The Room

Nice article on Cabaret in Art News - discusses an issue I always find difficult to explain - i.e. just what the hell is Cabaret anyway. Naked Girls in Feathers? Guys in Tuxedo and Whiteface? An unconnected set of skits? Provocation? Entertainment?

I think he's still defining it against that mainstay of US Cabaret - the aging singer hacking their way through a bunch of broadway songs in a wood paneled hotel bar - an entertainment form in which I have less than zero interest - but it's got some nice points...

"Main Entry: cab·a·ret
Pronunciation: \ˌka-bə-ˈrā, ˈka-bə-ˌ\
Function: noun
Etymology: French, from Middle French dial. (Picard or Walloon), from Middle Dutch, alteration of cambret, cameret, from Middle French dial. (Picard) camberete small room, ultimately from Late Latin camera -- more at chamber
Date: 1655
1 archaic : a shop selling wines and liquors
2 a : a restaurant serving liquor and providing entertainment (as by singers or dancers) : nightclub b : the show provided at a cabaret

There's only a small scene here in San Francisco. Mostly it's based out of a venue called The Rzazz Room, a low-ceilinged nook in a corner of the Hotel Nikko downtown. But other venues host cabaret-like events such as Yoshi's, Bimbo's, The Exit Theatre, The Eureka Theatre and the Marine's Memorial Theatre.

It's really a very amorphous artform that seems to feed on the outer edges of other more well-defined genres such as musical theatre, jazz and singer-songwriting. Few artists these days can be said to be truly indigenous to cabaret. I suppose that's not surprising when the word itself means a container for art -- the walls between which it exists -- than the art itself."

here's more of the article