Older couple lights up Kit Kat Club stage.

Byline: Paul Denison The Register-Guard

How can this have happened?

You've got a stage full of smartly costumed, good-looking young performers who sing and dance very well, an absolutely mesmerizing emcee, two star-crossed young lovers, a dancing gorilla and those bawdy beauties, the Kit Kat Girls - and the stars of the show are a dowdy old man and an old woman who don't get married?

That would be Shaunie Schmoll and Bill Furtick as Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz, whose late-life love for each other is a tender shoot that gets trampled under the jackboots as the Nazis rise to power in 1931 Berlin.

Liz Kadel and Evan Howells hold their own as singer Sally Bowles and her American lover, Clifford Bradshaw. But their acting is not as strong, and their sad story doesn't have quite the emotional punch that Schmoll and Furtick deliver in "Cabaret," now playing at the Very Little Theatre in an excellent production directed and choreographed by Michael Watkins.

Schmoll has two solos, and she not only sings but also acts them. The anguish she shows in "What Would You Do?" is heartrending, even more than Kadel shows in the show's famous title song. Kadel sings "Cabaret" powerfully but statically, with little body language and little of the raw emotion that Schmoll evokes.

Furtick doesn't sing as well as does Schmoll, but he, too, sings in character. The couple's duets, "It Couldn't Please Me More" and "Married," are genuinely touching. More so than Sally and Cliff, these two characters are why one cares about what happens in and around the Kit Kat Club.

As Cliff, Howells sings pleasantly and strongly with Kadel in the duet "Perfectly Marvelous," which is just that. But he doesn't do as well on his own in "Why Should I Wake Up?"

Others had similar shaky moments here and there. The bobbles could have been caused by opening-night nerves, or by the difficulty of singing John Kander's haunting music expressively and stylishly, with accents.

Tegue De Leon met this challenge exceedingly well in his juicy role as emcee of the Kit Kat Club, where decadence, innocence and malevolence collide.

He's seductively sinister singing the opening number, "Willkommen." In "Two Ladies," "Kickline" and "If You Could See Her" (dancing with a very nimble gorilla played by Riley Pristyak), he's simply hilarious. The gorilla number is a kick, but it could use a little more bite; the point was obscured by the comedy.

"Tomorrow Belongs to Me," eerily sung by De Leon and what sounds like the Bertolt Brecht Young Nazi Glee Club, is the creepiest song in the show. Michael Walker is very convincing as Ernst Ludwig, an urbane businessman with a swastika up his sleeve.

The Kit Kat Girls - Sophie Bloch, Liz Harlan-Ferlo, Teryl Hawk, Jessie Hawley, Fella Vasbinder and Melissa Walther Sallee - are terrific in every wickedly witty routine. "The Money Song," in particular, is a show-stopper.

The show's production values are high, especially David Sherman's split-level set, which puts music director Jim Greenwood and six other musicians upstage on the second level. Kudos should be given as well to the costumes, designed and executed by Watkins, Nancy Boyett and Sharon Wetterling.

Dance captains Hawk and Pristyak deserve a lot of credit, too.

With Kander's music, Fred Ebb's lyrics and a compelling story line about the ways people deluded themselves as the Nazis rose to power, you might say "Cabaret" is a sure-fire hit for anyone who stages it. But there are also lots of ways for amateurs to mess it up.

To Watkins' credit, that didn't happen here. He and everyone involved in this show rose to the level of the material they were dealing with. There's a lot to like here, and a lot for the entire cast and production staff to be proud of.

Paul Denison can be reached at 338-2323 or [e-mail].

THEATER REVIEW

Cabaret

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays through April 3; matinees at 2 p.m. Sunday and March 21 and 28

Where: Very Little Theatre, 2350 Hilyard St.

How much: $12 and $15 through the VLT box office, 344-7751