Everyone loves a saucy bit of knicker, but watching Patrick Kennedy’s homage to the heady days of Germany’s Weimar Republic, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the people of pre-Nazi Berlin spent their days wearing anything else.
Having his seven actors lounge about the stage in their undies is clearly Kennedy’s attempt to suggest a sense of the burgeoning sexual freedom of the German capital during the 1920s. Alyssa Noble’s choreography certainly is, with the first moments of the show a medley of raunchy dance moves.
So far, so ‘Cabaret’, but this titillation jars with a piece that tries to portray the brilliance, strength of purpose and vivacity of seven women from that era, including socialist revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg and Hollywood legend Marlene Dietrich.
In a series of seven short vignettes that mix theatre and cabaret, we are shown some of the history and tragedy of the lives of these great, fascinating women, most of whom were eventually persecuted by Germany’s emerging extremist state for being Jewish, degenerates, communists and lesbians, or a combination of them.
If all the sauciness trivialises matters a bit, the songs are the show’s saving grace. It’s a joy to hear some classic numbers from the likes of Hanns Eisler, Kurt Weill and Mischa Spoliansky, all played by an excellent live band.
Several of the cast have voices that seem made to sing those songs – Stephanie Hampton as Blandine Ebinger and Julia Cugini as Gabriele Tergit in particular. As a result, the tunes feel as inventive, fresh and stirring as they must have been when they were first performed.
For all its somewhat misguided use of lingerie, the piece is a deft portrait of this host of inspiring women and the turbulent but exhilarating time in which they lived.
By Daisy Bowie-Sell