Berlin Cabaret.

The new European metropolises of the late nineteenth century were the hothouses of aesthetic modernism. The increased speed of life, manifold new technologies, the disorientation, deracination and anonymity of the great city all afforded artists new insights and sensations. Peter Jelavich first explored the development of aesthetic modernism in Munich and Theatrical Modernism (1987). His superb new book carries this inquiry into the more complex and variegated life of Germany's political and cultural capital. Jelavich argues that Berlin cabaret was born out of the demand of artistic and intellectual elites for new modes of expression to reflect the experience of the modern metropolis. Yet if cabaret can thus be understood as a creation of the modernist avant-garde, it also drew heavily upon existing forms of popular live entertainment. Indeed, despite the efforts of early cabaretists to elevate their art form above "mere diversion," the boundary dividing cabaret from vaudeville and revue remained porous. Persistent tensions between entertainment and serious social and political commentary, between commercial considerations and artistic aspirations, between pandering to an audience and provoking it, defined the history of cabaret in Berlin.

The city itself was the most prominent character in the cabarets of 1900 to 1914. In dances, songs, and skits, performers celebrated the diversions, novelties, wit and fashions of the new metropolis. A revealing number who performed at the Metropol theater presented Berlin as one big department store. The equation of the urban experience with consumerism appealed to the predominantly bourgeois audiences of pre-1914 cabaret and revue. Yet according to Jelavich, this celebration also expressed underlying anxieties about the uneasy class relations of the new Weltstadt and about Berlin's actual status among the great cities of Europe. This lingering sense of inadequacy was particularly potent in relation to Paris, where most modernist trends, including cabaret, were born. Jelavich might have explored more fully the many lines of emulation, rivalry, and resentment stretching from the avant-garde culture of Berlin to Paris. America replaced both Berlin and Paris as the consummate image of modernity in the years after World War One. In a fascinating chapter, Jelavich traces the "Americanization" of popular entertainment in Weimar Berlin, as well as the wide-ranging discussion among liberals and conservatives about the meaning of jazz music, black performers, and kicklines.

Much cabaret material focused on romance and sexuality, ranging in tone from the sentimental to the satirical and ribald. Jelavich's comments on gender and eroticism in cabaret performance are consistently illuminating. Especially interesting is his discussion of official efforts to define and censor obscenity. Aspects of the sexual politics of cabaret are neglected, however. Cabaret's exploration of gender boundaries and homosexuality during the relatively permissive Weimar years deserves closer attention, as does the place of lesbian and gay venues and performers within the larger Berlin entertainment scene. Such an inquiry would likely illustrate a further element of cabaret's expressive role within the modern metropolis as well as another motive for Nazi persecution of cabaretists.

When cabaret strayed into politics, the results were ambiguous. Political satire before 1914 generally remained cautious, not only because of police censorship but also because cabaret owners found that politics did not sell as well as light humor, music and dance. In the early years of the Weimar Republic, the extreme Right and the Social Democratic government both became targets of more aggressive political cabarets, while communist "agitprop" troupes borrowed popular performance techniques. Even in the most combative years of the inter-war period, the political results of cabaret remained mixed. Political satire, meant to stimulate critical thinking and action, could unintentionally dissipate anger in the release of laughter. Recognition of cabaret's function as a safety-valve frequently curbed the police's impulse to enforce censorship, while the same awareness prompted communist leaders to question the capacity of agitprop humor to communicate serious political messages.

Confrontation with Nazism tragically exposed the political limits of cabaret. Liberal cabaretists discovered satire to be ineffectual against enemies who favored passion and hatred over reason and principle. Communist performers' reliance on simplistic class polarities proved equally incapable of comprehending Nazism. With Hitler's rise to power, the cabaret became a target of Nazi revenge. In Nazi Berlin, critical cabaret succumbed to so-called "positive" cabarets where irreverent humor fell victim to paeans to volkisch "joy." The liberal, socialist, communist, and Jewish writers and performers who had made cabaret such a vital creative force were driven into exile. In an epilogue, Jelavich follows the fate of Berlin cabaret into exile and ultimately into the Westerbork and Theresienstadt concentration camps, where Jewish performers staged revues that poignantly evoked past liberties, future hopes, and present miseries.

With Berlin Cabaret, Jelavich has contributed significantly to our understanding of modernist culture and its metropolitan context. He illuminates every subject he touches upon: the intersection of elite and popular art in the development of aesthetic modernism, the history of popular theater in Berlin, the city's cultural politics, and the broader social and political history of Germany. Like the best of cabarets, this book enlightens and entertains.

Warren Breckman University of Pennsylvania