Review: Chicago
by Michael Meigs
An enthusiastic voice behind us as we exited Bass Concert Hall at the University of Texas last night: "That was nothing like the movie!"
Live performance, even in the cavernous space of the Bass, can seize your attention and send your heart racing in ways that no flat screen image ever can. And that's what happens in the 15th (annual?) tour of Chicago, playing in Austin through this coming Sunday.
The story is familiar and, frankly, banal, a combination of 1920's tabloid sensationalism, some 1930's B-movie styling, and a dose of Cinderella (and I don't mean Disney's Cinderella). Roxy murders her lover and when her big dumb good-hearted husband realizes what happened, he recants his own false impression; she gets sent to the state pen in Joliet, where a different hierarchy rules. Tough women sing in cages (Cell Block Tango) and vie with one another for favors from Mama the warden and from Billy Flynn, the lawyer who'll lie, cheat, misrepresent and do just about anything (except, interestingly, overtly request sexual favors) to earn his colossal fee by obtaining a non-guilty verdict. Tabloid notoriety promises to become celebrity that offers prospects of a career in vaudeville.
The thrills of this stage version are delivered hot and steaming by the choreography. It's classic Bob Fosse style done for the 1997 original staging by Ann Reinking and meticulously recreated by David Bushman. Muscular, supple and proudly strutting their stuff in revealing costumes, this cast of a dozen dancers astonishes and surprises again and again. The moves are cool, the scenes are fast and full of style, and over the course of the two hours of entertainment you'll have the opportunity to pick your very favorite. The final curtain call brings them on individually with their own names to receive the acclaim of the crowd.
It's a fantasy world, as unreal as any comic book, with bad girls as superheroes. Terra C. MacLeod as Velma Kelly, the previous darling of the jail set, is tall and arrogant; she can dance the legs off a wooden chair and just about does so in the second act. Anne Horak creates the alleged ingénue Roxy Hart as our Cinderella protagonist with grace and accomplishment.
The force and spirit of the two leading dames contrast with the male principals: white-maned John O'Hurley as the complacent Billy Flynn (Razzle-Dazzle 'Em) is a big vanilla milkshake who doesn't do much more than stroll with a cane, and Todd Buonopane as the chunky deceived husband is mostly inert, gesturing with hands in Mickey-Mouse white gloves (Mr. Cellophane).
Before the spectacle begins, the dark stage is framed in a gold-speckled picture frame, of the sort that you might see at the National Gallery around a Rembrandt or a Titian. That's a deft touch, a reminder that you're about to witness a classic. When the lights come up you see the orchestra in a high, wide bandstand at center stage. The rail around their enclosure has the same gold-and-black decoration. Seeing the musicians throughout the action reinforces the theatricality of it all -- no one is hidden away in a pit -- and provides the opportunity for some comedy interaction with the orchestra leader.
I have an enduring preference for the intimacy of locally produced theatre. This 15th touring company of Chicago does not provide that. Instead, the company offers the charisma, polish, and high quality that big bucks can skim from the very top of the profession. The New York production is now the longest running American musical theatre production in Broadway history.
A glance through the show program from Broadway Across America suggests the extent of the organization behind it all. The Chicago organization even has its own Director of Recreation (no, not as in 'rec-room' -- as in recreation, recasting, and renewing this franchise). The next stop for this company is Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
After that they go to Cleveland.
Chicago
by John Kander and Fred Ebb
touring company
