Leading up to this weekend's premiere of the musical Cabaret, we have some e-interviews with members of the cast.
Let's start with the youngest member, Tristan Reynolds:
Q: Cabaret is a hit Broadway musical and movie - tell us the basic story.
Tristan: Cabaret takes place in Weimar (post World War I) Germany, 1929-1930. It follows Clifford Bradshaw, an American author living in Berlin, Sally Bowles, the mercurial and fantastical girl living with him, Frau Schneider, his landlady, Herr Schultz, her suitor, and Ernst Ludwig, his friend. The show is set against a background of institutional chaos and the rise of a certain political party. Interspersed throughout the show are numbers presented in the manner of a cabaret of the period, by the Kit Kat Klub's M.C. and his Kit Kat girls.
Q: Tell us about the character you play.
Tristan: I do a variety of smaller roles, from a lady gorilla to a Nazi thug (though not in the same scene). I also do some work with the crew backstage - I'm a sort of a jack of all trades.
Q: What's your favorite part of the show?
Tristan: Aside from the parts that feature me? (Narcissism alert) The last scene between Cliff and Sally - both Clay and Andrea do a tremendous job with the incredibly demanding and emotional material.
Q: Why did you want to be a part of this show?
Tristan: Because people forget so easily that things like the rise of the Nazis, or the Holocaust, they do not happen in a void. They happen because things in the world at large, the condition of the world, makes it conducive to be radical, to be bigoted, to blame somebody else for your problems, to shut out reality, and to either join in with the mob and their prejudiced and bigoted mentality, or to at least tolerate it, not to speak out against it, which makes you just as culpable for what they do. This play, I hope, will remind people to wake up, take notice of the world outside their own comfortable sphere, and try and correct some of the injustice in this world.
Q: Why would you recommend this show to our readers?
Tristan: Well, it's a good piece of theater. At least, I think so. I'll leave that, as a definitive statement, to the audience. So you've got to see it, if for no other reason than to prove me wrong, which I hope won't happen. Also, because it makes you think. You start off with this group of very likable characters, but by the end of the play, you feel a sense of genuine disgust with each of them, all for different reasons. And it's not disgust that you can have a dissociation from, because at some point, all of us have acted like the people. All of us are less than perfect, and that's what grips you about this piece - none of these people are evil, they just have flaws and blind spots, like the rest of us, but from those flaws, those blind spots, comes incredible evil, because even though these people are mostly good, that is not true of everyone.
Q: Tell us the dates, times and place for the show.
Tristan: February 1, 2, 8 and 9 at 8 p.m. in the ARTS Renaissance Ballroom (900 8th Street) in Huntington, W.Va.
Thanks, Tristan!
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