In early February, Adam Lambert made waves after he stopped mid-show to admonish audience members who laughed inappropriately during a performance of “Cabaret” on Broadway. Lambert explained his position during a Monday interview on “The View,” arguing that the themes of antisemitism within the classic musical are nothing to laugh at today.
“One of the big themes in the show is antisemitism,” he said. “There’s a scene in the musical where I sing a song to a gorilla, and it’s called ‘If You Could See Her.’”
“Cabaret” is set in pre-WWII Germany as the Nazis are rising to power, and the scene in question features a couple made up of one Jewish person and one who is not.
You can watch the full interview in “The View” clip below:
“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, who is Jewish, continued.
“And they make it into the gorilla being the Jewish person. So at the end of the song I say, ‘If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn’t look Jewish at all.’”
Lambert recalled audience members aloud after that line.
“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,” the Broadway star continued. “They’re not getting the message of the show, because the beginning is so permissive and fun and free.”
“And sometimes it gets a laugh as if it were a joke, and there have been a few shows — one in particular, where 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,’” Lambert said.
The actor added that the show has a lot of parallels to what is happening politically around the world today. “The show is very relevant,” he told “The View” hosts. “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.”
You can watch the interview with Adam Lambert in the video above.
