Words

A Brief But Entirely Factual History
of the Real Dream Cabaret
by Augustus Hyde-Pennington, Esq.

April 12, 1879: Symbolist poet Percy Traut Moderne, while sharing a bottle of absinthe with underage paramour Loren Cardin-St. Laurent in Vienna, recounts a troubling nightmare from the night before involving the live reenactment of a Druid ritual in the back room of a neighborhood pub on the banks of the River Danube. Cardin-St. Laurent encourages him to stage the vision before a paying audience, and the Real Dream Cabaret is born a week later.

April 20, 1879: The Cabaret is forced to close midway through what was to have been its second performance when three actors playing Druids are diagnosed with a rare but highly contagious form of whooping cough spread through greasepaint.

October 1907: A new version of the Real Dream opens in Paris and creates an immediate sensation among the disaffected youth of Europe, many of whom adopt the cast’s affection for flannel shirts and torn blue jeans as a kind of uniform. The fad evaporates almost as quickly as it arrived, and the second-hand stores of Montmarte are soon filled with the once-fashionable attire at rock-bottom prices.

December 1918: In Zurich, Hugo Ball’s rebellious daughter Lucille opens an establishment of her own across the street from her father’s notorious Cabaret Voltaire; she lifts the “Real Dream” name and logo from a newspaper clipping and attempts to undermine the Voltaire’s success by advertising a lower cover charge while surreptitiously instituting the world’s first two-drink minimum. Although not a single one of its productions ever receives a published review or generates any sort of word of mouth, the cabaret manages to remain open for over 30 years.

May 3, 1926: Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Pablo Picasso, and Charles Chaplin enter the Cabaret dressed as nuns and carrying fox terriers. Famished, they ask to see a menu. Upon learning that the kitchen is closed, they exit, never to return.

June 1, 1942: Ludwig Wittgenstein, appearing at the Cabaret on a bet (under the stage name Shecky Stein to escape the notice of his university colleagues), delivers a series of philosophical investigations into such matters as the small portions of food served on transcontinental trains and the difficulty of monogamous relationships. A small but stunned audience howls with laughter, and the genre of “stand-up comedy” is born.

January 1958: Members of the Zurich cast, dubbed “Dreamgirls,” relocate to Greenwich Village and open a club of their own with the same name as the now-forgotten watering hole. Among the performers who make their New York debuts at the new Cabaret is a young Bob Dylan, whose wordless impersonation of an infant eating spaghetti is a big hit.

April-May 1967: Fifteen of the New York cast members, having been evicted for unspecified political reasons, relocate in San Francisco, where they resurrect the Cabaret as a combination nightclub/bakery/bike repair shop. Their collective refusal to charge money for their services leads to the establishment’s swift demise, but not before the company’s gender-blind, multi-media production of The Velveteen Rabbit is attended by busloads of schoolchildren, including young Robin “Mork” Williams and Whoopi “Whoopi” Goldberg.

September 1982: The great great grand-nephew of original Cabaret founder Percy Traut Moderne purchases an abandoned strip bar in Reno, NV and transforms it into yet another manifestation of the Real Dream. In a brazen move, Jerry “Post” Moderne convinces an 80-year-old Marlene Dietrich to emerge from retirement and perform a comeback show, under the condition that absolutely no mention of the event will ever be published during the remainder of her lifetime. Equally surprising is Dietrich’s repertoire, an evening of songs written by Darryl Hall and John Oates.

October 2003: Buffalo-based entrepreneur Mr. Brian commissions several individuals tangentially involved with the Reno club to work in his Royal Flush Casino. His much-hyped Cabaret Parasito opens and closes in a single weekend, but its cast agrees to reunite months later as an autonomous collective dedicated to revolutionary art.

Real Dream Cabaret Manifesto

Cast members have referred to these notes (drafted & circulated 10/06-10/30/03) as a “manifesto.” Whatever they are, they laid out some of the basic assumptions for the group.

WHAT IS THE (REAL) DREAM CABARET?
A dream team of collaborators working in a dreamy environment. An experiment in art and commerce. A work in progress. A chance to strike while the iron is hot. A chance for artists and performers to hone their skills through experimentation, repetition, and refinement - AND get paid for doing so. An hommage to and extension of the great eras of cabaret past, from Dada to burlesque to Vegas to the West Village to the East Village and beyond. An oxymoron. A synthesis of sweet dream and bitter reality. A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.

SOME BASIC ASSUMPTIONS:
That working artists deserve the respect, recognition, and remuneration (in that order of importance) accorded all other skilled professionals in our culture. That artists need to explore alternate means of supporting themselves and their work besides and in addition to grants, waiting tables, working as freelancers, or doing completely unrelated work. Nothing wrong with any of those, except that they don’t give working people the opportunity to earn money from their “real”/dream work. That everyone deserves the right to be self-sufficient, AND that everyone has the responsibility to help others do the same. That when you find a great, organic group of people who do good work individually and even better work collectively, it’s exciting to see what more they can do the longer they work together. That when you spend 3 months organizing and executing a 2-night performance, there damn well better be some decent ripple effects. That a scavenger aesthetic-making art by transforming materials you already have on hand rather than spending tons of money on new stuff-is both good fun and good sense. That making it up as you go can be lots of fun. That entertainment + culture + politics + fun are all interconnected. That local artists desperately need a venue in which they can not only generate new material, but hone the material they’ve already developed. (Practice may not always make perfect, but it does teach the practitioner more and deeper lessons about his or her craft.) That Buffalo desperately needs more venues for independent thought and action. That uncharted territory is the scariest and the most delightful of all.

The Real Dream Cabaret. Expect surprises.

From Mr. Brian to Comrade Lampkin:
The Transformation of a Casino Boss

It was a cold October night on the dangerous dark streets of Buffalo’s bohemian center. The wind smelled of the raw months of winter coming on fast and another business on Allen Street fell victim to the cold economic disaster known as the Rust Belt. THE ROYAL FLUSH CASINO went under that night, covered now by the ice and snow that reminds us all that it’s dead. The city is dead in this dead winter. There is no more money to be made. Commerce is frozen like a Lake Erie liner trapped in ice, all of us watching and waiting-will the ship rust out and sink before the spring thaw?

CASINO owner Mr. Brian went belly up. He was revealed to be another corrupt corporate captain-willing to exploit any and all who crossed his path. But Mr. Brian became the butt of his own bad joke. Workers revolted and gamblers gave up. The casino sank and Mr. Brian was left with nothing but the few spare coins he was able to scrape off the wine-soaked floors and the lifeless body of a fallen tightrope walker.

Broken and battered, Mr. Brian wandered the streets of Buffalo. Kicked when he asked for coins; spat upon when he begged for favors. Only the mentally suspect, the street people and the so-called artists of Allentown offered any sympathy to the once heartless capitalist. Slowly accepted as “one of us,” Mr. Brian began to attend meetings, listened to the kindness and generosity of a community of down and outers who had nothing to give but their ideas and their art.

Stunned by the decency of what he was witnessing, Mr. Brian soon realized he had something to offer these strange people. His financial acumen had not fully waned and it became clear that Mr. Brian could help these poor folk make ends meet. Mr. Brian took on a new moniker: Comrade Lampkin. And Comrade Lampkin was entrusted with the financial success of a new venture-THE REAL DREAM CABARET.

In Comrade Lampkin’s newly-opened eyes, money was no longer to be hoarded in the single vault of his private fantasy. No, money was to be shared, to each according to his or her needs. He was now part of a new economic experiment in art and commerce that cared for each person equally. What glory in the heart of the transformed! What hope for a city ruined by captains of corporate greed!

But can such miracle transformations be trusted? Has the corrupt Mr. Brian truly become the utopian financier Comrade Lampkin? The drama will unfold as THE REAL DREAM CABARET extends its performances throughout the month of February. Put your money down now-can real change happen or are we suckers for another spring promised six weeks early? Follow the money, friends. Dream, if you like, with the artists for a better world, but be wary of capitalists in comrade’s clothing

From Buffalo Spree Magazine

Behold the Real Dream Cabaret: a plea for sanity and civilized behavior in the face of a mad, mad world. It’s time once again to join the endearing and engaging group of players—including Spree’s own Associate Editor Ron Ehmke—that make up the Real Dream Cabaret, the alternative variety show featuring singing, acting, poetry, comedy, and other art forms by some of Buffalo’s best young (and not-so-young) talents. Held in a space behind Rust Belt Books that stretches the envelope of intimate, the Cabaret will take place every Friday and Saturday this October at 9 p.m. sharp. A respected colleague at the Buffalo News calls the Cabaret “delightfully free of the logic, decorum and good sense that rule ordinary life.” I must (respectfully, of course) disagree, though I found the show as delightful as he did. It will become even clearer this October, as the political season rushes toward its raucous and much-to-be-dreaded denouement, that Cabaret is a welcome island of good sense—and good manners—in the middle of a sea of thundering absurdity. If only logic and good sense did rule ordinary life. Is a recitation of recent world events necessary to show that these estimable qualities are oh-so-sadly absent where they are needed most? I thought not. Yes, the players often do wear some strange get-ups, and, yes, a certain surrealist miasma seems to descend over the room as soon as the lights dim and the first performer steps forward, but I also noticed a strange and compelling sincerity underlying the words and gestures of each RDC artiste, from the cozy extravagances of Ronawanda to the goofy antics of Brian Milbrand (who has played at least forty characters) to the fey meanderings of Kitty Jung. They really are trying to entertain us. They know all about the frustrating tedium of our weekday lives and are doing their best to help us escape, if only for a few hours. They want us to relax, drink, and be merry. And that’s the sanest thing I know how to do in these illogical times. — ELIZABETH LICATA

Newsflash! Cache of Old RDC Scripts Found!

The theatre world is rocking over the discovery of dozens of long-lost Real Dream Cabaret scripts in a Batavia bus station locker. The scripts give a fascinating glimpse into the growth of the Cabaret and its cast. Though most of the scripts are from the creatively-barren period of the mid to late 1980s, several date as far back as 1972. The Real Dream Cabaret has graciously allowed Cat Fancy to share script excerpts with our readers. From an early 1980s script: “Fast food restaurant. Disco Girl, Ronawanda, and Security Toddler enter stage left. Trio walks up to counter and places food order. Ronawanda turns to audience and shouts “y’all, where’s the beef?” Wait for laughter to subside. Disco Girl and Security Toddler give shocked reactions. Lights go down.” It’s apparent even from this brief excerpt that the Cabaret was already very much in touch with the connection between pop culture and fast food. Here’s another example from 1974: “Silence. Single spotlight on Nadine “Sysco” Hormel. Nadine whispers conspiratorially to the audience “we’ve secretly replaced Sigmund the Sadly Lacking’s regular coffee with new Folger’s Crystals. Let’s see if he notices...” Sigmund sips his coffee, unaware that anything is amiss. Lights go down.” This scene is interesting for several reasons. First of all, it reinforces the view of the Cabaret as having its finger on the pulse of the world around it. It also shows just how far long-time cast member Sigmund the Sufficient has come since 1974! Perhaps most interesting of all, the stage directions indicate that the Cabaret actually served Folger’s Crystals to patrons at that weekend’s performance, indicating the beginnings of the interesting art vs. commerce dynamic that has come to be synonymous with “the Real Dream Cabaret.” The Cabaret has never shied away from the political, either, as this excerpt from a 1981 performance shows: “Lights go up. Dora and Kitten Jung are talking. Kitten asks “how about that war between Iran and Iraq?” Dora replies “yeah, it’s terrible. We should like totally give money and weapons to that guy in Iraq so he can crush the Iranians for us and then we won’t have to worry about that whole section of the world ever again. What’s his name, Sodomy Hussein or something like that?” The Stage Master cues a pre-recorded chanting of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Lights go down.” Though most of the scripts feature cast names that are familiar, several make reference to people who have been forgotten: Disco Girl, Simon-Rhys Pendleton, Sally Struthers, Miss Fifi, JR Ewing (possibly a previous incarnation of Stage Boy), Atari 2600 and George Sax. It’s unclear whether these people were guest performers or actual cast members who were just forgettable. Even more interesting is when the scripts make mention of people who haven’t even been born yet, as in this scene from a 1973 performance: “Piaget the mute swine enters stage left (possibly someone in a pig costume or maybe Anna can work the puppet if she’s not too busy finishing the calendar).” Another example comes from these handwritten minutes from a 1977 Cabaret planning meeting: “Aimee suggested a workday to paint space and clear backstage area. Anya unveiled new posters, which are flourescent ink screened on black velvet. They glow when you put them under black light.”