Review: Sizzling and jaw-dropping ‘Cabaret’ is one of the Guthrie’s best productions in years

Alluring. Sizzling. Shocking.

“Cabaret” draws in a viewer with artistry, then pummels that bedazzled gaper with devastating hooks.

The Kander and Ebb musical opened Thursday at the Guthrie Theater, unleashing power-packed poetry behind a splashily seductive “Willkommen.”

If director Joseph Haj’s production leaves a viewer feeling breathless and a little glum, old chums, it’s because the show is like a lightning rod that expertly concentrates the electric charges roiling today’s atmosphere.

For though “Cabaret” is set in the waning years of Weimar Germany, Haj’s vision manifests current tensions in a potent package that makes this arguably the most immediate staging of the 1966 Broadway classic in generations.

And there’s not a MAGA hat nor an unfurled protest flag to be seen anywhere.

Haj coaxes notable performances from the show’s headliners. Mary Kate Moore is sublime as Sally Bowles, showing the Englishwoman’s descent from the playful, high-gloss glamour of “Don’t Tell Mama” and “Mein Herr” to the matte-textured hope of “Maybe This Time” and the clawing desperation of “Cabaret.”

The Toast of Mayfair doesn’t want to acknowledge what’s happening around her even as the Nazis smash glass bubbles. That’s because while the system may be incipiently evil, it benefits her, so one can understand why she rides it like an addict jonesing for another hit.

Moore delivers the show’s title song as a showstopping paean to the wreckage strewn about Sally’s soul.

Long before Vegas cultivated a reputation for debauchery, Berlin was the epicenter of libidinous abandon. And Jason Forbach’s Cliff bows to its sensual temptations almost as a rite of passage. He is an innocent on an amusement ride. But when Cliff finally wakes up to the true nature of the world he’s in, he yells in vain at Sally to be similarly awoke.

Forbach brings decency and honor to the role, and stands as a kind of moral center against rising authoritarianism.

The Emcee has the most harrowing journey in this “Cabaret.” In Jo Lampert, we get an androgynous, acrobatic master of ceremonies whose love of pleasure at the top of the show is matched by a similar sharpness at the end.

As the Emcee goes from puppet manipulator to puppet, Lampert embodies the character’s contradictions with gusto and nuance, with standout turns on “Willkommen,” “If You Could See Her” and “Money.”

“Money” also showcases choreographer Casey Sams’ forte, for she has the sizzling Kit Kat Klub dancers move like wound-up automatons. And on other numbers, Sams underlines the pre-eminence of primal desires by having these sultry performers open and close at the seam, their clam-like feedings complemented by shimmying and grinding.

The Nazi ideology and explosive symbols in “Cabaret” have always required a great deal of care. In the Guthrie production the unveiling of the swastika is acutely painful, compounded by the rainbow cast’s slow goose-stepping salute.

“If You Could See Her,” a duet between the Emcee and a dancer in a gorilla suit, is similarly disturbing, not for its smooth, well executed artistry on the Guthrie’s moving turntable, but for its rabid content. For it so ably captures the ethos of dehumanization that attends the rise of fascism.

For all the theatrical oomph of Sally, Cliff and the Emcee, the most gutting moment in the show comes at the party thrown by Fräulein Schneider (Michelle Barber). Schneider, Cliff’s landlady, has never married. But she has been acting like a teenager since pineapple-bearing fruit seller Herr Schultz (Remy Auberjonois) proposed to her.

Barber and Auberjonois are marvelously affecting together, and win us over with “It Couldn’t Please Me More.” We also root mightily for them on “Married,” a number that also includes Monet Sabel in a fabulous turn as Fräulein Kost.

“Cabaret” boasts striking design elements, including Mikaal Sulaiman’s smashing sounds, Jen Caprio’s stunning costumes and Josh Epstein’s lurid lighting that adds color and dimension to characters before draining those things all away.

Marion Williams’ set is dominated by a series of elevated linked train cars that also resemble tiny apartments, prostitute nests and display windows in a red-light district. Below, in what looks like a tilting broken vaudeville frame, sits Mark Hartman’s sparkling and brassy orchestra.

By the end, the musicians may no longer be playing the songs, but some of the players in the drama — including Sally as a devout fantasist and the Emcee in wretched desperation — continue to hear the spirited melodies they loved so much.

They try to hold onto the music in their heads as the shadows and echoes fade like a smashed fever dream.

Where: Guthrie Theater, 818 S. 2nd St., Mpls.

When: 7:30 p.m. Tue.-Fri., 1 & 7:30 p.m. Sat., 1 & 7 p.m. Sun. Ends Aug. 24.

Tickets: $39-$105, 612-377-2224, guthrietheater.org.