'Pay Attention!' Adam Lambert Opens Up about Chiding Audiences During 'Cabaret' Performances

Out singer Adam Lambert is starring as the Emcee on Broadway in the latest revival of "Cabaret," and he takes the role so seriously he's chided audience members – in character – for inappropriate laughter.

Lambert opened up about those interactions during an appearance on "The View" this past Monday, Feb. 17, People Magazine reported.

The play is set at a queer club at the end of the permissive Weimar Republic – and the dawn of Germany's brutally repressive Nazi era.

One particularly memorable moment for Lambert was the laughter that greeted his song "If You Could See Her," a number that underscores – in a satirical, but also dead serious way – the dehumanization that Jewish citizens of Germany faced as the Nazis came to power.

The song is addressed to a gorilla, but follows an anecdote about a married couple facing hostility because one of them is Jewish, People explained.

"It's satire, it's supposed to be like, 'Yeah, we're back in the nightclub, and we're doing a cute little number,' but it's actually about a really dark, sad thing about how society sees people," Lambert told the hosts of "The View.".

"And they make it into the gorilla being the Jewish person. So the end of the song I say, 'If you could see her through my eyes, she wouldn't look Jewish at all.' "

But audience members take the song the wrong way on occasion, Lambert said, explaining that "they've had a few too many to drink during the intermission, and they're not listening" to the point the show is making. As a result, he said, "sometimes it gets a laugh as if it were a joke."

But it's no joke; as Lambert told "The View," "One of the big themes in the show is antisemitism," which the "American Idol" alum and Queen frontman finds anything but amusing.

Lambert made that clear in a moment that went went viral recently when he turned to the audience as laughter rang out and gave them a scolding, still using the German accent of his Emcee character.

Lambert, Entertainment Weekly recounted, said that "sometimes [the song] gets a laugh as if it were a joke, and there have been a few shows – one in particular, where this person commented, and I stopped, and I just looked at the audience, and said, 'No, no, no, no, This isn't comedy. Pay attention.'"

The show's two acts are as different as night and day – almost literally.

"The first act of the show is really fun and naughty and kind of like dirty humor and it's a good time," Lambert noted. "When we get to Act II, we talk about the reality of the Nazis coming into power and what that means for people that are alternative and 'other' in a society that once embraced them and very quickly are vilifying them."

Sound familiar? It should. Lambert pointed out why, saying, "So it's not that dissimilar to what we see going on in the world right now. The show is very relevant. It has been since the late '60s, when it first came out, but right now, in particular, it's eerie to be up there and to be talking about things that are happening again in our country."

The viral moment brought at least one person in the audience to tears.

The jovial response from the crowd, posted the audience member in "an open letter to Adam Lambert," wasn't "nervous laughter, not shocked laughter, but people who found the surprise that it was a Jewish gorilla legitimately funny."

"As I was shaking my head that we live in a world that didn't get the point of that joke," the person posting added, the moment came when Lambert briefly stopped the show with the epic line.

"Especially the week of this inauguration, I really appreciated that," the person posting the open letter added.

Lambert feels so strongly that "Cabaret" speaks to this moment in America that he recorded a studio version of another of the show's songs, "I Don't Care Much," about the Emcee's response to the growing horrors of the Nazi ascendancy. Lambert released the track as a single with an accompanying video.

"This is probably my favorite song to sing in the show," the out singer told People at the time. "There's a timelessness to this song," Lambert went on to say. "It's so beautiful and has this great melody. And out of all the songs I sing in the show, it's one where I really get to show off what I can do vocally and emotionally."

Lambert explained the song, telling People that the Emcee is "saying, 'Well, I don't really care; it doesn't matter to me,' which is what the song is about."

However, "The audience sees through the performance," Lambert added. "They know that underneath it, he is affected and very sad. But he's going to survive by shrugging his shoulders, which so many people do."

Lambert will play the Emcee through March 29. After that, another out singer is slated to take on the role: None other than Orville Peck, who has declined to say whether his Emcee will appear on stage in Peck's signature mask, or whether he will reveal his face to the public for the role.

Watch the video for Lambert's single version of "I Don't Care Much" below.