The breadth of Shane Vogel's research and his passion for the Harlem Cabaret School are clearly evident from the opening pages of his new book, The Scene of Harlem Cabaret. Vogel draws on a wide range of theater and performance studies literature to explore the relationship between print culture and the cabaret, and the rise of black and queer forms of expression that developed as a result of Harlem’s after-hours nightlife. When the prose is clear and concise, the book is a joy to read. Vogel establishes his thesis early in the introduction, and lays a solid foundation for his theories regarding Harlem night life and the ways cabaret society prompted conflicting attitudes toward representation of sexual and racial minorities. Vogel often employs the language of literary theory to make his point, as in this example from the introduction: "As writers and performers attuned to the criminal intimacies, fugitive sociality, and transfigural performances of Harlem's nightclubs, the Cabaret School challenged the simple referentiality of mimetic realism by highlighting the failure of mimetic representation to fix the ineffable intimacies, gestures, and performances of the cabaret and everynight life." Such prose is hard to sustain, and even more difficult for the general reader to digest. But the general reader is not Vogel's intended audience; both queer and literary theorists will find much to admire in this study.

Vogel closely examines the images of Harlem crafted by film, novels, short stories, music, and poetry. The Scene of Harlem Cabaret begins with a discussion of what set the Harlem Cabaret School apart from other writers of the Harlem Renaissance and offers a concise explanation of the debate over the representations of Blacks in literature and performance during the early part of the 20th century. Vogel skillfully charts the genealogy of cabaret from 1880 through 1940, from the intimate satirical performances produced at Montrmartre's Chat Noir, to the jazz of the Café Society in Greenwich Village. Historical progenitors of the cabaret scene in America included saloons, professional clubs, jook joints, and the cabaret Folies Bergère that opened in New York in 1911. As Vogel notes, there are unique challenges to performing in an intimate space that belongs to the audience, and the intimacy of the cabaret formed communities, identities and social relations through exchange between the performers and the spectators. The original Parisian cabarets were small spaces--places for artistic experimentation and satire. The early Harlem clubs, on the other hand, were often much larger, and in some cabarets Black audiences became part of the spectacle for white observers. While it is easy to try to define Harlem’s "black cabarets" as authentic and the "segregated cabarets" as institutions that exploited black culture, Vogel makes it clear that these two forms of cabaret informed and affected each other in interesting ways. Drawing on graphic primary material, including works by Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, James Weldon Johnston, and Langston Hughes, as well as firsthand accounts of cabaret life from performers like Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, and Lena Horne, the book compares and contrasts written works and performances that questioned racial and sexual norms.

Vogel has constructed his thesis on solid evidence and scholarly research. Those general readers who are slowed down by some of the theoretical terminology are encouraged to persevere, for the book provides valuable, candid insights into an important era of American cultural history.