PETER DONOHUE: A mirror of society?

Writing this piece could come back to haunt me. I hope this is just a flash of paranoia and not something that has a basis in reality. Two disparate events came together recently with a very unsettling result.

While in New York for my granddaughter’s birthday, I scored a ticket in the 7th row of the August Wilson Theater, to see Eddie Redmayne and Bebe Neuwirth deliver incredible performances in Cabaret. I’ve seen Joel Grey and Tyler Michels as the Emcee, and each actor delivered a completely different portrayal of the master of ceremonies of the Kit Kat Club. The landlady in the Joel Grey Cabaret was a part of the storyline but otherwise not memorable, as I recall. Sally Wingert brought the character to life for me opposite Tyler Michels as the Emcee. Despite Wingert’s strength of character and presence on stage, it was Bebe Neuwirth who brought the message home of lost love and survival in the face of deadly discrimination. Neuwirth brought her character’s story from a subplot in most productions into the central theme of the entire production. As I left the theater I was in awe of the performances – Redmayne has a beautiful voice with which he nailed the songs – and Neuwirth was brilliant belting out and lamenting her loss centerstage on a raised dais. But inside I was troubled by Nazi’s luring Sally Bowles back to the club with the American lover, the Jewish grocer, and the landlady alone in their opposition to the brutal future about to unfold.

I left the theater with extremely mixed emotions, showstopping performances on stage that played over and over in my mind, and a sickening feeling in my stomach at the prospect of widespread hate fueling conflict once again on racial bias and religious discrimination. New York was the scene of protests on college campuses and on the political front a candidate vowing to round up, detain, and deport illegal immigrants in our own country, a renewed Muslim ban, and deportation of students who exercise their freedom of speech.

As this all unfolded a name from the past has come up with increasing frequency, Stephen Miller. He was the architect of the first Muslim ban and is reportedly advising Trump on immigration executive orders to employ as soon as he is sworn in as President.

Stephen Miller is a proponent of a Nation State with almost closed borders that maintains its white integrity and control. The former press secretary for Michelle Bachmann worked his way up through Jeff Sessions into the White House. His white supremacy and neo-Nazi sympathies are public knowledge and yet he is being considered for a major role in Trump’s next administration.

This is all out in the open, on full display and yet Trump leads in the polls. Watching Ernst Ludwig brandish his swastika arm band as he sheds his coat and gradually turns the residents of the Kit Kat Club into sympathizers alienating the landlady, the American lover and the Jewish grocer graphically displays how easily society can turn on its own, premised upon artificial differences.

That is happening right now, right here. When Peter Rothstein directed Tyler Michels and Sally Wingert in Cabaret, he offered a different ending through action instead of words (at least that is how I interpreted his finale). Rothstein had the residents of the Kit Kat Club ushered offstage by uniformed SS officers to say they had not been seduced to the way of the Reich.

The Redmayne Neuwirth production was true to the script and by sheer numbers portrayed a more dismal ending. I left that theater truly saddened by hatred and discrimination. To walk down the street a few miles and hear the hatred over the Gaza invasion and the political rhetoric taking advantage of this difference of opinion brings home the fragile nature of our society. The attempt to stall and overcome Russian aggression in Europe, to me, is a necessity and yet it too has become a hot potato in Congress.

Donald Trump is right – Washington is a swamp. He is not the person who will clean it up, not with people like Stephen Miller in his camp advising him and having the ability to pursue his personal agenda. In the case of the revival of Cabaret I hope that Art is NOT a mirror of our society.

— This is the opinion of Times Writers Group member Peter Donohue, who has been involved in the arts in Central Minnesota for more than 35 years. His column is published the third Sunday of the month.

This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: PETER DONOHUE: A mirror of society?