Zeitgeist. It’s a German word. It means the ‘spirit of a time’, the inner energy of a particular place at a particular time. That’s cabaret for 1920s Berlin
‘Americanism’ was a characteristic of interwar year Europe. America became the mythical land of everything modern and young, more an idea than a true place
From the very beginning, cabaret was an expression of the popular soul. Its language that of the chanson, the protest song
Bringing Berlin at the same level – possibly higher – to the other European capitals became a priority of the Reich as the German Empire grew and became more powerful in the second half or the 1800s.
The variety show originated mainly from the British music halls, where people could drink, eat and smoke while enjoying different numbers from a stage
The emerging of the urban consumer society had a great influence on the evolution of the entertainment language in the interwar years
The cabaret scene in Berlin was very divers. There were different forms of similar entertainment. The tingletingel was a lower form of cabaret
During the first years of the Weimar Republic censorship fell almost completely. Nude shows became not only possible but extremely popular.
During the Weimar Era the revue might have been even more popular than cabaret. Where cabaret always attempted to be a social commentary, and so demanded a certain amount of involvement by the audience, the revue was mindless entertainment that only tried to amuse.
By the Weimar Era, Berlin had been a queer-friendly city for many decades. The popularity of the drag show was often an effective way of integration
Although it found its more meaningful, more socially involved incarnation in Berlin, cabaret was actually born in Paris at the end of the 1800s
Berlin cabaret was about life, about the experience, the feelings, the thoughts, the fears, the compromises. It was a mirror of real life