This is a continuation of Middlebury theatricals, but is more highly significant to me. I want to talk of cabaret as an art form, one in which Beverly and I participated thoroughly, both in writing and in performing, and specifically of the role of Herbert and Eva Nelson, who afforded us a link to the fabulous entertainment world of Berlin of the 1920’s and early 1930’s—before the dark years--and especially to the cabaret of that era.

Cabaret & The Nelsons   After thirteen years of being away from Middlebury, having gotten our Master of Arts in German for study that year in Mainz, Beverly and I went back once again in the summer of 1975, enrolled in the Doctor of Modern Languages program, which we finally achieved in 1980. That first summer was particularly full of work, since we had to write a special paper to be accepted into the program, in addition to the usual three very full classes. We enjoyed all classes at Middlebury, and when we saw that now they were offering a class—it was really a workshop—in Cabaret, a very German art form, we signed up. By the end of the summer we were exhausted, but we loved every second of it.

Reflecting back, I wonder how we knew who the Nelsons were, and why we knew it would be fun to sign up to work with them. Well, they gave their own performance once every summer at Middlebury, and in retrospect, I think we must have gotten an announcement about their performance and drove up to see it the summer before, 1974. Not only that, but some years earlier, German speakers in the New York area had gotten an announcement that Das Kom(m)ödchen from Düsseldorf would be giving a number of cabaret performances in German at an intimate theater off Broadway, and once we saw that, where we laughed our heads off, we were hooked.

I have a tape of the Nelson-Cabaret of 1975, and just relistened to it after many years. I remember their cabaret performance as having taken place in a properly small venue, with portly Herbert in a tux at the grand piano, and Eva in a gown before it. He did some amusing repartee; she sang some humorous songs while he played the piano; they both did some sketch comedy in front of the piano. They did two serious songs about Berlin. Their performance was always well received. Cabaret humor being very topical, some of that performance now sounds dated after more than three decades. In addition the cassette tape after that period time has deteriorated a bit and it’s often harder to catch some words here and there than it once was.

On the first day of the Nelsons’ class, Herbert explained briefly the history of Cabaret, and commented on what Americans understood by the word, and how it was very different. He also told of his, and his father’s, background. After that first day learning background, we never sat down in a classroom setting for the rest of the six weeks, but were instead up and about, DOING things.

But for this article I needed more background than the fascinating stories Herbert told that first day, and needed to fill in more blank spaces. I’ve tried to research more about his father and their wartime experiences, and more about what cabaret is, and how its two versions differ. This is my understanding and interpretation of the facts.

The word “cabaret” is French, which I’m sure is no surprise, and the French word, with the French pronunciation, is used in most languages, including German. However, a home-grown Germanized version has also developed, “Kabarett” (rhymes with a barrette used in the hair), and it’s probably become more frequent.

I didn’t like the explanation of the origin of the word that I found as being to vague, and I’d rather explain it this way. Take the word “chamber” meaning a room; then take the suffix “-ette” making things smaller, as in roomette, dinette, kitchenette. Put them together and you get “chamber-ette”, which would reflect in equal measure “cabar-et”. It’s essential that any form of cabaret, by its very nature, has to be played in a venue that’s essentially a small room, with an intimate connection between performers and audience. You do not do cabaret in Madison Square Garden or Wembley Stadium. If it’s done in a theater, it’s a small, intimate theater.

My interpretation of the facts is that cabaret has developed in two versions, which I’ll call the comedic and non-comedic. Curiously, only four cultures have developed a cabaret tradition, France and the USA in one version, Germany/Austria and (surprisingly to me) the Netherlands in the other.

Cabaret, as its French name tells you, started in France. In Paris, in 1881, a club was opened in Montmartre called Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat). In 1889, the world-famous Moulin Rouge opened in Montmartre as well. This is where Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, a regular visitor, painted pictures today hanging in the Louvre, of La Goulue, Jane Avril, and others, that were also used at the time as advertising posters. Also of that era is Au Lapin Agile, which Beverly and I visited in 2003 (Reflections 2003 Series 13, also 14). I can vouch for the fact that the venue of Au Lapin Agile was a small house, and the performers sat at tables across from the clients. It was all singing, with numerous sing-alongs.

French cabaret is what I call the non-comedic version. It’s primarily singing, perhaps also dance sometimes. It is obviously the background for American cabarets, which are also non-comedic. American cabarets are strongly influenced by jazz, but typically are small venues, perhaps restaurants, perhaps nightclubs, with what is known as a “cabaret singer” performing perhaps at a piano. The songs are often of the type of perhaps Gershwin, perhaps Cole Porter. Customers dine and drink at their tables during the performance. In the 1950’s none other than Edith Piaf performed often in New York cabaret clubs. Some known clubs were the Blue Angel, Bon Soir, the Oak Room at the Algonquin. The most famous venue today in New York is the Cafe Carlyle in the Carlyle hotel, known for years for the performances of the late Bobby Short. Elaine Stritch and Barbara Cook do cabaret. Michael Feinstein’s is also well known.

Aside from singing, the “cabaret singers” in the United States also chat with the audience, doing a running repartee. It is possible that these talks are the origin of contemporary stand-up comedy, the only move in a comedic vein for American cabarets.

Just as the French and American cabaret tradition is primarily non-comedic, the German/Austrian and Dutch traditions thrive on satire and parody. Political satire is particularly common. There are sketches and singing, but the singing is often humorous. Blended in, however, is the occasional serious song. After World War One, the censorship that had existed during the German Empire was lifted, which allowed cabaret to blossom forth, especially in Berlin. This Golden Era of entertainment and cabaret lasted less than a decade-and-a-half, virtually coming to an end with the dictatorship in 1933.

After the war, cabaret came back to Germany and Austria. We attended a performance of Das Kom(m)ödchen in Düsseldorf, and also attended other cabarets in Berlin, München/Munich, and Wien/Vienna. We found that there is just one problem—one that didn’t stop us, but a problem nonetheless. Beyond understanding the language, you have to know who is being parodied. In New York they had adjusted the performance for a German-speaking New York audience, and the whole show was funny. At cabarets in Germany, we could only get 60-70% of the jokes, not understanding who was being satirized. If you didn’t know Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, or Dick Cheney, would you get jokes based on them? Topicality is an essential element of cabaret.

So this was the difference that Herbert Nelson was alluding to. We were going to do German cabaret, what I call the comedic kind, not American cabaret. But now, as I think it over, it becomes clear to me that we DO have the comedic kind of cabaret in the USA, we just don’t call it cabaret.

What comes to mind when envisioning a satirical comedy show? Putting stand-up comedy aside, since no music is involved, and which sometimes is not even parody, two things come to mind.

The first is on TV: Saturday Night Live. If you know the show, you almost know German comedic cabaret. You see famous people, especially politicians being parodied, as well as daily life. The thing that SNL lacks to be cabaret in this sense is music. Yes, it does have musical performers, but the comedy stops for guest musicians to perform straight musical numbers. You rarely if ever see a comedic song on SNL, so SNL illustrates only part of the picture of what we’re talking about.

The other part is illustrated by the show “Forbidden Broadway”. FB is an off-Broadway show that’s been running since 1982, always in small venues in true cabaret style. Beverly and I have seen different versions of it three times over the years, and each time it was in a different small theater, and it’s now in a different one again. As the name suggests, it’s a specialty form of cabaret, parodying Broadway specifically. It has four performers, two men, two women, who change periodically. Numbers are updated as necessary, and once in a while, an entire new show comes out. The present show, which I have not seen, is called “Forbidden Broadway: Special Victims Unit”. They parody all the big shows, present and past (Lion King, Les Miz, Music Man), and all the big names (Barbara Streisand, Ethel Merman [I remember that one], Carol Channing, Elton John, Andrew Lloyd Webber). Just think of the fodder they have to work with.

I have to digress here on one of the things FB did that I really would have enjoyed—if I had seen it. Just seeing the FB ad in the paper for this still makes me laugh. I need to establish the background.

Elaine Paige is a major force in London’s West End. She is considered the queen of British musical theatre. She was in Hair and Grease. She played the title role in Evita, singing “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”; Grizabella in Cats, singing “Memory”. Now that The Drowsy Chaperone has opened in the West End, Elaine Paige is playing the title role. It’s amazing that she’s so little known in the US, although she did appear on Broadway in the mid 1990’s for a year or two.

For me, one of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s best shows is Sunset Boulevard of the mid 90’s, based on the film of 1950. The eccentric, faded silent-film star Norma Desmond lives in her huge mansion on Sunset Boulevard. Two of Gloria Swanson’s lines in the movie are widely remembered and quoted, and they were repeated in the stage show. At the end, when it’s clear that Desmond has gone over the edge and is lost in fantasy, she looks at the cameras and lights of the news reporters and says: “All right, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up”. Earlier on, when she’s recognized as someone who WAS big, she responds: “I AM big. It’s the pictures that got small”.

The show’s main scene portrays the overstated decadence of Desmond’s mansion. It has a huge Gothic staircase along the back rising from lower left to upper right. Behind the massive banister a sometimes turbaned Norma Desmond makes something like 27 major dramatic entrances and exits up or down the stairs. Ben Brantley in a Times article points out that this stage set itself is often applauded when first seen.

Now just the quirky story of Sunset Boulevard would offer enough fodder for Forbidden Broadway to satirize, but it gets better. Elaine Paige’s stint on Broadway involved her taking over the Norma Desmond role from Betty Buckley. Fair enough, but I’ve left out a major piece of information about Elaine Paige.

She is very, very short. On a good day, if the lighting is right and she takes a deep breath, she may reach 5 feet (1.52 m). I recently mentioned Rhea Perlman (Carla on “Cheers”). Perlman, at 5’ 4” would tower over Paige. Danny DeVito, also 5’ would look Paige in the eye.

The story was well-known at the time, that when Elaine Paige prepared to make an entrance or exit up or down that staircase, you couldn’t see her. In my mind’s eye I picture half a turban bobbing up and down beyond the Gothic banister. Carpenters had to raise each of the steps a full six inches so that she was visible.

It gets worse. When Paige unavoidably came to one of the most famous dramatic lines in the play: “I AM big ...”, the audience had to suppress a giggle as it tried to keep its composure.

Now if you’re writing for Forbidden Broadway, you aren’t worth your salt if you can’t parody this material. I wish I’d seen that edition of FB, but I do remember being in Florida at the time, picking up the NY Times, and seeing a large ad for FB. It showed the four costumed FB actors in an arms-spread theatrical pose; three were standing behind a turbaned Norma Desmond portrayer who was on her knees, with fake shoes attached to the front of her knees. I only wish I had seen that parody. It must have been a riot.

Actually, FB is all sung parodies, and there is no sketch comedy. To get closest to what German cabaret is, you have to visualize the sung parodies of Forbidden Broadway mixed with the sketch comedy of Saturday Night Live and the result is: KABARETT!!!!

“Cabaret”   I’ve avoided thus far what might be the first thought to many in this discussion, Kander & Ebb’s musical and later film “Cabaret”. This excellent show was on Broadway from 1966 to 1969 with Joel Gray as the eerie Emcee, and none other than Lotte Lenya (see below) as Fräulein Schneider. In the 1972 film, where the story was shifted around considerably, he reprised his role opposite Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles. Revived on Broadway in 1987, Joel Gray received star billing for reprising his role once again.

In the 1969 West End production in London, Judi Dench (!!) played Sally Bowles. In 1993, Alan Cumming was the Emcee, and varied the role from eerieness to degeneracy. On Broadway, with Cumming reprising his role, Cabaret became the third longest-running musical revival in Broadway history. Beverly and I saw this production. The story takes place in the “Kit Kat Klub” cabaret in Berlin in 1929-30. It shows the impending doom, the unsure future, and people’s reaction to it. The major point to be made here is that, as good as the show is, there is nothing comedic about it, which is exactly its point. Given the times, cabaret entertainment, which would be expected to be funny is not funny at all. That’s just the point. However, that should be realized, and the musical “Cabaret” should not be taken to be typical of comedic German cabaret.

Rudolf Nelson   That first day in class, Herbert referred to his father, who had been active in Berlin cabaret in the early years. He specifically mentioned some theaters his father was involved in, then the fact that they had to flee to the Netherlands in 1933, where they continued to do cabaret. This latter fact made so much more sense recently once I researched the fact that the Netherlands is a major venue for comedic cabaret.

But reflecting back, I find it wasn’t enough. I needed to know more, and some online research I did recently filled in the holes in the story. All the sources I found were in either in French or German.

I now see that Rudolf Nelson (1878-1960) was a very major figure in Berlin’s Golden Years of 1918 to 1933. He may not have had the international fame of a Kurt Weill or Lotte Lenya, or Marlene Dietrich, who were all contemporaries, but the cabaret world revolved around him. [Note: a new Broadway musical opens in a few days called LoveMusik about Weill and Lenya.]

Rudolf Nelson is described as “an outstanding representative of the elegant big-city cabaret”. He wrote operettas and revues, and about 6,000 songs. I read that “For almost a half century, saying ‘and Rudi’s doing the music’ was a guarantee of quality and success.” He was a musician, pianist, composer, theatrical director and cabaret owner. I suppose we would today call him an impresario.

He was born in Berlin in 1878, and later studied music there. He also changed his name from Lewysohn to Nelson. He had been influenced by early attempts at cabaret, and started performing, accompanying himself on the piano. He would have been in his 20’s when in 1907 he opened his successful cabaret on Unter den Linden called Le Chat Noir, an hommage to the original cabaret of the same name in Paris. It lasted to 1914. In 1920, at 217 Kurfürstendamm, he opened his very successful Nelson-Theater for cabaret performances, where legendary revues were produced. In January, 1926, Josephine Baker appeared there.

He worked closely with some big names, which may not be familiar. The one I’ll mention was Kurt Tucholsky, a premier journalist and satirist of the era, who worked as a text writer for Nelson’s music, sometimes under the alias Theobald Tiger. Herbert, who was born in 1910 and so was a teenager in the 1920’s, mentions in his own cabaret act how inspired he was by being involved with Tucholsky in action.

But in 1933, not only did Rudolf’s wife die, but he and Herbert had to flee the fascists. They ended up in Amsterdam, where he founded a new troupe, and ran the Exile Cabaret La Gaité, apparently for the rest of the 1930’s, until the fascist occupation. I wonder what the language of the Exile Cabaret was; I’ve always assumed Dutch, which would have been quite a feat for the Nelsons, but it could have also been German for exiles that they used, I don’t know. When the occupation came, the Nelsons avoided impending deportation by going into hiding “underground”, hidden by the Dutch resistance. This part of the story is eerily parallel to Anne Frank’s, whose father, Otto Frank, had fled with his family from Frankfurt to Amsterdam. In 1935, Kurt Tucholsky, who had fled to Sweden earlier, committed suicide there with pills.

After the war, returning from exile, Rudolf went right back to Berlin and reopened the Nelson-Theater. In 1949 he wrote his last revue. In 1953 the government of the Federal Republic of Germany decorated him with the Verdienstkreuz des Verdienstordens (Merit Cross of the Order of Merit). In 1959 he was awarded the Paul-Linke-Ring, given every two years to a composer of light music. In 1960 he died in Berlin, where he is buried, a Berliner to the end. On the building at 186 Kurfürstendamm is a memorial plaque saying that “The Composer Rudolf Nelson lived here 1922-1932”, which can be viewed online.

Herbert did tell of his own experience writing cabaret music in Amsterdam, but did not tell many other details. After the war he worked in Munich for 20 years as an announcer for the Voice of America or Radio Free Europe, I forget which. I don’t know when he met Eva or moved to New York, where they had a son, Paul. In a biography of Rudolf’s it mentions his son Herbert, “a cabaret writer and advocate of German cabaret in the USA”. I should say so. Herbert at Middlebury was our link to the cabaret of that Golden Age in Berlin. The thread may be tenuous—it’s like saying “I shook the hand of the man who shook the hand of ...”—but it’s there nonetheless.

Writing & Performing Cabaret   After that first day of introduction, it was time to get to work. We bandied around possible topics for satire, went home and wrote, wrote, wrote, reviewed what people had done, criticized, commented. It was a powerful, creative think tank.

I am sorry, shocked, amazed, and ashamed to say that, packrats that we usually were, I do not have any written material left to show what we did, no rough drafts, no final copies, no scripts, other than the show’s program, four slides taken at dress rehearsal, and a cassette tape just as old and just as slightly deteriorated as the one of the Nelson-Cabaret,. All comments will have to come from the program, slides, and tape. I’ve tried to reconstruct some transcripts from the tape, but the group singing is hardest to get lyrics out of, and duo acts so-so. Solo acts are the easiest to transcribe, unless the music drowns out the odd lyric.

We wrote sketches and we wrote songs. For the songs, we were the lyricists, Herbert was the composer (with two exceptions), as well as the coordinator of music and lyrics. (Eva was producer and director.) We would come in with proposed texts we had written the night before, for review and discussion. Herbert would then take the best ones home himself, and he did two things.

First he would doctor the script just a bit to make it what he called more kabarettistisch. I suppose I could make up a word like “cabarettic” to explain that--in other words, more cabaret-appropriate. Maybe he’d fix some rhymes, adjust the meter, add something humorous.

The other thing he’d have done the night before for the best songs was set your song lyrics to music. You have no idea how elating (and flattering) it feels to have music bring your words (and a couple of his words) to life. And given Herbert’s heritage from Berlin’s Golden Age—and the Amsterdam time, too—it was exhilerating.

The first weeks we wrote, then we rehearsed. Rehearsals—first in our workspace, later in Warner Theater—were like something out of a Busby Berkley-era movie. Some were working with Herbert around the grand piano. Others were working with Eva preparing to be on stage. Then we’d go home to do work for other classes. What a summer. What fun.

Die Wegweiser   The six-week classes ended in mid-August, and the show seems to have been on August 3, 1975. We were called Die Wegweiser, appropriate for a Cabaret. Wegweiser breaks down as Weg-weis-er or Way-show-er(s). We were The Wayshowers, those that showed the way. The actual translation of Wegweiser is Sign Post, Road Sign; if it’s a person it can be Guide. Since the drawing on the program showed a signpost, let’s say we were The Guideposts, but the literal non-translation of The Way-show-ers is the most accurate. The actual name of the show was “Glückliche Reise” or “(Have a) Happy Trip”. It was a true team effort, an ensemble performance.

There were 18 numbers. After the two opening ensemble numbers, # 3 had four subparts, including my multilingual solo, which led. # 17 had three subparts, including Beverly’s solo of Eva Perón, which closed the show before the ensemble finale. The show probably ran just over an hour. You often performed your own work, sometimes not. I count on the program 18 of us working with the Nelsons. Some acts had one author, some two, a few several. Two guys had some additional talent, being credited with both “Text und Musik”, one once, and one twice--he was a very talented singer, as well. Herbert did the Musik for six other songs. The rest of the numbers were sketches.

As for performers, seven of us did solos, one of those doing two solos. Beverly did a duo with a guy that they co-wrote, and also her spectacular Evita solo. In retrospect, I see why Herbert put our solos like bookends at each end of the show. My multilingual number parodied the most obvious: daily life living among several language schools. And Herbert wisely wanting the show to go out with a bang put Beverly at the end, since her Evita was a tour de force.

My memory here has been grossly faulty. I had forgotten the music and lyrics to Herbert’s opening song, and others, but once I reviewed them on the tape, I’ve been going around the house singing bits and pieces of the numbers again. I remember Beverly having been given a huge mantilla for her Evita number, black as coal. On the two slides of her performing I was shocked to see her wearing a mantilla white as snow. There was a slide of the two of us on a darkened stage at the same time, each holding a long, tapered candle. I had no recollection that we appeared together at all. So much for my mind’s eye (that liar). Here’s the opening as it appeared in the program, with the performers on the right:

The opening number and theme of the show was all Herbert’s. In retrospect, considering all the traveling Beverly and I did in those years, and especially the amount of traveling I do now, the theme was very portentous.

The show did explore today, tomorrow (the upcoming world of computers), yesterday (Eva Perón, for example). This is the very peppy song of Herbert’s I’ve started singing again lately. Then came:

“With Suitcase in Hand” continues the travel theme. I was very pleased that Herbert used my song, with his music, for the second of the two opening ensemble numbers. It has a heavy tramping beat of travelers on the march, and lines include “Wir reisen viel, wir reisen gern ... [und] haben mit unserm Reisegeist den Weltrekord gebrochen.” (“We travel a lot, we like to travel ... [and] with our traveling spirit have broken the world record.” Portent, portent, portent.

The third number was called “Middlebury College” and had four subsections on that theme, of which my solo was the first. Cabaret is topical, and applies to the local situation. Middlebury had then five major Summer Language Schools (although others had already started to develop on a smaller scale). Besides German (the oldest), there was French, Italian, Spanish, Russian. Although each school was and is reasonably self-contained within certain halls, walking down the paths between German buildings was sometimes like walking through France, Italy, Spain, Russia. I was already ever the multilinguist in those years at age 35, and this number I wrote for myself in German had, as a humorous hommage to the other schools, references in each of the other four languages (but never, never, never English at Middlebury!!). Warner Theater was packed, not only because the Nelson-Cabaret a few weeks earlier had whetted the German School’s appetite for cabaret, but because entrance to campus entertainment was open to all schools, as long as one knew the language in question as well as the one being studied. Not only students but also professors from other schools might have been present, so the hommage might have reached home. My title says “German spoken here”. But is it?

It was in the form of a poem. A slide shows me in a casual standing pose, full of ennui, leaning sideways on a table, one leg crossed in front of the other. It was less difficult to decipher my totally-forgotten lyrics from the tape with just one voice to listen to, and my own at that. Here, in its entirety, is my “magnum opus”, but I know Herbert helped out by tinkering with it.

A synopsis: I came here to learn German, but from the first day I got more and more discouraged. I asked a woman for my room key and she said: Que voulez-vous, monsieur, une clé? And things got even worse. [Big laugh.] / In the hall I saw a guy—my roommate! Buon giorno! he shouted happily. Discouraged I kept on going. / I wanted to send a package and asked a professor where the post office was. Señor, ¿quién sabe? That sure sounded like Spanish to me. [Very big laugh. (I know, I’ve got the tape.)] / At the picnic I told the Director it was nice of him to invite me. What was his answer? Добрый день (Dobryi den’)! And all I wanted to do was go swimming. / Where will I find the language of Goethe? [Laugh.] Who’s going to say to me “Na, wie geht es?” [Big laugh.] Where do I find Huber, Neuse, Kunz? [Three professors’ names elicited howls of laughter.] When will it finally be just us? [Laughter of recognition.] / This year I came here for German, so: Ciao! ¡Adiós! До свидания (Do svidaniya)! Au revoir! [The bilingual rhyme in that closing couplet was particular fun, and my quintilingual walk-off was well appreciated.]

“Progress” was Beverly’s collaboration that Herbert set to music, which she performed as a duo. Herbert’s music is just charming. I could make out a good deal of the text, but it’s hard to describe here. Essentially: is progress really progress? This sort of thing is typical of cabaret—you’ll have something more serious and meaningful mixed in among the humor. Here’s the couplet that constitutes the short chorus:

(ß=ss) This couplet is recognizable as being a twist on Heinrich Heine’s poem and song “Die Lorelei”. As a chorus, it was played in minor tones, evocative of people in ennui, and also of Berlin in the 1920’s and 1930’s.

I was in two more group numbers, Beverly in one. Then came another of her collaborations.

“Historic Minutes” has too many speakers for me to pick out details. It’s apparently the one where Beverly and I appear with candles.

“Mom in Charge!” has five guys introducing three female solos, including Beverly’s, which was last, and which closed the show before the final ensemble number. The premise was that if men hadn’t done well in running countries, how about women? The guys introduce it with some of Herbert’s cutest music.

Provocatively using the word “Führer” in the last line is very kabarettistisch, underscoring the political point being made. After this intro establishing the premise, someone portrays Jiang Qing (Mao’s widow, of the Gang of Four), and someone else does Indira Gandhi. Then Beverly comes out in her mantilla as Eva Perón. Now, granted, Evita is a more colorful and provocative character that you can do more with, and Beverly just took the character of Evita in stride and ran away with it. Imagine Beverly, feet apart, arms first outstretched, then arms on hips, the mantilla tassels jostling wherever she shook them. Eat your hearts out, Patti LuPone and Madonna!

Herbert first played a Spanish-sounding intro for Beverly’s entrance. She starts in with “Ach, compañeros, ach, compañeros...” so she got to use some Spanish, too. One line she has is “Ich hab mich an die Macht schon so gewöhnt” (“I’ve gotten so used to power”). This whole bit wasn’t a text of Beverly’s, but I remember Herbert custom-fixing a fun rhyme for her. Evita says she’ll stay on in power:

Argentinien is ar.gen.TIN.yen. Normally, “ruins” is Ruinen (ru.IN.en), but Herbert, using some fun poetic license, lengthened it here to Ruinien (ru.IN.yen) to get it to rhyme. This is an example of Herbert making your text more kabarettistisch. This playing with words got Beverly one of her biggest laughs.

Her biggest laugh of all (after all, this was Kabarett, meant for laughs!) was for her exit. She fetchingly strutted off to her closing line:

which allowed her to be the one to have the closing word on the theme of male versus female leadership. But that wasn’t all. Like an old vaudeville routine, Herbert continued her strut off with:

Absolutely great.

The 18th number was a reprise by das Ensemble of “Glückliche Reise”, which was so well received, that we were called back for an encore of it.

Two memorable things happened backstage. Before the show, as we were waiting to go on as we heard the auditorium filling, Eva appeared around a corner carrying a tray with shot glasses filled with brandy. Everybody take one to calm your nerves! And in one swallow. Who knows, maybe it did help improve the show.

What happened backstage immediately after the show was just so very off-the-wall, but I suppose it was understandable. Everything had gone well, and as we could hear the footsteps of hundreds of people filing out of Warner Theater, the entire cast, still standing around on the stage, totally unplanned and spontaneously, arms raised, let out a loud WHOOP!!! I suppose it was a release of all that tension, but it really was quite unprofessional and I can still see Eva waving her hands and miming for us to be quiet! On the tape, over the sound of the shuffling footsteps, you can still hear the muffled [whoop] behind the curtain. That release of energy remains one of the most fun memories.

One last thing about the show, that shows Herbert’s sense of humor. Flügel means “wing” (and is related to “fly”). It refers to a bird’s or a plane’s wings, as well as the backstage wings of a theater. However, it also means “grand piano”, because of the piano’s wing-like shape. Herbert had this included in the program credits:

For the remaining summers at Middlebury, we never got involved with any more theatricals. I suppose we were too busy. But one fall two years later, we got a notice in the mail that the Nelsons were to do a show in English at La Mama.

La Mama Experimental Theatre Club on East 4th Street in the East Village has, since 1961, supported and presented “multi-cultural and multi-national original performance work” according to its website, where I found in its archive the date of the show, November 30, 1977. It was called “Cabaret Now: Enter at Your Own Risk”, which sounds very kabarettistisch, and very “Herbert”. We saw the show, and read its short review in the New York Times.

A decade later, in 1988, we got word that Herbert had passed away at age 78. We went to a memorial at the Goethe House on Fifth Avenue. An era had ended, and our live link with Berlin’s Golden Era was over. After the speeches, we paid our respects to a stunned-looking Eva sitting in the front row next to their son Paul.

Googling online, I found a CD called “Cabaret: Eva Nelson and a Fabulous Cast of 1”. It had a recent date, but an older picture of Eva, so it could have just been a re-release.

Please accept and understand this piece as an hommage to Cabaret/Kabarett; as an hommage to Herbert Nelson, and Eva, even Rudolf; as an hommage to the Golden Years of Berlin cabaret; as an hommage to Middlebury College’s excellent language and cultural offerings, which gave us this cabaret opportunity and more; and, last but not least, as an hommage to Dr Beverly Johnson DiNapoli’s cabaret portrayal of--Da-dum-da-da-dum!—Eva Perón.

Das ist Kabarett!

Willkommen   As sort of a linguistic epilogue—or should I say encore?—we can briefly examine one of Kander and Ebb’s most famous songs from “Cabaret”: Willkommen.

My quintilingual presentation above notwithstanding, multilingual poems or songs are very rare. The only one that comes to mind is the bilingual:

from the 1930’s, sung by Hildegarde in the 1940’s and Nat King Cole in the 1950’s. The couplet above also has a bilingual rhyme. Yet to John Kander’s music, Fred Ebb wrote the trilingual Willkommen, with Cabaret’s Emcee addressing an international audience:

Both Fremde and étrangers imply more “foreigners”, but it doesn’t work in English to say “Hi, foreigner!” in this sense, so Ebb used “strangers” instead.

Enchanté means “enchanted” in French, and can be used as a greeting. Ebb lengthened it to the equivalent of “I am enchanted”, but it’s different from the way the English and German are phrased. Also, the whole German phrase didn’t fit, so Ebb apparently used poetic license to cut is short. What’s there means only “Happy to see ...”

To my way of thinking, the last line varies the most between the languages. Realize that two different things are being referred to here. There is the show-within-a-show, the cabaret playing at the Kit Kat Klub, but also the name of the musical is “Cabaret”. In other words, there’s a Berlin cabaret being portrayed in “Cabaret”.

ins (in + das) means “in the” or “to the”. The German version welcomes us “to the cabaret” in the Kit Kat Klub.

au (à + le) also means “to the”, so the French version welcomes us “to the cabaret” in the Kit Kat Klub.

But there was no extra syllable in the last line for the English to say “to the”. In the English version we are instead being welcomed “to Cabaret”, the musical. Picky perhaps, but nevertheless the case. Working trilingually is tricky, but they did end up with a great song.

One last thought on a possible cat theme. Le Chat Noir means “The Black Cat”. Do you suppose calling this fictitious Berlin cabaret the Kit Kat Klub could possibly be a hidden hommage, not only to the original Chat Noir in Paris, but also more pointedly to Rudolf Nelson’s old Chat Noir in Berlin? It’s a stretch, but who knows? In any case: