Mediate 1Bruno (Quint) MediateProf. StephensFTT 10701-022 December 2013Come to the Cabaret: The Dichotomy of Humor in Musical TheatreVisual art had the Renaissance in the late 1500s in Florence. Movies began to develop in the early 1900s in France. While America has improved many forms of art, musical theatre is one of the few art forms to originate in the United States. Musicals remain popular in American culture today largely because musicals are a product of Americas past. Musical theatre is unique in its combination of low humor mixed with deep intellectual questions. The musical Cabaret is a prime example of this style of theatre that mixes both high and low art. Personal experiences with Cabaret reflect the nature of American musical theatre. Cabaret asks intelligent questions about life while integrating humor, and throughout the entire process of the Cabaret the cast was able to see how this play communicated the higher and lower forms of art.From the initial stages of the process, the duality of Cabaret was evident. Within the first week of rehearsing, the entire cast performed a read through of the script for members of the faculty. After the read-through was completed, the cast stayed and discussed the play with each other, including the director. The cast immediately saw the superficial art that Cabaret portrayed; the musical consisted of large production numbers with dynamic choreography, ostentatious lighting and sets, as well as several comedic moments among all of the actors. What were more implicit were the questions the play asked about life. These questions were the majority of the discussion after the read-through. The thoughts some people had during this time were very perceptive. Coming to a general consensus, the cast agreed that the play mainly focused on the disjunction between fantasy and reality. The characters in Cabaret are having such a good time that they are unaware of all surrounding circumstances. One cast member talked about how she felt all of the characters are just shells of their former selves at the end of the play because all the things that made them human were stripped throughout the course of the play by the surround world. The dual nature of Cabaret was very evident during the initial stages of the read-through, where humor and intellect combined to create art. The entire rehearsal process was a continuous unfolding of the dichotomy of Cabaret. After the initial stages of rehearsal and reading through the script, the real rehearsal process began. Cabaret deals with two separate worlds: one that takes place in the Kit Kat Club and another that deals with the principle characters (i.e. Sally, Cliff, Herr Schultz, etc.) The split between high and low art is also evident in these two separate worlds. The world of the Kit Kat Club largely provides the humor and superficial art, whereas the action of the principle characters asks the questions concerning life. The duality of the worlds was seen in the rehearsal process. The members of the Kit Kat Club almost exclusively rehearsed separately from those of the principle characters. Cabaret lends itself to such a rehearsal process, which demonstrates the combination of high and low art evident in Cabaret and across all musical theatre. The separate rehearsal periods allowed each member of the cast to consider their specific function onstage. Some characters were meant to provide comedy while other characters were more thought provoking. The split between low art and high art was evident in the rehearsal process of Cabaret between members of the Club and the other principle characters.During the performances, the separation between comedy and thought provoking questions was also evidenced in the two separate acts. After the production team compiled all of the elements of the show together, the show could be seen in its entirety. Once the show could be seen in its entirety, a dichotomy between the acts was seen. Act I is very connected to the low art, or comedy because it has a lot of the big production numbers and most of the humor. Act II deals more with the thought-provoking questions because the tragedy comes into play during the second act. There was a joke among the cast that said Act I is where the characters dreams begin and Act II is where all those dreams go to die. Although this joke is intending to be funny, it is an accurate statement regarding the nature of Cabaret, and the dichotomy of high and low art in general. The overall experience with Cabaret showed how musical theatre is very much concerned about many types of art from the lowest of the low, to high intellectual thought. At one point in Cabaret people were performing a large, over-the-top dance number and at other times people were discussing the purpose of their time on the earth. The dual nature of musical theatre is also a product of Americas past. America has had its fair share of hardships, but it also has a reason to celebrate and be entertained. The American musical will always be a part of the culture of the United States because it shows not only where America has come from, but it also shows what the people of America value. Musicals, just like Cabaret, should always entertain, but they should also bring people to question the purpose of life and ask people what they value.