Welcome to the webpage of:
Cabaret

Whether you’ve just seen the show and want some more information or you’re thinking about attending the show (do it!), we’re glad you’re here. This page is a hub for information about the show, the people who created the show, and those who created the IU Theatre and Dance production.

We hope this page will inspire you to see the show or to dig in more deeply on info about it!

If you have any questions about the page or the information, you can email Chris Mills, the show’s dramaturg.

Precursors to Cabaret

“I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.” —Isherwood

Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories

– especially “Goodbye to Berlin”. Isherwood lived in Berlin from 1929 to 1933 as an English teacher and watched the climate change radically in the time he was there. He captures the architecture of life in the city—both in the day and, perhaps especially, at night. A classic of 20th century literature.

I Am a Camera by John Van Druten

The play opened on Broadway in 1951 with Julie Harris as Sally Bowles. Here’s a look back at the run.

It was also a film that opened in 1955, also with Julie Harris.

Jean Ross (1911-1973)

A life-long writer and successful political journalist, Jean Ross was not just the inspiration for Sally Bowles, but literally the character about whom Christopher Isherwood wrote. In the 1939 preface to Goodbye to Berlin, Isherwood writes that his fiction was more a documentary work than a creative endeavor and he was “a convenient ventriloquist’s dummy, nothing more.” Ross’s working life suffered after it was revealed that she was the character about who Isherwood wrote; though she had changed considerably, Bowles character reflected poorly on her as a professional woman. Her daughter, Sarah Caudwell, spent much of her life fighting for her mother’s reputation as an important journalist.

Want to find out more about the precursors?

Watch a BBC video about Christopher Isherwood in Berlin
Listen to NPR’s Terry Gross interview John Kander
View the ‘prairie oyster’ scene from I am A Camera

Weimar Germany

A laboratory for competing visions of modernity, the Weimar Republic (1918-1933) continues to haunt the imagination of the twentieth century. Its political and cultural lessons retain uncanny relevance for all who seek to understand the tensions and possibilities of our age. For a time, it was just seen as a brief flash before the catastrophe of Hitler’s Rise to power, but the rich intellectual and artistic life of the period continues to fascinate scholars: Nine German citizens were awarded Nobel Prizes during the Weimar Republic, five of whom were Jewish scientists, including two in medicine.

“The turbulent years of the Weimar Republic confound any attempt to fashion one wholly integrated story…What appeared to some who lived at the time as the birth of modernity and the dawn of the modern technological age, seemed to others the epitome of alienation and decadence.” –The Weimar Republic Sourcebook

Some examples of the art during the Weimar Republic

A performance created by Oskar Schlemmer; he was a sculptor, painter, and choreographer who taught at the Bauhaus during the Weimar Republic. Like the Bauhaus style, the piece was uncluttered, modern, and geometric.

One of the earliest sci-fi feature films, *Metropolis* is a silent film by Fritz Lang. Set in a dystopian German city, it featured Lang's vision of a grim futuristic society marked by an enormous gulf between the wealthy and the poor.

Hannah Höch, alongside Käthe Kollwitz, was perhaps the most famous female artist in early Weimar. Her work consists primarily of collages, often constructed from photographs. Höch was part of the Dada movement, which formed in part as a reaction to the death and destruction from World War I. Dada artists prized irrationality and considered their work “anti-art.”

Birkle’s work represents New Objectivity (Neue Sachlichkeit), an important art movement (and critique of Expressionism) in the Weimar Republic. Artists like Birkle challenged their viewers to see the world as it really was, rather than imagining the world as they’d like it to be.

Grosz is one of the most important artists associated with the New Objectivity movement. His paintings and sketches often offered critical judgments of German society during the Weimar Republic.

The features of this pink-faced man were originally collaged with string, measuring tape and curtain rings. Years after painting it, Picabia ripped these off, which also pulled off paint, leaving patches of bare canvas. During the second phase of work, Picabia added combs for the hair, and added a woman’s head and hands. These dramatic alterations reflect Picabia’s irreverent approach to art-making.

Want to find out more about art during this period?

Museum websites to visit:

New Objectivity: Modern German Art in the Weimar Republic, 1919-1933

Splendor and Misery in the Weimar Republic

Bauhaus Museum

A Bit of Cabaret History

The term originally came from the Picard or Walloon language words camberete or cambret for a small room. The first printed use of the word kaberet is from 1275. The term was used since the 13th century in Dutch to mean an inexpensive inn or restaurant.

Le Chat Noir, opened on 18 November 1881 in Paris’ Montmartre district, is thought to be the first modern cabaret: a nightclub where the patrons sat at tables and drank alcoholic beverages while being entertained by a variety show on stage. The acts were introduced by a Master of Ceremonies who interacted with patrons at the tables. Its imitators have included cabarets from St. Petersburg (Stray Dog Café) to Barcelona (Els Quatre Gats) to London’s Cave of the Golden Calf.

Cabaret reaches a high mark in Weimar Germany. The “Golden Age of Weimar” (1924-1929) was marked by economic recovery, growing prosperity and better living conditions; it was also known for its cabarets. The Weimar government’s lifting of censorship saw German cabarets transform with two dominate themes: sex and politics. Stories, jokes, songs, and dancing flourished and were laced with sexual innuendo. As women were afforded more social freedom, some cabarets were patronized by lesbians, gay men, and non-binary patrons; cabarets’ openness offered a space of freedom previously unknown.

One final image...

Early in his political career, when he was still in Munich, Hitler enforced a Bilderbot—a prohibition of being photographed. He was then only known by his speeches. In 1923, with no public imagery being available, the satirical magazine Simplicissimus printed this gallery of possibility – perhaps the first satire of the politician.

The gallery was created by Thomas Theodor Heine, a Jewish painter and graphic artist who escaped the Nazis and was on the run from 1933 to 1944. After creating the gallery, in further response to the question: what does Hitler look like? He replied:

“Adolf Hitler can never be depicted…The question had to remain unanswered. Hitler is not an individual at all. He is a state. Only the futurist can depict him.”

Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance

Cabaret

Welcome to the webpage of:
Cabaret

Precursors to Cabaret

“I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.” —Isherwood

Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories

I Am a Camera by John Van Druten

Jean Ross (1911-1973)

Want to find out more about the precursors?

Weimar Germany

Some examples of the art during the Weimar Republic

Want to find out more about art during this period?

A Bit of Cabaret History

One final image...

The College of Arts & Sciences

Cabaret

Welcome to the webpage of:Cabaret

Precursors to Cabaret

“I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.” —Isherwood

Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories

I Am a Camera by John Van Druten

Jean Ross (1911-1973)

Want to find out more about the precursors?

Weimar Germany

Some examples of the art during the Weimar Republic

Want to find out more about art during this period?

A Bit of Cabaret History

One final image...

Department of Theatre, Drama, and Contemporary Dance social media channels

The College of Arts & Sciences

Welcome to the webpage of:
Cabaret