INSIDE
Willkommen: Park Slope’s Gallery Players
present “Cabaret,” a play about the turbulent
Berlin nightlife scene in the late 1920s, during
the rise of the Nazis, featuring, from left, Cait
Farrell as Rosie, Brian Edward Levario as the
Emcee, Lorinne Lampert as Fritzie, and Ryan S.
Lowe as Lulu. Alice Teeple
Emcee threats
Musical recalls the rise of Nazis in Berlin
By Kevin Duggan Maybe it can happen here.
A Park Slope theater company
will present a timely take on a
musical set in Berlin during the rise of the
Nazis. This version of “Cabaret,” opening
on Sept. 7 at Gallery Players, uses the tale
of a nightclub’s denizens dealing with the
rise of fascism in Europe to warn today’s
audience about hateful ideologies that are
on the rise in the United States, according
to its director.
“We were trying to draw a correlation
from the 1920s and 1930s Berlin to 2019
in our own country,” said David Cronin.
“It feels like these same issues are still
around: homophobia, racism, transphobia,
terrorism.”
The musical, which launched on
Broadway in 1966, is set at the Kit Kat
Club, a seedy Berlin nightclub during
the Weimar Republic, when the capital
city’s nightlife offered a tolerant refuge
for people on society’s margins, whether
because of their gender, sexuality, religion,
or race. Previous iterations of the
show often glossed over the club’s diverse
character by employing casts that were
predominantly male, white, and straight,
according to Cronin.
“The thing that gets blown over in usual
productions is that the Weimar Republic
was very queer and inclusive,” Cronin said.
The director has expanded the story arcs
of some minor characters, while keeping
the script largely the same. The cast in this
show also features several gender-non-conforming
actors and cross-gender casting.
“We tried to make it so that the actors
on stage are like the people you see on the
street,” he said.
The show’s sleazy nocturnal frolic foreshadows
German society’s descent into the
darkness of the Holocaust, showing how
many people ignored its horrors until it
affected them directly, said Cronin.
He drew parallels between Germany’s
hateful politics and the encroaching policies
of the Trump administration, including
the transgender military ban and putting
migrant children in cages.
“It can shift so quickly,” he said. “I
think that maybe even I ignored it, and
within two years it was, ‘What country do
I live in?’ ”
Watching the topical show might not
be easy, but the director believes that he
has a responsibility to truly represent
how quickly a liberal society can fall
for hate. He hopes the production will
ignite discussion and reflection among
the audience.
“The show is a lot to swallow, and we’re
certainly not downplaying the raw emotions
— it’s going to be uncomfortable,”
he said. “My goal is that people leave the
theater and have discussions about what’s
happening today.”
“Cabaret” at Gallery Players 199 14th
St., between Third and Fourth avenues in
Park Slope, (718) 595–0547, www.galleryplayers.
com. Opens Sept. 7 at 8 p.m., then
Thu–Fri at 8 p.m.; Sat at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.;
Sun at 3 p.m. through Sept. 29. $30.
Talkback after the Sunday, Sept. 15
performance.
Your entertainment
guide Page 33
Police Blotter ..........................8
Opinion ...................................20
Letters ..................................... 21
Wellness ................................. 27
HOW TO REACH US
COURIER L 2 IFE, SEPT. 6-12, 2019
OVERDOSES DOWN IN BROOKLYN
BY KEVIN DUGGAN
Overdose deaths in Brooklyn
dropped by almost a
quarter last year, but the
borough continues to suffer
from more drug-related fatalities
than any other aside
from the Bronx, according to
new government figures.
A report by the city’s Department
of Health and Mental
Hygiene shows a drop
in Kings County overdose
deaths from 355 in 2017 to
273 in 2018, or 82 less fatalities
year over year.
The Bronx maintained
its tragic distinction as
the deadliest borough for
overdoses, with 391 fatalities,
while Manhattan (267),
Queens (215), and Staten Island
(114) followed Brooklyn
as the third, fourth, and
least deadly respectively.
Aside from Brooklyn,
only Queens saw a reduction
in overdose deaths, with 55
less people dying last year
compared to 2017.
Both cocaine and the
highly-potent synthetic opioid
fentanyl — which is 30 to
50 times stronger than heroin
— were involved in the
majority of overdose deaths,
according to the Health Department.
The improvement in
Kings County follows the
launch of progressive new
policies both in Brooklyn
and citywide, including the
debut of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s
$60 million HealthNYC
initiative in March 2017,
which saw officials distribute
the lifesaving overdose
drug Naloxone, provide increased
funding to 14 needle
exchange programs, and offer
educational programming
to prevent overdoses.
Brooklyn District Attorney
Eric Gonzalez piloted
his Brooklyn Clear program
— which offers suspects
cuffed on narcotics possession
charges the chance to
avoid prosecution if they
complete a drug counseling
program — in southern
Brooklyn neighborhoods in
February 2018, before expanding
Overdose deaths decreased for the fi rst time in eight years, according to new fi gures released by the city’s
Health Department. File photo/AP
it boroughwide in
September.
Since then, Gonzalez’s office
has accepted 410 participants,
of whom 380 completed
the program, according to
spokesman Oren Yaniv.
Gonzalez offers the program
to suspects arrested
with any narcotic substance,
not just opiates, according to
Yaniv, who noted their office
recovered crack cocaine in
more than half of cases, compared
to just 25 percent with
opioids.
But advocates claim
more can be done to protect
Brooklyn drug users, saying
Governor Cuomo must
authorize de Blasio’s plan to
open the nation’s first supervised
drug injection facility
in Boerum Hill if he wants to
see overdose numbers continue
to fall.
“There are some improvements
in numbers, but the
state is now a big barrier
and Governor Cuomo is now
a big barrier to saving more
lives,” said Reed Vreeland
of the harm reduction advocacy
group Housing Works.
Brooklyn’s overdose deaths decreased by almost a quarter in 2018,
down 82 deaths from the year before. Only Queens also registered a
decrease, while the other three boroughs had higher numbers than
2017. Department of Health
Vreeland went on to compare
Brooklyn’s 273 deaths
to Portugal, a country with
twice the population of
Kings County, but which decriminalized
all drugs in
2001, and had only 54 overdose
deaths in 2015, according
to the Drug Policy Alliance
. “When we get policy
right, the outcomes follow,”
he said.
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