Oakland Theater Project
Flax Art and Design
1501 MLK Jr. Way, Oakland
November 23, 2025
Full-throttle in a small space: Oakland Theater Project’s “Cabaret” filled the theater to the brim with actors, flying bills and spittle, and high-stakes drama. Due to illness among cast members previews were missed, but opening night packed seats, with Vita Hewitt, her musical-loving teenager, and Sarah Bass amidst the crowd. Their takes below.
Rhiannon Hewitt
There is sometimes a beautiful thing in having a distance between the audience and the stage. A good separation instills a sense of mystery between the two parties.
Though the production was incredibly immersive and tried to stay true to the original story of Cabaret, that essential barrier was breached. The actors coming into the audience during some of the more explicit numbers made the denizens of the front row (me watching with my MOTHER) extremely uncomfortable, and the scene of two ladies amidst a writhing mass of actors felt especially strange. At times it felt like humanity was pressing in from all directions.
Despite these shortcomings, the costumes were a big draw, creating a cohesive, futuristic look that drew the eyes to the characters while the narrative itself stayed in Nazi Berlin. However, it did also make keeping up with the story a little confusing at times.
Another highlight was the song “If You Could See Her,” which raised good points on the current climate of immigration, replacing the film’s gorilla-suited lover with an extraterrestrial one. The choices were a bold leap and a good attempt at modernizing the original: the past met the present, creating a strange hybrid that in some ways wasn't entirely awful.
Vita Hewitt
They dance through the audience, swarming the stage in glittering costumes, their eyes as luminous and as mad as pinwheels. The threat of a nazi regime breathing just outside of the safe space they have created. Oakland Theater Project's revival of “Cabaret” has arrived as a living form of existential angst for broken times.
While remaining true to both the 1966 musical by John Kander, Fredd Ebb, and Joe Masteroff, and the1972 Bob Fosse film in a lot of ways, Erika Chong Shuch's direction and choreography also brought an updated and reimagined feel. A proto-fascist skirmish plays out in a wild sexual tableau, a taunting of the Nazi abhorrence for all things deviant, homosexual, permissive, and diverse. The ensemble drives these points home, sliding, writhing and dancing, having a most marvelous time save for the fear creeping int their eyes.
Inside the Kit Kat Club, the Weimar aesthetic has been shed in favor of an updated wardrobe heavy on Doc Martins and harlequin stripes, the band replaced by a DJ and guitarist Joshua Pollock (who doubles as Herr Schultz, the Jewish tenant of Fraulein Schneider, played by Beth Wilmurt, the two entangled in perhaps the most true and tragic part of the story, a senior love story as sweet as it is doomed). A sparse stage, made up of three tiers of painted black boxes, pushed the audience into crowded corners of the room. The wardrobe updates and the clever use of mirrors made it hard not to draw similarities between past and present.
Sharon Shao owns the stage as a rule averse and lovable Sally Bowles. Her ephemeral love for Clifford (James Mercer II), American bi sexual would be novelist, shows a strong bond between the two actors, and her rendition of the titular song is a more thoughtful version than expected. As talented as the full cast is, a swastika bearing, red hanky signaling Megan Trout as Ernst Ludwig deftly commanded the lion's share of attention As she slid through the space, sharp and as threatening as a stab wound, silently sowing dissent and fear beneath her pleasantries.
As much as I missed the band and found some of the ideas might be bigger than OTP's space has to offer, the cast makes up for in energy and intent. Solos morphed into duos, then built more. Fraulein Kost’s (Ije Success) chilling rendition of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me," made it clear that danger is indeed at the door, and the film’s “Money Money" included audience involvement, its frenetic movement and familiar words pulsing through the room before the intermission, leaving the audience uplifted, but also on edge knowing what was to come.
Sarah Bass
Take a seat, rest a while. Sit back, relax, and enjoy some show tunes, flirtatious and suggestive acting and dancing, and roll back in time to the good old days, when we barely knew what Nazis were and had yet to sell out our neighbors. Free love for all and a little (or a lot) of gin and dancing: a recipe for a fun night, right?
OTP’s latest production, a modern-ish take on Cabaret, works at bending and blending time, a then-and-now-and-when setting with anachronistic gags, a DJ, BDSM-inspired costuming, and a whole lot of existential angst. Lead Sharon Shao as Sally Bowles the silly and slutty showgirl and gender-bent Megan Trout as neighborhood Nazi Ernst Ludwig both stood out amongst a talented cast. Their physical acting was fluid and floating, delicate and menacing, tender and deadly. Trout’s intensity, all jaunty angles and reclined confidence, prowling and lascivious, self-confident and self-righteous, was perfectly set off by the one modern device I did love the use of: a vape. Along with her sleek dark red and black outfit (faux-leather trousers, a great choice), she was menacing and grotesque beneath her pale exterior, in all the right ways.
While Shao’s acting skills far outpace those of our beloved Liza, it would be impossible to recreate the wonderment of the film’s Fosse-choreographed large group numbers or the spectacle of a Broadway show in such a small space, which left me missing a small handful of highlights of the film, particularly the fabulous chair dance to “Mein Herr”. Despite an homage through a very different sort of chair dance and Shao’s sharp performance, it still left me a bit wanting. So too was I puzzled at the many moments of faltering accents: far from an actor or vocalist myself, I understand the difficulty of maintaining a foreign affect, but the vocal breaks—particularly mid-song—were very distracting. I found myself wishing one of the modern updates was simply to let the actors speak, or sing, in their own voices.
Seating in the round allows for great use of the limited space, but as with a couple of other shows I’ve seen here, the section I was in, to the left of the DJ, received a bit more booty (not in the good way) and obscured speech than I imagine the others did, missing some important lines and unable to appreciate some of the more clever or titillating moments (e.g. I can only imagine at what the mirrors were up to, I mostly got ceiling. Great idea, difficult execution). Luckily, excellent choreography from director Erika Chong Shuch brought the cast members and fun into every corner at least once.
It came as no surprise to me that this production would be a hot one, both in content and public interest, and I was glad to see a real assortment of attendees opening night. We all would have loved for the cast to be fully well (hope you are now!) and while the performance did contain tinges of that fatigue, their affinity for and comfort with one another was palpable, each one giving it all they had. Their collective desire to push past illness to share a story of quiet hope and love at a time when we all need it was a pleasure to view.
“Cabaret” runs at Oakland Theater Project through December 14. All shows are currently sold out, but check their website for more info and upcoming shows.
