Mrs. Gelding and I just saw the touring production of Cabaret. It was very well done and pretty impressive but it raises a couple of questions.
First, where do you go to find a six-foot tall girl dancer who is also a professional class singer and violin player.
Second, the song “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” was it composed for the play or is it a genuine historical Nazi song. I know that it is included in the sheet music as one of the pieces from the play but I have a feeling that I have heard it before, and not in the 1972 movie or the songs on the radio when it first played on Broadway. It certainly has the “Wohlauf Comaraden” feel of romantic 1930s Nazi and German popular music. Is it derived from some historical piece, is it historical or did the Composer and lyricist just concoct it from the general literature?
Kander and Ebb wrote it for the musical. They did well, didn’t they?
Did the show also include “What Would You Do?” sung by the landlady? I think that expresses a difficult issue well.
And “Don’t tell Mama!” is also a peach of a song.
“If you tell my brother,
that ain’t grim;
'Cos if he squeals on me
I’ll squeak on him!
You can tell my grandma,
Suits me fine;
Just yesterday
She joined the line.
But don’t tell mama what you saw!”
Kantor and Erb did good. The touring company did good. We had a great time.
In a way the love story between the landlady and the fruit merchant was the most compelling thing in the play. But I still have this feeling that I had run into “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” some time before and not in connection with the musical.
The song “Tomorrow Belongs to Me” was quite definitely in the 1972 movie. Kander and Ebb were especially good at doing songs in the style of the 20s and 30s (see “Chicago”).
Who was playing the Sally when you saw it? When it came to Schenectady, it was Kate Shindle, whose performance was breathtaking.
The German part of me wants to get up, sing and stomp right along with it, because it is such a stirring tune.
But the American part of me remembers how a lot of otherwise decent Germans got caught up in that hell on earth, and it sickens me to hear it.
Still, Cabaret is one of my favorite musicals. (I have never seen it performed on the stage).
Beautiful song. I saw it yesterday in Iowa City and the woman who sang it–Curly, black hair, accordian–had some pipes! It’s so weird, just like Quasi said, ya wanna get up and sing and dance to it, but then you remember what it means…
You’re not alone in thinking that ‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me’ pre-dated Kander & Ebb’s score. It’s a very common supposition, and indeed when the musical was first produced some people misguidedly criticised K&E for having included a ‘genuine’ Nazi song. However, there’s no basis to the supposition. K&E wrote it, and it’s a great credit to their powers of pastiche (or ‘homage’) that they managed to produce something which sounds so authentic.
Tomorrow Belongs To Me is, indeed, a powerful piece. Especially coming where it does in the story line.
When I was in college, I was in a production of Cabaret, and the director chose a slight, baby-faced young man to sing the solo at the beginning. The sight of this very young, very innocent-looking cherubic fellow in a brown shirt standing at attention and solemnly singing this haunting melody was one of the chilling high points of the show, IMO.
Well, of course, you want to sing along and stomp to Tomorrow Belongs to Me, that’s the whole point of the song, to illustrate the seductiveness of Nazi propaganda. I wish the movie had included more of the original score, but, on the other hand, it added Mein Herr and Maybe This Time.