Cabaret

Cabaret: Kander and Ebb's tony winning 1966 musical watches the rise of the Nazi Party in 1931 from the underbelly of Berlin society. Based on John Van Druten's play I am a Camera, which in turn is an adaptation of Christopher Isherwood's novel Goodbye to Berlin, the musical revolves around a seedy nightclub whose Master of Ceremonies narrates the show. Writer Cliff Bradshaw befriends Ernst Ludwig on the train to Berlin, who finds the young Englishman a room and introduces him to the Kit Kat Club. On his second day boarding with Fraulein Schneider, one of the club's performers, a young expatriate named Sally Bowles, announces that she is moving in with Cliff. The two develop a romance as their landlady slowly opens up to the love of elderly greengrocer Herr Schultz. Cliff accepts a job from Ernst traveling as a courier to Paris. When Ernst arrives at Fraulein Schneider and Herr Shultz's engagement party wearing a Nazi armband and threatens Herr Shultz, Cliff realizes his complicity in the growing unrest around them. The rising political tensions break apart both couples as Sally, insisting that their lifestyle is not at risk, refuses to move out of Germany and Fraulein Schneider, convinced that marrying a Jew will put them both at risk, breaks off her engagement to Herr Shultz. Cliff leaves for Paris alone and heartbroken, starting his novel with reflections on the Germany he is leaving.

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