'Cabaret'

In college, I was quite the supporter of the arts. I went to dance and music recitals, I attended plays and musicals, and I went to art exhibits. All put on by my university.

Around my junior or senior year, I saw a production of Cabaret. Although a fan of the musical, I'd never seen or read about Cabaret so I had little to go on in terms of context or what the story was about.

I was floored. My jaw was wide open and fell to the floor. The influx of Nazis thrilled me beyond anything I could have imagined and I almost instantly went to Hastings to rent the 1972 film production starring Liza Minnelli.

I liked the stage production more. It had the emcee change into the striped uniform worn by Jews, Poles and prisoners of war and he walks into this door emitting this very bright light. It was harrowing, to say the least.

I like the film, too. Bob Fosse has a certain style. I noted it during my review of All That Jazz, which I found equally as haunting and dark.

Cabaret captures the same feeling. Not the death of a man, like All That Jazz, but the death of a people, the death of a time period and kind of a death of innocence. The death of a half century. The death of humanism. The Holocaust was more than the death of six million people. It was the loss of how we perceive global relations, politics and the role of the United States. It forever altered the way people act and think, the way leaders lead and the way philosopher's saw the world.

Everything changed. The only guy who knew this was the emcee, the grinning, mischievous Joel Grey. I've always perceived as being the devil, or Satan. Often, Satan doesn't always slither like a snake to tempt Eve with the forbidden fruit. I believe he stands by and wrings his hands together as catastrophe and mayhem ensue. He mocks the evildoers as he watches in glee as the innocent are destroyed.

We think the emcee as part of the solution. Instead, he's more of the problem.

Two very poignant scenes: Clearly when Max and Brian stop at the beer garden and the Nazi Youth leads a chorus of "Tomorrow Belongs To Me." The vehemence and sincerity of which these people sing, a torn and angry people, is spooky and telling of where the mindset of the German in 1931 was.

Two, is the ending. It's the impish emcee staring into the camera sing-songy saying goodbye. A final swan song and wave goodbye of life as we knew it. All the future and all the lives are in limbo. Only the worst can be assumed.