“It’s only politics, and what’s that got to do with us?”Cabaret in the Modern Day

Come to the Cabaret

“Cabaret” was written by Joe Masteroff with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. It premiered on Broadway on November 20th, 1966, at the Broadhurst Theatre. The next year it won eight Tony Awards, including, but not limited to, Musical, Best Direction of A Musical, Composer & Lyricist, and Best Choreography. I would like to mention that the script has three different versions: the original 1966 version, which includes songs such as “Why Should I Wake Up?”, “Meeskite”, “Sitting Pretty” and “The Telephone Song” with no suggestion that Cliff might be bisexual; the revised 1987 version, which includes “Don’t Go”, “Sitting Pretty” and “The Telephone Song”, “I Don’t Care Much”, and “The Money Song” with an implication that Cliff might be bisexual; and the 1998 version includes “Mein Herr”, Maybe This Time”, “I Don’t Care Much”, and “The Money Song” where Cliff is clearly bisexual. All three versions include “Willkommen,” “So What,” “Don’t Tell Mama,” “Perfectly Marvelous,” “Two Ladies,” “It Couldn’t Please Me More (The Pineapple Song),” “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” “Married,” “If You Could See Her” and “Cabaret.” I will be mainly focused on the 1998 version, but will reference the others as warranted.

The show begins with a playfully scandalous number as our Emcee welcomes us into the Kit Kat Club and urges us to leave our troubles outside (“Willkommen”). From there, we are introduced to Cliff and Ernest meeting on a train to Berlin. Ernest explains that he is trying to bring over some “baubles from Paris” and has to smuggle them back into the city. He invites Cliff to the Kit Kat Club and refers him to Fraulein Schneider to get a room. It is when Cliff goes to get the room that we are introduced to Fraulein Kost and Herr Schultz and learn that the latter is Jewish. Back in the Club, we are introduced to Sally Bowles (“Don’t Tell Mama”) and she calls Cliff’s table. We go back to Cliff’s room as he is finishing up his English lesson with Ernest. Sally enters and convinces Cliff to let her live with him (“Perfectly Marvellous”). With the interruption of the story with “Two Ladies,” we set up a plot device that will be used for the rest of the show - the Emcee using a musical number interruption to provide commentary on the events of the play. We transition to Fraulein Schneider’s room, where she is reprimanding Fraulein Kost. Kost has been sleeping with sailors to be able to afford rent. In this same scene, we are introduced to the budding romance between Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz (“It Couldn’t Please Me More”). The Emcee enters with a gramophone, playing “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” sung by a young boy. With a cymbal crash, we lead into Cliff’s room. Sally reveals that she is pregnant and soon after, Ernst enters and offers Cliff 75 marks if he goes to Paris, picks up a briefcase, and brings it back. The Emcee interrupts with “Money” as we head to the hall between Kost’s and Fraulein Schneider’s rooms. Herr Schultz is caught sneaking out of Fraulein Schneider’s room and says that it was because they are to be married. It is here that Herr Schultz asks if they can be married. We end Act One with the wedding party. It is revealed that Ernst is a Nazi and Fraulein Kost leads the group in “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”. We open Act 2 with a dance number during the entr’acte and leads into “Married (Reprise)” in Schultz’s fruit shop, which ends with a brick being thrown through the window and Fraulein Schneider breaking off the marriage. The Emcee interrupts with “If You Could See You Her”. We learn of Sally and Cliff’s financial struggles and Cliff tries to convince her to go back to America with him. Sally returns to the Kit Kat Club, against the wishes of Cliff. The next morning, Cliff finds out that Sally went to the doctor the night before and got an abortion. Our final scene starts in the same train we were in at the top of the show as Cliff heads back to America, alone. The Emcee interrupts for a final time, singing “Finale”. The show ends as the Emcee takes off his coat and reveals that he is wearing the clothes of a concentration camp prisoner.

Here life is beautiful

This show has been revived on Broadway for years, just closing its most recent run on September 21st, 2025, and is still playing on the West End. Why do we keep coming back to the Kit Kat Club?

I believe that through tempting the audience with the sensuality and promise of a place absent from any troubles and later getting to see the reality of the situation as the facade crumbles, it takes the strengths of both the idea of delighting the audience to inform them of issues and Brecht’s idea of rejecting an emotional catharsis.

The clearest example of this can be seen by contrasting the beginning and end of the show. They both use the same song and musical motifs, but to dramatically different effects. “Willkommen” is full of sensual costumes, sexual innuendos, and, most importantly, a confident and flirtatious Emcee. They interact directly with the audience, tempting them into the performance. We are drawn in with the glitz and glamour and told to “leave your troubles outside” because “in here life is beautiful”. We let our guard down and become one of the crowd, watching the show for its aesthetic pleasure more so than any story. The audience is only being delighted.

By the end of the show, we have seen the misfortune that has befallen these characters. The Emcee reminds us of his lines from the beginning.

“Where are your troubles now? Forgotten? I told you so. We have no troubles here.”

The irony is not lost on many of us. We brace for an emotional impact as the orchestration gets distorted and the Emcee reveals the concentration camp uniform, often including the yellow Star of David, indicating the person is Jewish, a red star, indicating a person is a communist, and/ or the pink triangle, indicating the person is queer. For those who have been paying attention, it is a confirmation of our worst fears. We have seen the rising threat, and we know how this ends. We watched it unfold and were helpless to stop it. For those who haven't been paying attention, it is a shocking and unexpected revelation. If we haven't been paying attention, we are left with this intense imagery and emotions, and don’t have any way of getting rid of it. We are put in the position of the oppressor. This is highlighted further in some shows when a mirror is placed facing the audience, forcing the audience to come to terms with the fact that by just sitting there, their silence is allowing this ending to happen.

It's from these moments that we can see that this is not only a show about fascism, but also takes from people’s theatre. People’s theatre was used in fascist Italy and Germany and took advantage of the “contagious property of crowds… to intensify the audience’s emotional and visceral experience while continuing to develop more sophisticated means of control.” They used this to forge a sense of unity and dissolve the individual. It demanded “absolute involvement… participation in carefully orchestrated ecstasies”. For the audience that was only taking in the show as entertainment, this is exactly how the show works. They are drawn into the bold elements and big musical numbers and are content just being a part of the crowd. The show is often interactive and immersive, with the Emcee singing directly to the audience and in the latest Broadway revival, the preshow had ensemble members interacting with patrons as well as the entire theatre being converted to the Kit Kat Club, not just the stage, lending to the absolute involvement that people’s theatre requires.

As a colleague once said, Art is always political, even when it is just used to delight. It is delightful in spite of politics or has political undertones. That is what I love most about Cabaret, no matter which category you fall into, you cannot pretend that this show is not political.

Pay Attention

Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, the Vice President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, states that “genocide is a process that develops in ten stages that are predictable, but not inexorable. At each stage, preventative measures can stop it.” These steps include: Classification, Symbolization, Discrimination, Dehumanization, Organization, Polarisation, Preparation, Persecution, Extermination, and Denial. Through this section will go through each step, how it is seen in the show, and any relation to modern-day America.

Classification

Classification refers to when cultures have categories that distinguish people into “us and them”. In the show, this is most seen as German and Jew, with this seen most clearly with the character of Ernst Ludwig. In Act One, Scene Twelve, this interaction occurs with Fraulein Kost, Ernst, and Fraulein Schneider:

FRAULEIN KOST

He should be. He could afford ten times as much. They have all the money – the Jews.

ERNST

Herr Schultz?

(FRAULEIN KOST nods)

… (ERNST goes to FRAULEIN SCHNEIDER)

… this marriage is not advisable. I cannot put it too strongly. For your own welfare…

FRAULIEN SCHNEIDER

What about Herr Schultz’s welfare?

ERNST

He is not a German.

FRAULIEN SCHNEIDER

He was born here

ERNST

He is not a German. Good night

Herr Schultz, though a German citizen, is not considered as such because his identity as a Jew overwrites his identity as a German in the eyes of others. In the modern day, we can see this happening in many different areas. “Illegals” vs citizens, “Transgenders” vs “normal” people, black vs white. This doesn’t mean that each group is facing a genocide but “if societies are too segregated (divided) they are most likely to have a genocide”.

Symbolization

Stanton states that “we give names or other symbols to the classifications of ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality… we… distinguish them by colors or dress and apply them to members of that group.” In Cabaret, this is most clearly seen at the end of the show when the Emcee reveals the concentration camp uniform, as I mentioned in “Here life is beautiful”. It is very clearly a symbol meant to indicate a very specific identity. In the modern day, these symbols aren’t imposed on groups but still do exist. In the instance of undocumented immigrants, often called “illegal aliens” or “illegal immigrants” by certain groups, they are often targeted based on their skin tone. This racial profiling was upheld by the Supreme Court in Noem v Vasquez Perdomo on September 8th of 2025. Transgender individuals are often believed to be highly different from cisgender individuals and this difference would be highly noticeable. In a study done by Stephanie Gazzola, “Across all focus groups, transgender women were described as physically “look[ing] like a man” (Joe, FG2) including having broad-shoulders and large hands and feet. Similarly, transgender men were described as being petite compared to other men.” It is then not a symbol that is imposed on the groups, but based on seemly noticeable symbols integral to the individual’s identity. I would like to mention that those symbols aren’t always correct but are still used, which hurts more than just the communities that they are targeting. It is mentioned that “Classification and symbolization are universally human and do not result in genocide unless they lead to the stage of dehumanization.”

Discrimination

This is when “a dominant group uses law, custom, and political power to deny the rights of other groups.” This is hinted at in Cabaret in an interaction between Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz in Act Two, Scene Two:

FRAULEIN SCHNEIDER

But if the Nazis come to power…

SCHULTZ

You will be married to a Jew. But also a German. A German as much as anyone

FRAULEIN SCHNEIDER

I need a license to rent my rooms. If they take it away…

She was right to worry. According to the Holocaust Encyclopedia, the “Jewish boycott”, where Germans were not supposed to shop and stores and businesses that the Nazis identified as Jewish, was the first coordinated attack of the Nazi regime against German’s Jews. At the national level, there was an increase in the number of laws and regulations that targeted Jewish-owned shops. It came to a head on November 9th and 10th, 1938 in a riot that would become known as Kristallnacht or the "Night of Broken Glass." This event is actually referenced in the show later in this same scene when a brick is thrown through Herr Schultz’s window.

In the modern day, we can see this primarily with ICE and anti trans/ anti queer legislation, both of which I have spoken about in the previous section and the Angel in America case study, respectively.

Dehuminization

This is when “one group treats another group as second-class citizens”. This is most obviously seen in “If You Could See Her”. What I didn’t mention in my prior discussion of this song is that the woman that the Emcee is speaking of being in love with is depicted as a gorilla. The depiction forces the audience to see Jewish people as the Nazi’s did, as not just sub-par but sub-human. This is seen most obviously with undocumented immigrants, with even the current president of the United States, Donald Trump, making the baseless claim that “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” This dehumanization also exists in the example of trans people. For a small example, transgender individuals are often believed to be mentally ill, with one participant in the study saying that trans people have “something in the brain that’s not right” (Gazzola). A wider-scale example of this is when Michael Knowles spoke at the 2023 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and made a call to action - “Transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely–the whole preposterous ideology, at every level”. Many people, including myself, say this as a dangerous prerequisite to interpreting this as getting rid of transgender individuals entirely. Trans people have always been around and many of them won't just detransition to appease some political commentator.

Organization

This is when special army units or militias are organized, trained, and armed, and higher powers, usually the state, organize for genocidal killings. We don’t spend enough time with Ernst to see this step in Cabaret, other than him raising funds for the “greater cause,” but we can see this in the modern day. The biggest example is the vast increase in ICE raids targeting undocumented immigrants. By this point, everyone in the United States has probably seen the news covering another raid or even the now-infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida.

Polarization

This is where extremists drive groups apart. While the effects of this are seen in Cabaret in the examples I have already mentioned, we don’t see this taking place onstage. The examples I gave in the classification, symbolization, and dehumanization sections are also applicable here.

Preparation, Persecution, Extermination, and Denial

The last four stages don’t have any specific examples from the text or modern-day America, but are still equally important to discuss. Preparation is when the perpetrator group leader plans the “Final Solution” for the targeted group, often using euphemisms to cloak their intentions. Persecution is when victims are identified and separated because of their identity and death lists are drawn up. Extermination is the actual killing and is always followed by denial. If we don’t act, we will just be repeating history. What will your role be? As Avery Anger put most eloquently - “By recreating these conditions within the theatrical space, [Cabaret] asks not just "What would you have done in 1930s Berlin?" but more uncomfortably, "What are you doing right now?”