They say there's a broken for every heart on Broadway, they say that life's a game and then they take the board away. They give you masks and costumes and an outline of the story, then leave you all to improvise their vicious cabaret. In no longer pretty cities there are fingers in the kitties, there are warrants, forms, and chitties and a jack boot on the stair. There's sex and death and human grime in monochrome for one thin dime, and at least the trains all run on time, but they don't go anywhere. Facing their responsibiltires either on their backs or on their knees, there are ladies who just simply freeze and dare not turn away and the widows who refuse to cry with be dressed in garter and bow-tie and be taught to kick their legs up high in this vicious cabaret. At last, the 2008 show! The ballet on the burning stage! The documentary seen upon the fractured screen! The dreadful poem scrawled upon the crumpled page! There's a policeman with an honest soul that has seen whose head is on the pole and he grants and fills his briar bowl with a feeling of unease. Then he briskly frisks the torn remains for a fingerprint or crimson stains and endeavors to ignore the chains that he walks in to his knees while his master in the dark nearby inspects the hands with a brutal eye that have never brushed a lover's thigh, but have squeezed a nation's throat, and he hungers in his secret dreams for the harsh rembrace of cruel machines, but his lover is not what she seem and she will not leave a note. At last, the 2008 show! The situation tragedy! Grand opera slick with soap! Cliff-hangers with no hope! The water-color in the flooded gallery! There's a girl who'll push, but not shove, and she's desperate for her father's love. She believes the hand beneath the glove may be the one she needs to hold. Though she doubts her host's moralities, she decides that she is more at ease in the land of doing-as-you-please than outside in the cold. Then the backdrops peel and the sets give way and the cast get eaten by the play. There's a murderer at the matinee. There are dead men in the aisles. The patrons and the actors too are uncertain if the show is through, and with side long looks await their cue, but the frozen mask just smiles. At last, the 2008 show! The torchsong no one ever sings! The curfew chorus line! The comedy divine! The bulging eyes of puppets, strangled by their strings! There's thrills and chills and girls galore, there's sing-songs and surprises! There's something here for everyone, reserve your seat today! There's mischiefs and malarkies, but no queers, or yids, or darkies, within this bastard's carnival. THIS VICIOUS CABARET!
