Cabaret Hates You: Why Sally Screams

Cabaret is one of the most subversive and aggressive pieces of musical theater ever made, with a message that stings and a story that hurts to watch. We love it, but that feeling is not mutual.

In this video essay & analysis we discuss the details of Sally Bowles, the Emcee, and the Theater itself. We'll chat about different iterations of the show and its inspiration to see exactly how Cabaret charms us, even though its tone sours by the second act.

Chapter Guide:

00:00 Introduction
01:00 Story Summary
02:39 Act 1: Sally Bowles
07:34 Act 2: The Emcee
08:03 Joel Grey
09:41 Alan Cumming
10:43 Eddie Redmayne
12:07 Act 3: The Theater, Inside & Out

Links to videos mentioned at timestamps listed:

1.07 Cabaret links that I recommend watching:
3) Youtube search "Alan Cumming Cabaret Full" for the 1993 version (various)

No AI was used in making this video essay (ugh).

[MarySunburn]

Alan Cumming’s face changing as he strips off his coat, from a teasing, cocky smile to pure seething hatred, is a masterwork of acting.

It’s also implied he was part of the resistance, as he wears a red triangle.

[host_theghost]

Something that intrigues me about Cabaret is how our interpretation of the Kit Kat Klub has changed over the years. Originally it was a place of false security for people in denial of the horrors taking place in Germany ("Outside it is windy"). In recent years, as queer culture has begun to assert itself, the club (Klub?) has envolved into a kind of sanctuary for the marginalized and misfits. The people inside don't have the option to run back to England the way Sally and Chris do. I've read that in later years, Isherwood deeply regretted how he used real people as props in his Berlin Diaries. He could run; they couldn't. Maybe that's why we deserve to be hated: we're just tourists, after all.

[kitsavastani]

I hate when people argue over the "best" emcee, because they all bring something new and adapt it to the current culture

[tallgeek]

My high school put on Cabaret for its spring musical, and truly nothing made the horror of the whole thing more impactful than seeing the faces I saw every day in class going through the story. It really made me stop and think about just how removed I had to be witnessing the consequences of facism before I spoke up, and how close would I be to the victims of it before I knew the danger was serious. Cabaret is a show that sits you down and says "you paid money to see this, so we'll give you what you paid for" and I will forever love it for how much it hates its audience for it

[miadaorerk]

i remember watching my college's performance of cabaret in 2019, where walking in had the performers actively getting ready for the show in the hallway and lobby and a singer warming up in the audience. then when you leave, you're walking past photos of the charlottesville rally and other (at the time) current antisemetic headlines. the show says a lot for how fast it goes.

[insertcreativenamehere]

Alan Cumming’s Emcee will never be topped by any performance for me personally but Eddy Redmayne’s rendition was enthralling. I adored the subtle sense of doom that built throughout the musical, and the costume design was simply wonderful. Thank you for this analysis!

[lostallcontrol]

Jane Horrocks is probably my favourite interpretation of Sally, the way her face contorts from her being so carefree in Mein Heirr to the anger in Cabaret, simply insane

[StellaWaldvogel]

I wish I could upvote this 1000 times.
Do not comply.
Do not obey.
Pay attention.

[Literally_DeadpooI]

Cabaret is scarily revelant right now. Not just in America but also with the Ukranian version of Cabaret. People are forgetting that Ukraine is in the middle of being attacked by Russia because of the popularity of the theatre.

[grigorgirl]

Not enough people are talking about Cabaret right now! It’s such a powerful work of art. Loved your perspective. Excited for future musical content.

[Gee-xbrt]

Cabaret is just prior to the Nazis in power, still the Weimar Republic sunk in the great depression. This is backdrop for Isherwood, he left Berlin in 1931. In1933 one of the of the first things Nazis did was shutter cabarets as obscene. They shuttered Bauhaus and other universities that were thought to go against tradition and German values. They rounded up their political opponents, almost all of the communists, and threw them in Dachau, an old munitions dump. Most were released for Christmas. Identity triangles were years away, Kristallnacht was 1938, five years after Hitler was appointed chancellor.
I think the last scene in the film is the best ending, Joel is delivering his spiel, but its off, something is wrong with our emcee, he does a final bow and makes a hasty retreat, then we get the pan of the audience in the mirror, and then we realize what was bothering our emcee, there are Nazis in the audience, in Joels words they slipped in through the back door.. Its only this most recent interpretation that our emcee is fascist, and I don't particularly care for it, feels ham fisted and cheap. If you notice Eddie is making a swastika with his arms in the choreography, its blasting you with it from the beginning.
There was a city called Jaffa in a country called Palestine.

[MatchesIsme-iovt]

I love Eddie redmaynes performance, the whole clown/puppet thing is so good to contrast to how he like becomes the puppet/ringmaster, pulling all the strings

[caitiecashion]

I came from TikTok and I loved your take! ❤

[roryharrison]

I came over from TikTok and I think this is such an important and poignant analysis especially during times like these

[jc]

Great analysis! I watched Cabaret for the first time last year with Adam Lambert / Auliʻi Cravalho with no knowledge of the musical beforehand and after my friend insisted I need to see it and was very moved by the whole experience. Totally appreciate the historical context and agree with the takeaways!

[finleyforevermore]

Kinds unrelated, but you have NO IDEA how HAPPY I am to see Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club/the 2021/2024 version getting recognition!

[sofiaveras]

I LOVED your analysis! Just wanted to add to the conversation on something: I think that Sally screaming is absolutely justified, but maybe not the best way to showcase what I think is the song's main message.

Cabaret is about the rise of fascism, but in a very sociological way. It is, to me, one of the most brilliant musicals ever written, because the lyrics and the music don't just have one possible interpretation - like the Emcee, the songs are full of contradictions and subtext, which makes them so much deeper. One of the things that I like to think about in Cabaret specifically is wether the characters know that they are singing or not. It feels like because this is a musical, they shouldn't know, but I believe that this distinction is fundamental to understand how the songs work, based on your undestanding. For example: I fully believe that Mein Herr and Don't Tell Mama are diegetic, so the haracters fully know that they are singing and dancing. Maybe This Time is perhaps the only one of Sally's song that isn't diegetic, so it is, for me, the only song where we really get to see her for who she truly is and how she truly feels. The song cabaret, though, is a tricky one. What I think is happening is that it is a mix of both - she is trying to convince you and herself that everything will be okay. And we all know that the lyrics are absoluely ironic and meant to be satire, for life is absolutely not a cabaret. But I don't think that the contrast between the lyrics and the reality should be demonstrated by Sally herself.

I don't think Sally is choosing ignorance. She is choosing apathy. She's not a politically ignorant character, it just doesn't really matter to her who is in charge of things. In fact, I think she has to know who to please and who to shock to be able to work. So when she has the abortion and effectively ruins her chances of a different life with Cliff, she chose to stay. Now, WE know that staying will lead to destruction, but she either doesn't know or doesn't really care. Which is why I think she should not scream. I actually find that her screaming satisfies our knowledge of what the atrocities of Nazism were. How could she not scream? Look at what's happening. But she sees it, and chooses to stay. What I think would be really jarring is, while she's singing the song, everything around her is crumbling down - gunshot sounds, nazi soldiers serching for people to arrest and murder, maybe even the dancers of the kit kat club nor being there anymore. But she's still singing beautifully. It is absolutely contradictory, but not to her. We are not supposed to like her, or be her. And I don't think we should really pity her either, at least not in the ending. She's not a cautionary tale. She's a tragedy.

Sorry for the long post, I'm just also a Cabaret fanatic that has thought about this a litte too much lol. The beauty of Cabaret is, after all, how you can always find a new way to interpret it, because fascism is not a thing that is set in stone, but a living breathing movement that always finds new ways to creep in and entrap us.

[hippogryffin]

This came out at the perfect time. I just saw Orville Peck and Eva Noblezada last weekend. He was solid, she was effervescent. Cabaret is my favorite show because of the ways it changes with different castings.

Also Cliff Bradshaw was played by a black actor, which I haven't seen before. It lent additional depth to his immediate dislike of the nazi party.

[dokibunni]

ive gotten into cabaret recently (most because where eva noblezada goes, I go) but my goodness is it such a good show to watch at this moment. i love it.

[-chippedstars-]

I'm so proud of Eddie's progress in singing roles. He didn't have any experience in the Les Mis movie, but he's honestly one of the only good parts, and now he's doing Cabaret and killing it. Genuinely impressive stuff