1. Cabaret is a landmark. When it opened in 1967 it was arguably the first Broadway hit to deal with subject matter that had been repressed, or at least buried, by the trauma of World War II and the Holocaust.
The show needs the chaotic, sexy, self-destructive Sally Bowles. She is Cabaret‘s Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Or rather, its Manic Pixie Nightmare Girlfriend. Without her the narrator-protagonist would be just a depressed and depressing cipher sitting alone in his room, typing out a novel no one will ever read.
Cabaret works as a show because, like Germany in the pre-Nazi era, it is at war with itself. The musical has no heroes. The audience is torn between loving and hating everyone in the story: the narrator because he is passive and gutless and disconnected from essential parts of himself; Sally Bowles because, while glorious, she’s such a mess; Frau Schneider; the Emcee. In the end, our conflicted feelings extend to the Kit Kat Klub, Berlin, and all of Germany.
