I've always felt that one of the strongest themes and messages of the musical is how the Kit Kat Klub represents distraction and diluting with a party, forgetting what is going on outside and coming in to serve your own needs, allows for the real forces of terror going on outside to take control. It feeds perfectly into/through Sally's approach at life, and even Frau Schneider's state of mind during the timeline of the show. The Emcee is the ringleader and facilitator of this. He observes and reflects the world but also the characters in the show they are giving us (sally, cliff, schneider etc). That is why the final lines "we have no troubles here" and then the multi-lingual goodbye, the same as it started, are so effective and upsetting. In many ways it's wonderful that "life is a cabaret", and in many ways it's... not. Which is also the clear tone of the title song, without it being drowned in literal trauma and anger and bitter sarcasm like the current london revival (which I felt was also slightly too much in the Mendes revival, but by comparison now looks downright subtle)
I think he is mocking and also trivializing when he does the kickline. Turning it into entertainment but for people who are there to be drunk and complacent and entertained and titillated. And then, in Mendes' much more obvious version, it literally bites him/the club in the ass when he is sent to an oven. But I do prefer the original ending, I find it more unsettling actually, and effective. The movie's ending too. |
