The Berlin Entertainment Scene – Beyond The Golden ‘20s

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I started the ‘Long Night’ in the Admiralspalast only one of the countless venues in the formerly Communist “Mitte” district of Berlin, offering musicals, ‘revues’, variety shows and cabarets, satire and music. Somebody counted and came up with 1,500 events each day. Although the “Golden Years’ of the ‘20s, captured in the musical “Cabaret” are long gone, I have to take the word of my informant that entertainment is alive and well and that the events are comparatively cheaper than in Paris, London or New York.

Flashing my WATERSHED magazine card, I wangled a few words with a harried assistant to the manager of the Admiralspalast. He told me that, “artists of all kinds flock to Berlin. I want to play Berlin. That’s what I hear over and over again.” As far as the public goes, “they want something daring.”

The Admiralspalast goes back to the fabled 20s, languished under the Nazis and the Communists and was re-opened in2006 with a notable ‘Three Penny Opera’. The term “palace” is taking things a little far, but there are three theatres with 3,400 seats, offering everything from high culture, to techno clubs and musicals. “Shrill, disrespectful and anarchic that’s what we want to be,” said the assistant.

The Master of Ceremonies for the evening was a piano virtuoso-cum-comedian who introduced an Icelandic operate tenor, an outrageous improve group worked their sketches around hints from the audience and the stars of the revival of the Broadway hit “the Producers”.

On the same street is the Friedrichstadtpalast, Europe’s largest variety show venue and next door is "Distel” – The Thistle – Germany’s most famous political cabaret. Founded in 1953, it survived the Communists and the fall of the wall. With a complement of 20 it is the country’s premier cabaret ensemble. Typically, the current show is called ‘Beyond Angela” – Merkel, that is, Germany’s Chancellor. It is supposed to be bitingly hilarious.

I did not find not find out, because it I was standing at the rear of a huge crush; it was 11:00 pm; it had been a long night and I missed it. Just as I missed another dozen shrill and naughty shows that make up Germany’s cabaret scene.