Willkommen!
A sizzling Germanic cabaret show will take the stage at the Union Temple of Brooklyn on March 26. “Vienna to Weimar” has a daring, edgy attitude that is a perfect match for Brooklyn’s spirit, says one of its stars.
“Berlin has it. Brooklyn has it. Manhattan doesn’t have it,” said Karen Kohler, who performs the show with KT Sullivan. “It is only right that the show has finally made it to Brooklyn. It is like a home away from home for these songs.”
Kohler, a German-born fraulein who now lives in Windsor Terrace, has worked on the cabaret show with Sullivan since 2004. The show, which won BroadwayWorld’s “Best Revue” award in 2013, really came alive when the two women introduced an element of gender-bending, said Kohler.
“For that second show I came on stage with a tux. It changed everything,” she said.
The cabaret show includes a variety of Teutonic tunes, ranging from 1870s Austrian operettas to German cabaret songs from the 1930s. Some of the songs are sung in German, but most are in English, with original translations by Jeremy Lawrence. The lyrics tackle issues that remain relevant today, including women’s rights and gay issues.
“It was a sad, hopeless, disillusioned time,” said Karen Kohler. “That’s why people must have felt they had nothing to lose. Anything went: nudity, banana skirts… Performers became uninhibited and daring in expressing themselves. That’s what cabaret is all about — real connection.”
It is fitting for the show to take place inside a Jewish temple, said Kohler, because it contains many songs from Jewish composers — such as Kurt Weill and Friedrich Hollaender — who fled Germany due to the political climate. Songs from pre-WWII Germany are also appropriate for the current political atmosphere, she said.
“When Hitler came on the scene people were laughing at his jokes and message. He is so extreme! Then it got darker, and before you knew it people were being exiled… It is eerily relevant to our political scene right now, don’t you think?”
“Vienna to Weimar” at the Union Temple of Brooklyn (17 Eastern Pkwy. between Grand Army Plaza and Underhill Avenue in Prospect Heights, (718) 638–7600, cabar
