Cabaret

The term Cabaret is a French word for the taprooms or cafes where this form of entertainment was born, as a more artistic type of cafe-chantant. It is derived from Middle Dutch cabret, through Old North French camberette, from Late Latin camera. It essentially means small room.Cabaret also refers to a Mediterranean-style brothel,a bar with tables and women who mingle with and entertain the clientele. Traditionally these establishments can also feature some form of stage entertainment: often singers & dancers, the bawdiness of which varies with the quality of the establishment. It is the classier, more sophisticated cabaret that eventually engendered the type of establishment and art form. Cabaret performances could range from political satire to light entertainment, each being introduced by a master of ceremonies, or MC.The venue itself can also be called a cabaret. The turn of the 20th century introduced a revolutionized cabaret culture. Performers included Josephine Baker and Brazilian drag performer Joao Francisco dos Santos.

There is evidence of cabarets as early as 1789 in the Cahier de Dolences of February 1789. The first cabaret was opened in 1881 in Montmartre, Paris: Rodolphe Salis' cabaret artistique. Shortly after it was founded, it was renamed Le Chat Noir (The Black Cat). It became a locale in which up-and-coming cabaret artists could try their new acts in front of their peers before they were acted in front of an audience. The place was a great success, visited by important people of that time and people from all walks of life: women of high society, tourists, bankers, doctors, journalists, etc. The Chat Noir was a place where they could get away from work. In 1887, the cabaret was closed due to the bad economic situation that made amusements of this kind seem vulgar.

Twenty years later, Ernst von Wolzogen founded the first German cabaret, later known as Buntes Theater (colourful theatre). All forms of public criticism were banned by a censor on theatres in the German Empire. This was lifted at the end of the First World War, allowing the cabaret artists to deal with social themes and political developments of the time. Thus German cabaret really began to blossom in the 1920s and 1930s, bringing forth all kinds of new cabaret artists, such as Werner Finck at the Katakombe, Karl Valentin at the Wien-Munchen, and Claire Waldoff. Some of their texts were written by great literary figures such as Kurt Tucholsky, Erich Kastner, and Klaus Mann.

When the Nazi's came to power in 1933, they repressed this intellectual criticism of the times. Cabaret in Germany was hit badly. In 1935 Werner Finck was briefly imprisoned and sent to a concentration camp; at the end of that year Kurt Tucholsky committed suicide; and nearly all German-speaking cabaret artists fled into exile in Switzerland, France, Scandinavia, or the USA. In the Netherlands cabaret is the name for a popular comedy-form that evolved out of the earlier traditional cabaret, much like the German-speaking cabaret. Whereas interest in the German form faded in the 1990s, the Dutch Cabaret stayed strong and actually grew explosively in those years. Unlike Stand-up comedy this Dutch form had a storyline throughout the performance. Often a mixture of comedy with theater and like German-speaking cabaret it can be politically engaged. Famous are the New Year's Eve performances by Dutch cabaretiers, which are well watched on television. In Belgium, the Flemish Geert Hoste and Raf Coppens performed such shows.

In the United States, cabaret diverged into several distinct styles of performance mostly due to the influence of Jazz Music. Chicago cabaret focused intensely on the larger band and reached its zenith in the speakeasies, and steakhouses of the Prohibition Era.New York cabaret never developed along the darkly political lines of its European counterparts, but did feature a great deal of social commentary. When New York cabarets featured jazz, they tended to focus on famous vocalists like Eartha Kitt and Capucine rather than instrumental musicians.

Cabaret in the United States disappeared in the sixties, due to the rising popularity of rock concert shows and television variety shows. The art form itself still survives vestigially in two popular entertainment formats: Stand-up comedy and the dark comic performances that may still be seen in the drag show and camp performances in the nation's GLBT community.