Joel Grey on the discovery of the Emcee in Cabaret
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- Joel Grey talks about turning down a role in the revival of Cabaret, compares the original production to later ones, and how he discovered the character of the Emcee.
“Joel Grey: Drawing Back the Curtain” was filmed as part of Groundbreakers with Kevin Sessums at Curran on March 8th, 2015.
Groundbreakers with Kevin Sessums is the Curran's occasional onstage series of conversation and performance featuring today’s most compelling thought leaders and artists.
Copyright Curran Live, LLC. All rights reserved.
Joel created that character, totally.
When Fosse was set to direct the film he didn’t want Joel to be in it. (Joel was the one I saw tell the story.)
I’ve never really understood why.
But Joel said Bob was told if a choice was going to have to be made between Bob going or Joel going it would be Bob.
I can’t see CABARET being as fabulous as it was without Bob Fosse. But I can’t see it being as fabulous as it was without Joel, either.
I read Fosse wanted it to be polished, big numbers and pizzaz, but Joel fought for his character and the identity of the musical- it’s a cheap, seedy cabaret, the acts are supposed to be bad, the performances are intended to look a little crappy…Joel called himself the keeper of the original musical, and I think that’s right. I think despite the problems, they managed to create an ICONIC show and that’s awesome.
This is a Mainstay, a Constant for Great Artists💜 It's the Agony that Creates the Ecstasy, Alchemy, Glorious Performances💜💚🩵💛
I played the role about 20 years ago in college. It would have been cool to have a resource like TH-cam then to find this type of insight from role originators back then. Anyway, through the years my idea of the Emcee has evolved a lot. I never saw him as human because in the play he mostly exists within the Kit Kat Klub, but also appears to the audience in outside scenes in an “observer” type capacity. Sort of omnipresent, feeding off the decay and decadence and decline and destruction. And when the show ends (in my interpretation) his belly is full and he moves on to another place and time to feast again. Give Sympathy For the Devil by The Rolling Stones a listen. Sort of like that.
Thank You for giving your perception on the character. Yes, it's great to gain from role orginators from iconic musicals and plays of how they discovered the role they were given but I think it's even greater that we have a place for comments like your interpretation of the Emcee so others could research and get inspired when they are in the process of how they would want to behave within a role when it's their turn to be in the limelight
What about the modern ending where he is sent off in tattered prison clothes with a Star of David and 1/2 of that is a pink triangle?
@@attiasprouse682 it’s fine. I think Sam Mendes was going for for that final gut punch to the audience with that reveal along with the way the music ends the show. Leaving them in a stunned silence as the stage goes black.
But that version humanizes and victimizes the Emcee. I’d want to remind the audience that evil persists and survives. And he’d be my symbol of that.
If I had the chance to direct the show/ ending, I’d still be looking for the gut punch. I’d just go about in in a different way. Everyone but Cliff is on the stage at the end (he escapes).
Maybe pump some fog machine (I wonder what the audience would think that meant)?A few drumroll/cymbal crashes (and with each one, 1/3 of the characters drop dead littering the stage with their corpses)? Only Sally and the Emcee remain, with her downstage center and him several steps upstage of her. She sings that haunting reprise of Cabaret as she back up in terror from what she sees in the distance ahead of her, stopping and going silent as she makes contact with the Emcee.
Silence.
He slowly reaches an arm over her shoulder and across her chest, embracing her from behind and smiling. She’s trapped. Drumroll/cymbal crash. She drops.
(Silence)He looks down at her…, up at the audience…, then down at her again. He squats and lifts her arm, then drops it to the stage with a thud glancing up at the audience. Stands. Steps over her lifeless body and walks downstage center. Considering the audience for a time. He smiles. Turns and walks toward an upstage exit, briefly stopping to remove a flower from Herr Schultz’s lapel and placing it in his own (he’s wearing the Joel Grey white tie and tails tux/ transcending the Alan Cumming costume from the beginning of the show. While everyone else has degraded over the course of the show, he has gotten stronger feeding off of the decay) and over his shoulder, he grins at the audience again. Continuing upstage as the lights dim, he enters a foggy red backlit alcove, he’s front lit by a spot. Turns, and smiling, Sings his final lines,
“Auf Weidersehenn…,
A Bientot…,
Goodnight…”, shrugs his shoulders as if to say, “Oh well”, and exits, with the sound of his footsteps disappearing.
The stage is covered with bodies yet void of life.
drumroll/ cymbal crash,
Flash/Blackout/Silence.
That’s just what I’d do. I’m sure I’d make some tweaks once I saw it staged. But I’d definitely want to try to make the audience upset that a more transcendent Evil survived, thrived, and was apathetic or even amused with what had happened…
@@finch2213I got all over goosebumps just reading that!
@@pontiuspilot00 I agree that it’s great to have a resource for new ideas and interpretations. And I guess I appreciate the likes for my thoughts on the character. But this is a shoulders of giants thing. For any aspiring, studious, curious, ambitious actor/singer, Always, ALWAYS ALWAYS, start with the original.
Why? (Well let’s look at just this case)
Why? Because when Joel Grey was learning this role, learning these songs, learning this character…, the people who conceived, created, and wrote the character (John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Joe Masteroff) were right there, in the room, giving feedback, taking feedback, and moulding the role around this particular actor/artist. And that’s the truest version that will ever be.
(For any aspiring actors, go back, and read that last bit again.)
That’s the big, wide, sturdy base of the pyramid. It can go higher and more pointed and direct as long as it stays centered over the base.
But also, yeah, sometimes new ideas are just what an actor needs to just blow some shit the fuck up. (And a good director will guide that where it needs to go).
What a great and iconic role he created!
Very interesting. One never knows where inspiration will come from.
Absolutely. I just heard an interview of him on the radio a couple of hours ago and I wondered what he had to say about the emcee role, and this is the video I was hoping to see. BTW, I played the emcee role in HS, best time I ever had on stage!
@@johnnyquest6115 i’m trying to play this role! i have an audition for cabaret!
@@camara1194 Wish you the best of luck, tell me how it went.
Joel Grey is true Broadway.
Happy 85th Birthday Joel Grey
I would love to see him put that character on - in an interview- to transform and then perform
Who was the “horrible comedian” in St. Louis? The suspense is too much
I'm going to say John Cleese.
The Living Theatre had the actors running around naked in 1968
Yes people, actors on Broadway use to do their on makeup. What has been lost by letting someone who is not an actor do it.
And that he reveals that it was a cheap, unctuous comic in St. Louis that he based the MC role in Cabaret.
neat story. thanks for sharing.
How magnificent life imitates art...and vise versa!! It's a acting metaphor of what the imagination can display for audiences!! I looooovvveee the emcee!! And Joel grey!! Love kenny 🌹🤙😎
How is the Emcee character demonic and a betrayer?
Cabaret is an example of CULTURAL MARXISM
huh?
Joe Rodriguez: WHAT ?
That bad can it be?
Is that a bad thing?
That Western Culture will so degenerate that it will take Its Society in degeneration. Ergo, the West, will destroy itself---little need to go to War, to achieve what---for and in the name of Self-expression and Empowerment; it will render. Ah, Marx---one of GOD's little Angelic Messengers......LoL...COVID-19 anyone?....LoL