Sally Bowles: Setting the Scene

The extract I have chosen to inform my design occurs after Isherwood and Bowles visit the Troika and meet a heavy-drinking Millionaire named Clive, whom they begin to spend almost all of their time with. Though the scene isn't really much of scene, more of an overview of events, I found this to be the more interesting description of Sally:

"She was drinking nearly as much whiskey as Clive himself. It never seemed to make her really drunk, but sometimes her eyes looked awful, as though they had been boiled. Every day the layer of make-up on her face seemed to get thicker."

Isherwood, C. (1939). Sally Bowles. In: Goodbye to Berlin. 10th ed. London: Hogarth Press. p70.

Though my initial inspiration for Sally comes from an excerpt from the novel, I have found a scene in the play which I feel corresponds. Act One, Scene Nine set in Cliff's room at Fraulein Schneider's residence, makes several references to Sally's heavy drinking; though in the play her tipple of choice is gin as opposed to whiskey in the novel. In the scene from the play, we see the theme of obsession running throughout. Sally is obsessed with herself, obsessed with fame, men, gin... 

This is also the scene where Sally tells us she believes she is pregnant and declares that she's having an abortion which she claims, rather flippantly, to have done "thousands of times before" whilst laughing off Cliff's desires to keep the child. This is a darkness to Sally's character which shows her up as selfish and uncaring, I feel she comes across as very cold in this scene, something I will consider reflecting in the harshness of her features. 

I think this shows us a darker side of Sally but not in the kinky sense that the lascivious yet childish portrayal by Jane Horrocks does. It shows that grittier side to the glamour and brings to mind the modern celebrity life of excess. Sally has come upon Clive who has the financial wherewithal to support the lifestyle she desires and it makes her greedy, not just in the sense of material things, but gluttonous; constantly smoking and drinking. Clearly this lifestyle affects Sally's well polished façade because the overly-heavy application of make-up is contrary to the refined image of glamour that Sally wants to put across. Though Sally's hair is not described in this scene, I should imagine it is suffering similarly from her continued intoxication. I love this more gritty interpretation of the character, I feel the glamorous side to her is a little "been there, done that" so I would love to show her darker side. 

Isherwood doesn't necessarily set a scene for this incarnation of Sally, but I feel that they would have spent a large amount of their time at Clive's hotel. It doesn't state a name for the hotel, but given Clive's millionaire status, I assumed it was somewhere grand so I looked up Berlin hotels of the 1930s and came up with the Hotel Excelsior which was built in April 1908 and destroyed in the second world war, making it a perfect setting for our drunken Sally. Weimar Berlin was a bleak place and could see how Sally would be drawn in by the glamour of a hotel like the Excelsior. 

I imagine a hotel such as the Excelsior would have fine furnishings, both new and antique. A grand hotel would probably want to give the experience of a home from home, only better. The image to the left shows a 1930s home according to the Holocaust Centre website. I have also found an image of a modern Parisian hotel suite with an interior inspired by 1930s starlet Marlene Dietrich. I think this image gives a more realistic view of the grand surrounding Sally Bowles would have found herself in, albeit adapted for the modern day. I can just imagine Clive on that piano and Sally singing along in her intoxicated state, feeling as though her performance is impressive just as she often talked about being world-famous within the text.