Eight Is Enough” fame. I actually kissed another boy in front of the Dad from “Eight Is Enough”. And he liked it. He liked the whole show, actually. And it was then that I thought: we really are coming along, aren’t we? Granted, I did a lot of other, practically unspeakable things in front of him too and he winced at those, but that is the point. That is how growth occurs. That is Cabaret at its best. You are made to taste that vegetable you never liked, but it is good for you. You may have to eat it dripping with cheese, but you struggle through and it makes you a healthier person.
Using the evolution of a production like Cabaret as a litmus test for the acceptance of gays in mainstream society is a perfect example of where we were, where we are, and where we’re going. Cabaret tells us that life is not pretty, but it is most definitely beautiful.
And, by the way, the guy playing Cliff is a good kisser. And hot, too. Don’t tell him, I said that though. He’s straight. Those straight guys all think we’re after them as it is.
Wil D’Arcangelo is a locally-based performer and artist. He can be reached through his website www.WilDarcangelo.com.
