I blame Liza. Lured by adolescent memories of Minnelli and Michael York in ‘Cabaret’ I came to see ‘I am a Camera’, the play the musical was based on. Based on Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Memoirs, Goodbye to Berlin, it’s a portrait of the novelist as a young man, who meets his muse, good-time girl Sally Bowles, in 1930s Berlin as the Nazis rise to power.
So far, so familiar. But the play is a very different beast from its more famous musical offspring. It’s a sharp, brittle, witty piece and deeply ambivalent about its two main characters. Is Isherwood a liberal humanitarian concerned with the plight of the Jews – or a lazy, wannabe writer sponging off the rich men Sally brings home? Is Sally an artist who in her own words ‘must be free’ or a silly English tart living off her boyfriends? According to the play they might be both.
Harry Melling makes a charming and credible Isherwood, wooing the audience with confessions of his own failings as an artist, falling bravely in love with Sally and struggling with his conscience as the Nazis threaten his new-found world.
Sadly, Rebecca Humphries is a disappointing Sally Bowles in what feels like an overly negative reading of the role. Her Sally is brash, selfish, and just plain loud. She’s a jolly hockey sticks kind of gal, but lacks the charm and vulnerability needed to balance her aggressive pursuit of the next big thing. She’s strong but off putting for the first half although she does find more interesting layers to play in the second. But I felt more for the gentler Jewish character Natalia Landauer (played subtly by Sophie Dickson).
The supporting cast are all good, and the play is potentially a complex and barbed look at the English Abroad, though it ultimately lacks the political depth it promises. But if Sally is to be Isherwood’s camp, monstrous but also liberating alter ego, she also needs to be magical, transformative and real. A tough role to realise but life’s not a cabaret…
