Rethinking how to stage an oft-seen classic can be a good idea.

Or maybe not.

Director Sean Murray, who helmed an acclaimed version of Cabaret at the North Coast Rep when he was artistic director there, has again tackled the John Kander-Fred Ebb musical, this time at his Cygnet Theatre, in Old Town. He’s utilized his larger venue well, with a two-level set and cabaret tables around the stage area.

But on stage, his new choices don’t always work. Most obviously, he’s cast a woman, Karson St. John, in the key role of Emcee at the Kit Kat Klub, the symbolic representation of debauchery in pre-Hitler Germany. St. John, whose local résumé is filled with memorable performances, gamely fulfills most of the singing and dancing demands, but generally failed to project the sense of impending menace the role requires.

Murray has chosen well from all the show’s incarnations. Its genesis was Christopher Isherwood’s 1939 episodic novella “Goodbye to Berlin” (usually combined with his other novella, “Mr. Norris Changes Trains,” as “The Berlin Stories”), concerning his ‘30s stay in that city during the political upheaval that spawned Nazism.

In 1951, John Van Druten adapted it into the play I Am a Camera, using Isherwood’s introductory words and concentrating on the author’s chapter about Sally Bowles, an effervescent British singer eking out a living in Berlin cabarets. In the early ‘60s, Harold Prince put together a musical version, bringing in Kander and Ebb to do a score and commissioning Joe Masteroff to write the book. He concentrated on the relationship between the Isherwood character, Cliff Bradshaw, and Bowles, and added a subplot about their landlady and a Jewish fruit merchant.

Since then — except for the 1972 “Cabaret” film — those characters have formed the basis for all revivals. The young couple represents the generation indulging in the hedonism of club life and ignoring politics; the older pair fearful of what’s coming but confident of their ability to survive.

Joy Yandell’s performance as Sally is about a yard wide and an inch deep, including an erratic British accent. She captures the flightiness but doesn’t convince with the more serious emotions. Charlie Reuter, as Cliff, is satisfactory in a less-rangy role. Jim Chovick and Linda Libby, as usual, are rock-solid, evincing palpable chemistry as the older lovers. Jason Heil (an apt name here) is fine as Cliff’s early pal and later enemy.

Murray’s choices are often explicit — Sally snorts coke, Cliff has a lingering kiss with a club boyfriend — and frequently thoughtful, like using the German spelling “kabarett” in the set’s blinking lights. Particularly brilliant is the “If You Could See Her” number, in which the Emcee dances with an animal climactically revealed as Jewish. Instead of the usual gorilla, here it’s a pig, which is more in line with what the Nazis called Jews.

Then there are the questionables. Why include a male, even if he’s transsexual, among the introduced female dancers when the Kit Kat clearly has a group of chorus boys as available as the chorines? And the “Two Ladies” song and dirty dance, with a female Emcee and two males, comes off as more comedic than decadent.

Another number that suffers is “The Pineapple Song,” a love ballad when the merchant gives the landlady the named fruit. After a couple of sung choruses, it becomes a dance number, including hula and glass skirts. The proper tender mood is lost.

A similar extended transition, however, does shine in the anthem “Tomorrow Belongs to Me.” It’s sung by a sweet-voiced youth, and becomes a party waltz, demonstrating the beauty of its melody. Then, when it’s reprised as a Nazi vision, its effect is even more chilling.

Obviously, choreographer David Brannen had a heavy load and coped with it admirably. His highlight is “Money,” featuring a combination of several styles including line dancing and tap.

That biggie also lets costumer Shirley Pierson excel, garbing the dancers in various forms of lucre — rubles, yen, marks — topped (in both meanings) with one headdress overflowing with dollars. Pierson does make one misstep. Given the usual Kit Kat clientele, it’s highly doubtful that Sally, making a supposedly triumphant return to the club after her pregnancy, would go on stage, traumatized or not, barefoot and in a plain black dress.

Sean Fanning’s set, supplemented with Bonnie L. Durben’s props, is efficient and evocative, displaying an overall rundown look, red doors and stairs spiraling to the upper level, home of the band and another roaming area for the entertainers. Hanging silver strands mimic the audience-reflecting mirror used in some productions.

All is served well by Matt Lescault-Wood and George Ye’s nicely modulated sound design, Chris Rynne’s delineating lighting and Billy Thompson’s crisp musical direction.

Cast, credits and musical numbers