A Brief History of Cabaret

Originally, the French word "cabaret" meant any establishment that served alcoholic beverages. Yet, when most people hear the word "cabaret" today, they imagine the leather clad bon-vivant Sally Bowels straddling a ladder back chair with a coyly tipped bowler and inviting grin. This image of the fast living, devil-nay-care nightclub singer from the 1967 Broadway hit Cabaret captures the essence of a popular art form that began in 1881 with the opening of Le Chat Noir in the Monmartre district of Paris. However, at the time Le Chat Noir opened, its main attraction was not half dressed women and sultry singers. It was rather a kind of salon, where Parisian artists and intellectuals like Maupassant, Debussy, and Satie would gather to share ideas and compositions. The arrangement benefited everyone involved. Artists would get an opportunity to test new material and, for the price of a few drinks, audience members would get to experience a stimulating evening of theatre. By 1900, the idea had spread, and numerous cabarets had opened in France and Germany. At this point, however, the cabaret evolved into something strikingly different from the free form artist's haven of Le Chat Noir.

Cabaret became a style of performance characterized by an intimate nightclub setting featuring a variety of entertainers and an ever present emcee. However, it should not be confused with lounge singers, musical theatre, or any type of background music. By its very nature, cabaret is a very personal experience between audience and performer. The close proximity of the performer to the audience allowed for a deeper and more intense relationship. The performer could see and hear every yawn and guffaw in the audience while the audience could see every bead of sweat and every trick up the performer's sleeve. The immediacy of the event thus required the cabaret performer to be spontaneous, honest, and, above all, versatile.

The concert tours of French singer Yvette Guilbert through Germany and America in the late 1890's are largely responsible for the spread of cabaret across the globe. Only four years after performing in Germany, The Cabaret Uberbretti opened in Berlin. At this point, the free form sharing of compositions that had characterized cabaret in its genesis had been abandoned in favor of a scheduled line-up of entertainment. There were singers, comics, dancers, fire eaters, sword swallowers, and burlesque. The more cabaret evolved, the more anti-establishment it became. In its early days, German cabarets were often censored for the radical satire and protest they presented. However, with the rise of the Weimar Republic in the 1920's, everything changed for Germany and its cabarets. The new constitution not only gave women the right to vote, but also abolished censorship, freeing the cabaret to parody and satirize whatever they pleased. As with America in the 1920's, German culture experienced a tidal wave of liberalism and loose morals. The Weimar Republic even went so far as to allow public nudity, which of course the cabarets of Germany capitalized on However, it all came to an end in 1933. Adolf Hitler declared martial law and abolished the Weimar Republic. The cabaret clubs were raided and closed down in a single night. It is this dramatic shift, from hyper debauchery to overwhelming oppression that the stage play Cabaret depicts.

Yet, cabaret survived the oppression of Nazi Germany and World War II. It has shown an amazing tenacity. During prohibition in America, many cabarets became speakeasies, and afterward again transformed into supper clubs or the ever popular dinner theatre. Some of these would have a profound influence on the creators of the musical Cabaret. Harold Prince, the director of the original Broadway production, was inspired by a cabaret performance he saw in 1951, while stationed with the army in Stuttgart. "There was a dwarf emcee, hair parted in the middle and lacquered down with brilliantine, his mouth made into a bright red cupid's bow, who wore heavy false eyelashes and sang, danced, goosed, tickled, and pawed four lumpen Valkyres waving diaphanous butterfly wings." Sixteen years later, Joel Grey would turn that image into one of the most memorable characters in the history of musical theatre. Cabaret is thus not just a play exploring the limits of debauchery and oppression, but also a tribute to a theatrical event at the apex of its popularity.