Front Porch - Timothy Murphy Playhouse's Production of "Cabaret" at Middleburgh High School

HB Steadham's Weekly Column, Front Porch

By HB Steadham

Executive Editor of Times Journal

MIDDLEBURGH - Last weekend, I went to a showing of the Timothy Murphy Playhouse's production at Middleburgh High School.

And y'all...

It. Was. STUNNING.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I had never seen "Cabaret". Not the Bob Fosse-directed, Liza Minelli-starring 1972 film; not a single Broadway musical starring Alan Cumming or Neil Patrick Harris or Bebe Neuwirth; not even a community theater production, though I've been involved in community theatre for more than 40 years.

So, sure. I could have just been filled with the thrill of seeing a show that has endured for 66 years and won eight Academy Awards and more than a dozen Tony Awards (when you include winners for performances in the show as well).

But it wasn't just the music or script itself.

It was the set design, which was stark, with colorful light projections that could make you feel at home as well as deeply disturbed.

It was the cohesiveness of the directorial vision, with the American writer, Cliff Bradshaw on the stage almost the entire time, working on a typewriter as if he were composing his memoirs.

It was the nuanced and complex portrayal of Cliff by Antonio Brooks. It was Issac Simeon's performance as the provocative and callous Emcee.

Stella Beardsley of Middleburgh slays as Sally Bowles. Photo taken by Scott Keidong

And it was standout Stella Beardsley's madcap and ultimately unhinged embodiment of Englishwoman and cabaret star Sally Bowles. When she sang the title song, her world-and mine, in empathy-unraveled. Both her worlds-inner and outer.

My husband was shocked that I stood enraptured for the whole curtain call, as I absolutely hate curtain calls, especially long ones.

"Was it long?" I asked him. Maybe it was, I don't know.

But it wasn't until the next day that yet, another life-changing revelation about the experience came to me:

I am Sally Bowles.

More or less.

In my daily life.

I prefer to look at the good things. The happy things. The entertaining things.

When I write for magazines and newspapers, I almost always choose pieces thar are, well, nice. I like to write about trips I take, about persnickety cats sitting in windows and disdainfully watching me as I walk past, about parades and concerts and painting with puppies at art stores. I don't want to take up my brain space of writing time or column inches reflecting on my kidney cancer or pedophiles in our county or contemporary politics that divide us rather than remind us that we are all in this life and this community together.

Sally Bowles never gets out of the "carefree" mindset.

In the last song, she sings, "Cabaret". Sally cements her decision to be willfully ignorant. Even as she has had an abortion and lost the man she loves, and her county is being overtaken by Nazis, Sally insists:

What good's permitting

Some prophet of doom

To wipe every smile away.

Life is a Cabaret, old chum,

Come to the Cabaret!

But, as portrayed by Beardsley, the sentiment isn't real. Beardsley's performance showed a manic unraveling under the surface as she smeared her lipstick and threw off her wig and physically crumbled onstage, revealing that life just can't, always, be a cabaret. A party. A pure, unblemished celebration of anything and everything.

Sometimes, we have to talk about kidney cancer and pedophiles and politics.

As much as we don't want to.

"Why?" you might ask.

That answer also lies in the show.

In one of the last songs of the musical, the Emcee, who symbolizes the apathy and complicity of many German citizens in the 1930s sings, "I Don't Care Much" after Sally has defiantly proclaimed that politics has nothing to do with her or her life. Then, at the end of the Timothy Murphy Playhouse production, the emcee throws off his Kit Kat Club costume to reveal a blue-grey striped prison uniform.

When we don't speak about the unpleasant things, they often lead to our own demises.

The last image of the Timothy Murphy Playhouse production is of Cliff in a World War II uniform, carrying a gun and sporting the most terrified countenance I've ever seen.

Is it terrifying to confront the ill in the world? It very often is.

I love a cabaret, but I live in the real world. Whether I like it or not (and believe me, I do not), I gave up being Sally. It happened too fast. Too forcefully. Too sadly.

I'm going to cling to my sequins whenever and wherever I can, but, when it's necessary, I'll set them aside and put on my olive drab. And I'll likely be terrified.

What will you be wearing today?

Story written by HB Steadham, Executive Editor of Times Journal. This story was originally published online on the Cobleskill Times Journal August 6,2025. It was published in the August 7,2025 edition of the Cobleskill Times Journal, 149th year, No. 32, Page 3.

Online Newspaper on NYVT Media Website: https://tapinto-production.s3.amazonaws.com/pdf_documents/page_documents/document/363/TimesJournal_08072025.pdf

Front Porch Article: https://www.nyvtmedia.com/sections/cobleskill-times-journal/articles/front-porch