By Jacinto Caballero-George
Cabaret is a musical well known for its political statements, specifically how it shows the lives of an abundance of different people in 1930s Germany during Hitler’s rise to power. The character Emcee is the most important character in the musical. He is the “show runner,” or as he’s referred to by the main character, Clifford Bradshaw, at the end of the show, “The Master of Ceremonies.”
Emcee is the owner of the KitKatClub, the club in which part of the play takes place, but more specifically where the “comedic” songs of the play are performed, the ones meant to distract you from the rather sad and depressing plotline of the musical. His more important role is lulling the audience into a false sense of security and comfort. Emcee is meant to be a character that seems innocent, and yet oddly off putting in a way you can’t quite put your finger on. Billy Porter has no idea how to do that.
For the sake of simplicity, Billy Porter’s portrayal of Emcee will be compared to the most famous Emcee, 1993’s Alan Cumming’s for the rest of this article.
Billy Porter’s Emcee, from what can be found online, is either highly idealized, or seen as satirical. Though the Emcee is meant to be satirical at times, it’s still meant to make you feel uneasy. Porter’s portrayal makes the Emcee a laughable character at the best of times.
It all starts at the very first number. “Willkommen.” In this song the Emcee is welcoming the crowd in multiple languages. Telling the audience that they can leave their worries behind, that they can’t get you while you’re with him. And of course some of the words get meshed together between the Emcee’s German accent and his fast pace speaking. Hence the name of the song, “Willkommen,” German for ‘“welcome”.
This is the beginning of the musical and Billy Porter already messed up. In this production they decided the Emcee wasn’t going to have a German Accent. Or rather Billy Porter couldn’t do one. So to make up he jumbles his words together and it just sounds like a mesh of nothing. Not a good start.
One of the best examples of this is at the end of the arguably most important song of the musical, “If You Could See Her.” In this song the Emcee is talking about his lover, an actress in a gorilla costume and a dress is his “girlfriend” in this song. It’s sung very theatrically, a funny comedic song as the actress dances around stage like a gorilla while the Emcee tries to explain his rationale to the audience. However, at the end of the song it’s revealed that she is Jewish, with the last line being, “She wouldn’t look Jewish at all.” This line is delivered with venom, disgust, very different from the rest of the song. Meant to make the audience feel uneasy.
Alan Cumming’s, in his version, pauses, the music stops, his face falls, and he speaks the last line with a sense of disgust most would reserve with vermin. He spits out the word “Jewish” like it made him physically ill at the thought. It’s eerie, it makes the crowd fall silent in shock.
Porter puts emphasis on the first half of the line, “If you could see her through my eyes,” stretching out the word “eyes” like a father making a ghost noise to scare his children. It’s laughable at best. It takes away from the punch that last line gives, it takes away from the horror of the song in the first place. Not only that, but he whispers the important part. Not delivering it like a disgusting secret like it’s meant to sound.
After already setting a terrible example for the most important part of Emcee’s character, lulling the audience into a sense of false security and then reminding them of the true horrors of the world. He ruined the most important song to the Emcee’s character. “I Don’t Care Much.”
“I Don’t Care Much,” Is sung during the emotional apex of the musical. While Bradshaw is leaving Germany because he doesn’t want to be in a country in which a man like Hitler can rise to power. He’s fighting with Sally, his girlfriend and future mother of their child, while the Emcee sings this in the background.
It’s a very emotional song, as the Emcee slowly breaks down realizing how he is alone because he just can’t seem to care about anything no matter how hard he tries. It’s not meant to sound nice, not at all. It’s supposed to make the audience feel something as they see the normally upbeat and comedic character break because he is an upbeat comedical character. It brings another sense of dread to the second act as the impending doom that the audience knows will come in the next German election.
Alan Cumming’s version of this song is perfect. It starts as a fairly melodic song, emotional, but pleasant to listen to. However, as the song goes on it becomes more disruptive. Rough, hard, you can feel, see, and most importantly hear the Emcee’s emotion, his breakdown. His existential crisis if you will. The fact that this song is sung during the argument between Sally and Clifford only makes the emotional impact of this song all the more important.
Billy Porter throws all this out the window. He instead uses very vocalized techniques. Where Alan Cumming elongates his vowels in an unpleasant, uncomfortable, unnerving way, Billy Porter riffs and belts. He sings it like a love ballad rather than the lament it is. It doesn’t hold any of the emotions it’s meant to, and he elongates and belts so much it’s near impossible to decipher his words. Not unlike how incomprehensible his rendition of “Willkemmon” is.
The Emcee is needed in Cabaret to move the story forward and carry the political ignorance topic throughout the whole play. If done wrong the whole musical has none of the same impact it would have with a good Emcee. You can’t find a sense of comfort in the uneasiness of the Emcee if he’s laughable, in a bad way.
It takes away from everything the musical stands for, the horrors it portrays, the lives it shows go into ruins because of Hitler’s rise to power. The way the Nazi part destroyed Berlin. There is no Cabaret without a good Emcee. Sadly, destroying 2025’s Broadway Cabaret.
beniciapaw.com 