| re: SO TRUE: not all for the better | |
| Last Edit: Delvino 02:18 pm EST 11/14/24 | |
| Posted by: Delvino 02:16 pm EST 11/14/24 | |
| In reply to: SO TRUE: not all for the better - lordofspeech 01:19 pm EST 11/14/24 | |
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| And after I posted, I further mulled why Alan Cumming made a persuasive case for the Emcee's ascendance to major player: In the Mendes production, the Emcee is characterized as a man of the era, not a mere device tethered to the setting. We sense that in his exotic element he thrives - the Kit Kat Klub is the place he was born to command - and he is loaded with genuine ambition. More life so awaits him; he loves every minute of being an erotic showoff. So when Mendes finally drops that coup de theatre of a coda, showing what becomes of him, we feel all of our investment in his insouciance and irreverence is paid off. A human being is suddenly dehumanized. I remember sitting in 54 in that initial production and literally shaking. That image wrings fully earned tears because we learn the fate of someone recognizably one of us. SPOILER FOR CURRENT PRODUCTION In this iteration, the Emcee is incrementally stripped of his drag and transformed into a kind of robotic shadow. I had good seats and found Lambert almost unrecognizable during "I Don't Care Much." Someone near me didn't know who was singing. If that's the goal, why? From that point on, drably invisible, the Emcee just becomes a singing narrator. Yes, the point is the loss of his spark of life under fascism. But we don't see his loss of self; it happens off stage. Tragedy doesn't overtake him, it's just an idea. It's intellectualized, in a distancing way, and we feel nothing. |
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