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Berlin (Berliner Cabaret #AtoZChallenge)

B (AtoZ Challenge 2019)

Although cabaret was born in France and there is found its first sparkling popularity, in was in Germany – no, in Berlin! – that it found its fullest form of expression. Why is that?

At its core, cabaret was always a form of art that offered many different presentations in as many different registers. Song, monologues, jokes, acrobatic stunts, skits. In just a few hours, the audience could taste a bit of everything. This kind of language agreed particularly well withthelife of the young metropolis.

The youngest metropolis in Europe

Berlin was one of the last European capital cities to come to the fore and in many ways, it can be considered younger than Paris or London. It started to grow only after the Thirty Years’ War, drawing people from all Central Europe and in the XVII century Berlin welcomed Jews expelled from Vienna and Huguenots driven out of France. As the city found her industrial aspiration at the beginning of the XIX century, she became hungry of workers, who came from all German speaking countries and beyond., until in the Wilhelmin Era, at the peak of her Pangerman dream, Berlin exploded as a vibrant, modern capital.

Berlin, 1909
Berlin, 1909
Berlin was the perfect city to receive cabaret as a form of expression. The fragmented language and sultry commentary had a home in #Berlin #Germany #history" Click To Tweet

In a matter of few decades, Berlin became a modern, young capital, forever changing, forever growing, forever hungry of new things and her population, so heterogeneous slowly melted together… but not completely.
At her very heart, Berlin was always a city of many souls, where the fragmentation and diversity was great and sometimes conflicting.

City dwellers, who mostly worked in the new factories that offered good wages and long working hours, became accustomed to the frantic rhythms of industry as well as to the possibility to buy what they wanted. They became consumers as well as citizens, and because they were accustomed to the fast pace, they bored easily. They sought change, they were anxious and dissatisfied, always wanting.

Cabaret and the anxiety of metropolitan life

Berlin-Alexanderplatz 1920
Berlin-Alexanderplatz 1920

At the end of the 1800s, novelist had tried to capture this new state of mind, this deeply new feeling, but the very length and complexity of the novel made it inadequate to express city life.
It was theatre in the end that offered that kind of fragmented language that was the metropolis’s own. The one-act play as well as the ‘station drama’ – where an individual’s progressed from one incident to another without any overarching structure – became more popular. The variety show – which offered many different short skits in one night – was born in London. The cabaret – which offered short, satirical comments on everyday life – was born in Paris. But it was in Berlin that these two forms of entertainment met and merged in a unique way.
The structure of the variety show merged with the idea of the cabaret’s confériencer who would strung all acts together and guided the audience through the show. And everything held a sense of ‘becoming’. Nothing was ever sure in cabarets. Improvisation was king, reaction and counter-reaction fuelled each other. In Berlin, this tightly merged with a strong sense of rebellion and political involvement that was characteristic of the Weimar time.

Not just pure entertainment, cabaret in Berlin became in many instances social awareness. A form of expression and social commentary that was between the mindlessness of the variety show and the esoterism of the avant gardes which spoke the people’s true fragmented language.


RESOURCES

Peter Jelavich, Berlin Cabaret. Harvard University Press, Harvard, 1993


Berliner Cabaret (AtoZ Challenge 2019) Berlin - Berlin was the perfect city to receive cabaret as a form of expression. In the 1920s, the fragmented language and sultry commentary seemed to be custom made for a city with many souls and a hunger for life
Berliner Cabaret (AtoZ Challenge 2019) Berlin - Berlin was the perfect city to receive cabaret as a form of expression. In the 1920s, the fragmented language and sultry commentary seemed to be custom made for a city with many souls and a hunger for life
Berliner Cabaret (AtoZ Challenge 2019) Berlin - Berlin was the perfect city to receive cabaret as a form of expression. The fragmented language and sultry commentary had a home in Berlin

12 Comments

  • Birgit
    Posted April 2, 2019 at 02:14

    Berlin was known for their free nightlife and Cabaret was big in Berlin. Very interesting read.

    • Post Author
      jazzfeathers
      Posted April 2, 2019 at 10:22

      Seriously, Berlin in the 1920s was the most interesting of cieties.

  • Shari
    Posted April 2, 2019 at 03:26

    Fascinating, Sarah. As a colonial, I rarely think of anywhere in Europe as young. Love the idea of the melding together of two strands of entertainment.

    • Post Author
      jazzfeathers
      Posted April 2, 2019 at 10:22

      LOL! I suppose it all comes down to perspective.

  • J Lenni Dorner
    Posted April 2, 2019 at 09:22

    Wow! I never knew there was so much to cabaret. Thanks for the knowledge. Great post, as always.

    J Lenni Dorner~ Co-host of the #AtoZchallenge, Debut Author Interviewer, Reference& Speculative Fiction Author

  • Raven Black
    Posted April 2, 2019 at 10:00

    Very interesting read 😀 Thank you for sharing <3

  • Nilanjana Bose
    Posted April 2, 2019 at 17:58

    This is a fascinating read. Berlin does seem young compared to cities a couple of thousand years old. I was reading a book last month which is partly set in Berlin last half of of 1800’s to the beginning of WWI, a time of great change and great cultural/artistic innovations. Nicely summed in your post.

    • Post Author
      jazzfeathers
      Posted April 3, 2019 at 14:43

      Berlin is a fascinating city even today, but at the turn of the XX century it was probably the most exciting place to be. So mcuh was going on there in therms of social change, intellectual and artistic life and even civil rights.

  • Suhasini
    Posted April 3, 2019 at 08:16

    Very interesting read, I never knew this side of Berlin actually.
    https://www.shravmusings.com

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