Night crawlers A captivating Cabaret BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

Cabaret is a tottering balancing act, combining as it does ironical nightclub song-skits and the shadow of the Holocaust. But the Bristol Theatre Company is juggling the disparate elements successfully in an enjoyable evening of musical theater (August 12-14).

The time is pre-World War II Berlin, when jackbooted followers of a passion-rousing racist with a tiny mustache could be seen by the optimistic as comical in this colorfully decadent city. Hitting town hours before New Year’s Eve 1929 is wide-eyed novelist Clifford Bradshaw (Alan Rodrigues), hoping for inspiration for his next book. London and Paris hadn’t panned out. On the train coming in, he is immediately taken in hand by a young German, Ernst Ludwig (Kevin Broccoli), who introduces him not only to a cheap boarding house but also to a raunchy nightclub, and the education of an innocent begins.

His most effective teacher in the ways of this hedonistic world is Kit Kat Club headliner Sally Bowles (Lyn Soderlund), an exuberant, carefree Brit who moves in with him, uninvited, when she breaks up with her boyfriend of the month. Sally represents the heedlessness of the rest of Europe to the steady march of National Socialism, but she also is a vividly realized personality in her own right. She may be little more than a prostitute, leaping into bed with any man who can advance her career, but it is spunk and determination as much as gin that keep her spirits up.

The musical, with book by Joe Masteroff, was based on the play by John Van Druten, which itself was drawn from the semi-autobiographical short-story collection of Englishman Christopher Isherwood, Goodbye to Berlin. The musical was first produced on Broadway in 1966 under the direction of Harold Prince. The music is by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, whose most noteworthy success was Chicago. In this staging, Tom Marcello is given credit for "artistic direction," since the production is based on the 1987 revision by Sam Mendes for his Broadway revival, which brought the characters back closer to Isherwood’s.

In the small barn theater space at Roger Williams University, the six-member band is directed by Ryan DeWolfe. The choreography by Diane Campagna has lots of stylized posing and movement and a few high kicks, but since this story is so compelling there are no gaping holes where the Bob Fosse dancing had been. The singing quality ranges from good to tolerable, and fortunately the central roles of Sally Bowles and the Emcee are performed in fine voice.

Soderlund has the perky presence to play Sally convincingly as a fast-talking charmer who has learned how to get what she wants from men. But not only can she belt out the title song and such wink-wink nightclub ditties as "Don’t Tell Mama" and "Mein Herr," but she also can hold our attention, sitting on a bed, with the slow-tempo rumination "Maybe Next Time." As Cliff, Rodrigues conveys the contrasting innocence well. And if there isn’t a physical chemistry between Cliff and Sally, we can chalk it up to the character’s bisexuality, his love for her coming more from the heart than the loins.

But for Cabaret to deliver its core potential, the Emcee has to rivet our attention, as we learned from Joel Grey, who created the role. Brian McCann delivers with every knowing smirk and insinuating song, from the introductory "Willkommen" to the titteringly pornographic "Two Ladies" (unaccountably, homosexuality notwithstanding, performed with a male and female). Representing the self-centered spirit of Germany of the time, the Emcee occasionally drifts through scenes where other characters are talking by themselves, reminding us that three years before Hitler came to power every relationship stood against a sinister backdrop. McCann does as much skillful acting with his hands as with his voice in this stylized portrait.

This is underscored by the endearingly amusing match-up of landlady Fraulein Schneider (Katie Manchester) and her elderly border Herr Schultz (Robert F. McGrath), a produce merchant who woos her with fruit. At an engagement party, when some characters we’ve come to like reveal their politics, Sally’s gift to the couple of a crystal bowl is a chilling reminder of the Kristallnacht soon to come, when roving gangs smashed the windows of Jewish shopkeepers.

The couple’s relationship is established as thoroughly as Cliff and Sally’s, with such songs as "It Couldn’t Please Me More" and "Married," as they step toward the complications of a match between a German spinster and a Jew. The toleration that they accord the anti-Semitic streetwalker Fraulein Kost (Erin O’Neil), who boards with them, is not returned. In these days of increasing anti-Muslim sentiment, Cabaret is ironically apt.