Continues Brookfield’s Winning Streak

By Julie Stern

BROOKFIELD — Over my years of reviewing I’ve probably seen six or seven versions of the Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret, at local Connecticut theaters, and they’ve all been good. I had reached the conclusion that there is something in that evocation of Weimar German decadence that brings out hidden depths of talent in aspiring actors playing bad boys and girls strutting their stuff at the Kit Kat Klub, just as West Side Story appeals to their desire to be flamboyantly dancing gangbangers.

Having said that, the current production at Brookfield’s Theatre for the Arts, under Michael Burnett’s direction, is so amazing, so rich and so powerful, that it seems completely new.

 For anyone who really isn’t familiar with the play, it is based on Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Diary. The play tell the story of Clifford Bradshaw, a young American would-be writer who drifts across Europe and ends up in Berlin, where he takes a cheap room and plans to support himself giving English lessons while working on his first novel.

Unsure of his sexual orientation, he gets involved with Sally Bowles, a wild English girl who works as a chanteuse at a seedy nightclub. Against a background of political dissension and economic ruin, he gradually becomes aware of the growing appeal of Nazism, and its potential to spread through an alienated and disaffected population.

While the shows at the club poke fun at morality and push the boundaries of sexual identity, under the leadership of an outrageously epicene Emcee, the lives of the occupants of the rooming house reflect the insidious changes taking place: the rise of anti-Semitism, the fraying of social mores, and increasing confidence of Nazi thugs and bullies.

In any production of Cabaret, the emcee is the backbone of the show, a role made famous by Joel Grey, who won both a Tony for the stage version and an Oscar for the Bob Fosse film, playing the character as a sort of sinister androgynous elf.

In Brookfield, Bennett Cognato invests him with a kind of bisexual virility — a sturdy, swaggering, leering, lipsticked figure who wears a black leather coat over a variety of costumes. Cognato has a powerful, rich singing voice, the strength to lift female dancers in his arms, and richly nuanced dramatic expressions that run the gamut from frightening to hilarious. What is hard to believe is that this supremely talented actor is in fact a senior in high school.

As Sally Bowles, Kira Wallace brings a very different interpretation from the Liza Minnelli persona made famous by the Fosse film. Wallace manages to combine a sultry, in your face Mae West kind of bluntness, while at the same time revealing the confused frightened waif hiding inside. And, like Cognato, she has a voice to die for.

Director Burnett gets terrific performances from everyone in the cast. The John Van Druten stage play that was the original adaptation of Isherwood’s Berlin Diary was called I Am a Camera. As Cliff Bradshaw, the Isherwood character, David Cheris  is primarily an observer, by turns startled, entranced, and ultimately outraged by what he sees going on.

For the subplot romance between the spinster landlady Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz, the smitten widower who courts her with gifts of fruit, Diane LaPine and Tom Sheehan carry it off with gentle dignity. As the survivor who has had to make compromises all her life, LaPine reminded me of Jean Stapleton (Edith Bunker) in a straight role, while Sheehan gives Herr Schultz a misguided faith in his countrymen, believing that they will see him for what he is (a German) rather than despise him as a Jew. Together they sing a number of songs including the moving tribute to mature love, “Married.”

Stephanie Tornatore makes the most of the role of Fraulein Kost, who entertains a string of sailor-“nephews” in her bedroom, and morphs into a virulent Nazi supporter when the chance comes. Her acting is fine; her singing — in both German and English — is even better. As her counterpart, the Nazi organizer Ernst Ludwig,  Matt Austin gives one of the best performances I’ve seen from him in a while.

And then there are all those Kit Kat girls and boys, in turns tough, taunting and sexually aggressive — John Duron,  Samantha K. Gronwoldt,  Zachary Jackson,  Keenan Martin,  Caitlin Dawn Nolan,  Leila Noone, Janina Reiner,  Ryan Reynolds, Melanie Romano, Jessica Smith Carly Spaeth and Mariel Vincente — who create an atmosphere that is ominously authentic and delightful at the same time. They must be having so much fun.

This is not a happy show. It is a show about a terrible time in history, a society falling apart, and relationships collapsing under the pressure. But it is a powerful piece of work, visually, dramatically and musically, and as I said at the beginning, given a brilliant interpretation by Burnett and his company.

Brookfield has been having some good seasons lately, and this staging of Cabaret is as good as it gets. Go get tickets while you can!

(Performances continue weekends until December 3. See the Enjoy Calendar, in print and online, for curtain and ticket details.)