FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM The cast of "Cabaret" rehearses for its series of performances at Manoa Valley Theatre.

MVT show among
season’s very best

Announcing John Rampage as director/choreographer and Andrew Sakaguchi starring as the Emcee was probably enough to ensure strong advance sales for Manoa Valley Theatre's latest production of "Cabaret" and an extension of the run before curtains rose. Well, the production opened Wednesday exceeds the high expectations fueled by the pre-opening hype.

"Cabaret": Presented by Manoa Valley Theatre at 2833 E. Manoa Road, 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, and 4 p.m. Sundays through April 3. Tickets $30 through March 27, $35 thereafter ($5 discount for seniors and military; people under 26 pay $20). Call 988-6131.

Sakaguchi gives a career-best performance as a homosexual transvestite; Rampage has never done better work in deploying a team of seductive dancers in high-energy routines; and two nonseductive people give the show the sensitivity it needs to be more than a parade of flaming men and women in lingerie.

Add the talented ensemble, and MTV's new show is easily one of the best of the 2004-05 theater year. If the Hawaii State Theatre Council had not put the Po'okela Awards "on hiatus," "Cabaret" would be a front-runner for awards in almost every category, from "Male Lead (Musical)" to "Best Overall Musical."

Sakaguchi takes command of the show from his first number and never misses a beat or nuance thereafter. He establishes the harshness and cynicism of the Emcee in Act 1, then ups the ante in Act 2 when he comes out in lingerie and heels to join the sensuous Kit Kat Klub girls in a high-kicking chorus line number, fitting in perfectly.

But Sakaguchi is more than a strong singer who can dance in heels. He illuminates multiple facets of the character as well. There's a sense that the Emcee is cold, bitter and potentially self-destructive and that it's not a coincidence that the Kit Kat routines become more political as Nazi power grows. In his final appearance -- evidently several years after 1930 -- Sakaguchi conveys a sense that the Emcee is moving forward, for better or worse.

Elitei Tatafu Jr. (Clifford Bradshaw) and Erin Wong (Sally Bowles) sing well in playing an American writer and a sexually promiscuous English singer, but Louise South (Fraulein Schneider) and Larry Bialock (Herr Schultz) make the secondary relationship between a repressed German spinster and a kindly Jewish businessman the more believable and gripping of the two. Tatafu looks interested, and Wong sings "Cabaret" with such palpable desperation that the number becomes a requiem for every gay and straight victim of the club scene. But Wong plays Sally as being so pretentious and self-satisfied that it's never clear why Cliff considers her more than a sexual convenience.

South and Bialock, however, mesh believably from their first tentative love scene. They sing well but also create a sense of chemistry and attraction developing between two lonely people. South expresses the concerns and fears of everyday people perfectly. Bialock's portrayal of an optimistic man who insists that he has no reason to fear the Nazis because he is as much a German as anyone is perfect as well.

Rampage's female dancers are a stunning bunch, and he gives their chorus line numbers a decadent sizzle that similar routines in Army Community Theatre's "Miss Saigon" lack. "Don't Tell Mama" establishes Rampage's appreciation for the material and his confidence in his showgirls. The "Don't Tell Mama"/"Telephone Dance" segment is show-stopping entertainment.

The male dancers also acquit themselves well. Several display comic ability playing the anonymous customers of a prostitute. Lisa Konove (Fraulein Kost) enhances the show with her portrayal of a shopworn, over-the-hill hooker. Terry Howell Jr. has a fine moment as a patriotic German who sings "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" with chilling confidence, and Daniel James Kunkel (Ernst Ludwig) is an asset in the secondary role of a mysterious German who can't understand why Cliff doesn't share his confidence in the promise of a new Germany.

Musical director Corin Overland's Kit Kat Band gives the performers strong, but not overly loud, musical support; Jason Taglianetti (sound design) ensures that singers can be heard clearly even when facing away from the audience; and Karen Archibald (set design) extends the period ambience to the back of the house with copies of vintage Nazi posters. People who don't want to sit in front should opt for the back row -- it's on a riser and offers the best sight lines of any MVT "nightclub" show.

The problems with the story and the MVT costumes don't detract from its entertainment value. Hitler's victory was by no means certain or even likely in 1929 or 1930, and the mood of the story is that of 1931 or 1932 when the Nazis had become the biggest political party in Weimar Germany. Having Nazis or Nazi sympathizers in this show wear swastika armbands is good visual theater but historically incorrect. German sailors never wore swastika armbands, and the frontier guards didn't add a swastika to their uniforms until several years after Hitler came to power -- legally -- in 1933. To paraphrase the Emcee, should we care much?