Warning: ‘Cabaret’ spoilers below. Keep reading!

PHOTO by SHASHIN DESAI

I AM GOING TO BE TALKING ABOUT THE ENDING OF CABARET. IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW THE ENDING OF CABARET, STOP READING! (Don’t stop reading!) AND ALSO, DON’T THINK THAT JUST BECAUSE YOU SAW THE BOB FOSSE FOSSTACULAR STARRING LIZA MINNELLI THAT YOU ALREADY KNOW HOW IT ENDS! UNLESS YOU THINK IT ENDS WITH THE EMCEE IN A COFFIN AT DACHAU! IN WHICH CASE, YOU ARE RIGHT!

Whew!

And so I took my father and my son to the International City Theatre for Valentine’s Day. The publicist was concerned. “How old is your son?” she asked. “It’s definitely PG-13 . . . maybe even PG-15 or -16.” I assured her my son had seen far, far worse, like the time I took him to see Medea. On Mother’s Day.

And so by the time all the group sex started on the ICT’s adorably set stage—cocktail tables filling the orchestra pit, the orchestra set up as house band in the back—my little family troupe was mostly delighted. Dad was whistling, clapping and singing along with the music, and junior was fidgeting the whole time and cringing each time one dude kissed another. If you haven’t seen Cabaret, it’s pretty often. Our neighbors in the very comfortable theater hated us.

“What parts did you like?” I asked my disconsolate, death-bored son at the end. “I liked the dancing,” he said—note: SLUTTY DANCING! OF SLUTS! “And I liked Fraulein Kost”—note: A super-pretty HOOKER!

“What can you tell me about the Nazis?” I asked him, because really every day is a chance to learn about Nazis! “Uh . . .” he explained. And then we had a fabulous conversation about Kristallnacht and Arbeit Macht Frei and the fact that our exquisite Emcee had ended up IN A COFFIN at DACHAU!  The ending was a real downer.

Seriously, the Emcee was exquisite—Jason Currie, a lithely muscled man who hasn’t yet got the parts he deserves (unless you count Naked Boys Singing). He was uproariously funny and an astounding song and dance man, and I am ready to fire all my gays and stalk him until he’s mine. Our Holly Golightly—sorry, I mean “Sally Bowles” (Erin Bennett)—was good and in fine voice, but my dad didn’t like her figure, which wasn’t helped by her dumpy costuming. (My dad gets upset if the cheesecake isn’t up to his standards.) He did love our Fraulein Schneider (Eileen T’Kaye), though, who will survive the Nazis or the Communists and continue being a sad old spinster, alone, because she will throw her fat old Jew fiancé, whom she really totally adores, away for her own survival.

In the meantime, George Peppard, er, Christopher Isherwood, er, “Cliff Bradshaw” was boring and stiff and had all the worst of Kander & Ebb’s otherwise magnificent score. He did get to kiss some dudes, though. And then Sally Bowles is pregnant! And maybe it’s Cliff’s baby! And he totally is all, “Don’t abort your baby; I want to be a gay dad!” And then she sings a song about how maybe this time, she’ll win! Yeah, she’ll win A GAY HUSBAND!

Jesus, LIZA!

And so the first act is all divine decadence and fivesomes and a hot hooker, and we’re at Fraulein Schneider’s well-deserved engagement party, when the Nazis come in and, as usual, ruin everything. Thanks, NAZIS.

And then in Act II, things get worse and worse, as happens when the Nazis come to call, and then it ends, and I go, “That was fucked!” And my Dad was all, “That it ended?” And I was all, “No, that our Emcee ended up IN A COFFIN at DACHAU!” And my Dad was all, “Huh?” He was too busy singing along (and whistling, and clapping in time) to notice the yellow star, or the coffin, or I guess the goddamned barbed-wired 20-foot concentration camp gate.

So, really, it was super. You should totally go.

CABARET INTERNATIONAL CITY THEATRE | 300 E OCEAN BLVD | LONG BEACH 90802 | 562.436.4610 | ICTLONGBEACH.ORG | THURS-SAT 8PM AND SUN 2PM | $35-45 | THROUGH MAR 9

Tags: cabaret, concentration camps, fivesomes, international city theatre, liza minnelli, Long Beach