Adam Lambert is opening up about the difficulties he’s faced during his Broadway run in Cabaret.
The former American Idol finalist, 43, appeared on The View‘s Monday, Feb. 17, episode to discuss his current role as the Emcee in Cabaret. The famed musical, which first opened in 1966, is set in pre-World War II Germany as the Nazis are rising in power. Lambert joined the production on Sunday, Sept. 15, and will conclude his run on Saturday, March 29.
During his appearance on The View, he discussed the show’s timeliness, its “big theme” of antisemitism and how he once stopped the show to address a member of the audience.
He specifically addressed a recent viral moment when he reprimanded a showgoer for laughing at an antisemitic lyric during the second act song, “If You Could See Her.” The Drama Book Shop podcast host David Rigano first reported the incident via Instagram on Wednesday, Jan. 22.
“There’s a scene in the musical where I sing a song to a gorilla, and it’s called ‘If You Could See Her,’ ” Lambert told The View co-hosts on Monday. He explained that the musical number references what occurred before the song: an older couple, one of which is Jewish and the other is not, spoke about the challenges they confront as a couple in that society.
“It’s satire, it’s supposed to be like, ‘Yeah, we’re back in the nightclub, and we’re doing a cute little number,’ but it’s actually about a really dark, sad thing about how society sees people,” Lambert explained. “And they make it into the gorilla being the Jewish person. So the end of the song I say, ‘If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn’t look Jewish at all.’ ”
As Lambert explained the song’s premise, he added, “Sometimes people in the audience, there were a few people here and there, they’ve had a few too many to drink during the intermission, and they’re not listening,” he said.
“They’re not getting the message of the show, because the beginning is so permissive and fun and free,” he said. “And sometimes it gets a laugh as if it were a joke,”
He continued, remarking that he had to halt the show during the aforementioned performance. “This person commented, and I stopped, and I just looked at the audience, and said, ‘No, no, no, no, This isn’t comedy. Pay attention.’ ”
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“The first act of the show is really fun and naughty and kind of like dirty humor and it’s a good time,” he continued. “When we get to Act II, we talk about the reality of the Nazis coming into power and what that means for people that are alternative and other in a society that once embraced them and very quickly are vilifying them.”
“So it’s not that dissimilar to what we see going on in the world right now,” he said. “The show is very relevant.”
“It has been since the late ’60s when it first came out, but right now, in particular, it’s eerie to be up there and to be talking about things that are happening again in our country,” Lambert remarked.
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