Karson McGinelyreturns to the role that won her a San Diego Critics Circle Award 11 years ago. Her Master of Ceremonies at the decadent Kit Kat Club in '30s Berlin is also very much the Master of Ceremonies for the Cygnet Theatre in '20s San Diego, drawing the audience in with the promise of distracting naughtiness before baring her teeth and reminding them that you can't ever really leave your troubles at the door. It's one of the great and terrible parts in musical theater; not just amoral, but convincingly resolute that morality is little more than a luxury of the comfortable — rather like love. Not for nothing is her big torchy song titled "I Don't Care Much." She is the heartless world, the one set against lovers both young and old, the one that grinds the weak under its heel as it rewards the powerful. And Ms. McGinleynails it. Not that the lovers both young and old don't do their best; otherwise, what would we do for a story? The production takes its time gathering the threads, but from the moment the lederhosen-clad youth waft their angelic rendition of "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" from the balcony on, the show marches with energy and purpose toward the inevitable. A couple of missed motivations and throwaway subplots (Bobby?) serve as minor stumbles, more than made up for by the versatile cast and creative staging. (Loved the tap-dance beatdown!)