Photo: from L to R: The new International American Cabaret-Theater superstar  and darling of Broadway, Susan Egan, Kevin Kline, and Kerry Butler. Photo by Aubrey Reuben, USA.

CABARET! CABARET! That's is the answer, not the question! And the answer was there all the time, since the days and nights of La Goulue, Mistinguet, Josephine Baker, Juliette Greco, Barbara, Jane Avril, Rita Hayworth, Marlene Dietrich, Line Renaud, Edith Piaf, Melina Mercouri, Nina Simone, Gabriella Ferri and  Eartha Kitt.

But the cabaret of today gives us so many different and convergent answers. The Susan Eagan's  (On the cover of The Atlantic Herald Tribune) Cabaret of spotlights, neon flashes and Broadway's extravaganza is so different from Aristide Bruant's Paris quasi-intellectual-vagabond "cabaret-boite",  and Mistinguet's Moulin Rouge and Trocadero  cabaret gigolo panache. The classy Anna Bergman and aristocrat Debbie de Coudreaux cabaret acts are on the opposite spectrum of the 1930 Le Chat Noir and the 1920 Le Nean Cabaret of the hustlers, self-proclaimed philosophers and scary faces and characters  of the early Parisian cabarets... Andrea Marcovicci elegant and  academically refined cabaret style is so different from the nostalgically explosive cache of Gabriella Ferri and cabaret noir of the sensational Caroline Nin. Yet, all those cabaret divas share many things in common: The Cabaret's drama, the femme fatale persona, the whispers in the dark, the personification of the shadows of the sacred and the  damned, the mystique and the risqué on 12 feet by 10 feet human arena called plateau du cabaret; the stage....And by the same token, in addition to the diversity and fanatic separation between the kinds and categories of their fans at all levels,  the cabaret style of those divas metamorphosed, evolved or rebelled throughout times en vertue of the preferences, tastes, choices and emotional-social-educational-cultural-political level and needs of their fans. Those who listen to Gabriella Ferri care less about  Barbara Cooke. And those who adore Edith Piaf might not enjoy the captivating performance of Chita Rivera or Cleo Laine. CABARET IS A STATE OF MIND. We go to cabaret to forget or to remember. Asking a famous gigolo and self proclaimed Parisian philosopher: " You love cabaret. Once you said to Paris Match, you go to cabaret to forget or remember. Forget and remember what?" And the man with a satiric smile replied :" I just remember that I have already forgotten what I forgot." He meant that the cabaret chanteuses  make his head spin in all direction. And there is nothing else to forget or to  remember except this "Femme Fatale" on stage and the French bottle of Muscadet wine on the table! Yes, cabaret is pure magic and the cabaret chanteuse is a poisonous elixir! And we love it!

STARS OF THE YEARS 1920’s . "Les Grandes Dames de La Chanson".

   

                    Yvonne George                                Gaby Deslys                                 Arletty

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