Weimar Republic Cabarets

The Weimar Republic is the government of Germany, as referred to between the years 1919 and 1933. Early on during this period, the Weimar Republic ended widespread censorship and “enacted liberal social policies.” The new policies attracted “artists, scientists, and ‘outsiders’ such as gays and lesbians from around the world.” This setting was a place where traditional rules regarding gender and sexuality were questioned. There were gay and lesbian bars, and women, who entered the workforce during World War I, had new access to birth control, no longer controlled by marriage and child-rearing. Berlin, specifically, sported many night entertainment sources, including cabarets; there were mainly two types, the literary cabaret and the populist entertainment with left-slant politics cabaret that resembled a nightclub. The cabarets of the early 1920’s shone with optimism and exuberance, “featur[ing] kick-lines of beautiful women.” Following the Depression of the early 1930’s, cabarets shifted in tone from luxury to mockery of the powers that be. The visual aesthetics of the Weimar Republic cabarets serve as inspiration for our production’s design.

A group of Weimar Republic cabaret dancers wearing costumes typical of the 1920s.
German film star Marlene Dietrich playing a cabaret star in the 1930 film, Der blaue Engel.
A still from director Georg Wilhelm Pabst’s 1929 silent film, Die Büchse der Pandora [English: Pandora’s Box], in which Louise Brooks plays a dancer.
Six costumed Berlin jazz girls performing with mandolins at a revue show in 1929.
A dancing scene from a revue theatre in 1929 Berlin.
German actor and cabaret performer Willy Schaeffers (center, front) with the actors and revue girls of the revue ‘Ausstellungsbilder’ in the Marmorsaal Theater, Berlin, in 1929.
German-American actress and cabaret performer, Marlene Dietrich, with performer Willy Forst at a Berlin carnival.
A cabaret in Berlin in the late 1920’s with burlesque.