Musical 'Cabaret' depicts gloomy Berlin in the '30s.

(From The Korea Herald)

By Yang Sung-jin The musical "Cabaret" differs from mainstream Broadway shows. The atmosphere is dark and gloomy, while a climate of total sexual permissiveness is the background for a serious sociopolitical message.

And the Korean audience, accustomed to lighthearted Broadway musicals, found this one a bit hard to follow last Thursday when it was premiered at the Jeongsimhwa International Cultural Center at Chungnam University in Daejeon.

When Emcee (Vance Avery) opened the show with the Korean greeting "annyeong haseyo" as part of the song "Willkommen," the audience reacted enthusiastically, clapping to the jazzy beat. The mood remained upbeat in the theater when the chorus girls demonstrated sexually suggestive pelvic thrusts.

But the audience grew calmer as the actors presented a brooding look into the lives of people in Berlin between the two world wars. And the show's scary ending was all the more shocking in contrast with the first half of the show.

"Cabaret" has a stellar record: It has been performed more than 8,000 times on Broadway since its premiere in 1966, grabbing 12 Tony Awards. But the show may be too dark and gloomy for some theatergoers, who expect light entertainment filled with happy-go-lucky or romantic scores. A Korean audience may also have trouble accepting the bisexuality of two main characters, Clifford and Emcee. Based on the memoir "The Berlin Stories" by Christopher Isherwood, "Cabaret" tells the story of American writer Clifford Bradshaw (Michael Curry), who arrives in Berlin in the 1930s in search of writing material. What he discovers is the growing power of the Nazis, which complicates a romance between his landlady, Fraulein Schneider (Lucy Sorlucco), and fruit merchant Herr Schultz (John ...