Sally Bowles- Character Breakdown

 To begin looking at my character I looked back at the Rehearsal resource file we were given.
I chose not to focus on her appearance, as for my contemporary interpretation I would like to make Sally Bowles a Drag character portrayed by a man, but I did look at a bit about her background to help me develop ideas for her make up and how to direct the model.
Sally was brought up by her English family and rebelled by leaving home at the age of 17 to "learn about life" in Berlin. As we see in the chosen scene, she is singing a song called "Don't Tell Mama" and I think the lyrics in this scene are perfect for showing us her relationship with her family- her parents are protective or perhaps quite conservative and overbearing.
In Goodbye to Berlin, Christopher Isherwood speaks of Sally and says "I noticed that her finger nails were painted emerald green, a colour unfortunately chosen, for it called attention to her hands, which were much stained by cigarette smoking and as dirty as a little girl's." Her nail polish is also picked out in the film, with lots of shots of Sally waving her hands around and putting her fingers to her neck to show them off. When we first meet her in Cabaret, she is at the door and when Brian notices her nails, she shakes her fingers and says "Divinely decadent!" before welcoming him in. I want to bring this green colour into my look without simply painting it on the nails, and have been thinking about putting green glitter through the brows and hair.


Isherwood, C (1939). Goodbye to Berlin. Britain: Hogarth Press.Geigner, M, 2014. Rehersal Resource Packet. Northwestern University.