I don't remember when I first saw Cabaret, but probably a long, long time ago. I was young enough, or maybe the times were ripe enough, that I remember mostly the music, but not as much the plot.
I saw it last night, a student performance which was very good.
And it was horrifying. I think, especially in these times, the story being set in a time when things looked at least momentarily freeing, when there was space for places where people played more or less openly with sexualities, and then, we know, things got very bad.
And now, politically in the US, we've got some candidates spewing vile, vile nastiness. Instead of hating Jews, these candidates are hating Muslims. But it's the same old hatred, isn't it?
One of the horrible things about the show is that none of the people who realize things are bad feel like they can really do anything except maybe leave, run away.
I really worry about certain candidates getting elected. The economics of what our governor has done have been horrible, but the national candidates are way, way scarier for more than economic reasons.
That Candidate scares me so much.
ReplyDeleteI first saw Cabaret with a man whose first comment afterwards was that he had been in a similar love triangle the previous year. He later died of AIDS. (And his brother was killed on 9/11. Hard for his parents.)
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking that since I'm teaching world history, I'm going to do more with the rise of fascism than I had planned. But we also remember Marx, that "History repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." Not sure how comforting that is as I watch returns tonight.