By Jon Theiss
Chicago: The Musical, Broadway Across America’s touring production of the Fosse-flavored classic, opened up at the Palace Theater last night.
Anyone who’s seen the show knew what to expect, but frankly, I’d only ever seen the film—I was in for a few surprises.
For anyone that’s seen the movie, you know the basic plotline. It’s the roaring twenties. Naïve wannabe Vaudeville star Roxie Hart shoots her lover to death, goes to the Cook County jail (where she meets her foil—intelligent, deliciously conniving and calculating Vaudeville vixen Velma Kelly) and is embroiled in a salacious media-frenzy the likes of which Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are all-too-familiar. With a few well-placed “razzle dazzles,” the show’s reference to flashy manipulations of appearance, she’s set free on a story that’s completely falsified (and most of the time, completely hilarious).
The highlight of the show, for me, was experiencing the energy of live actors rather than watching Catherine Zeta Jones and Renee Zellwegger ham it up on film. The biggest difference between the film and the show? The comedic chops of the actors I saw last night. While the stage show retains every bit as much sex appeal as the movie (fishnets, tango, murderesses in lurid choreographed ballet-like poses), the comedy is never far from the surface of the performance. It was refreshing, really. The stage show is also longer, with a plot that’s a bit more intricate, and has a few extra musical numbers that audiences are sure to appreciate.
Also unlike the film, the stage show is set up like a Vaudeville performance. A full orchestra, with strings, a full brass section, pianos and woodwinds, is located directly behind the actors onstage (there’s no orchestra pit here). There are no set pieces beyond a sporadic set of black chairs, and the actors don’t sing to each other in grandiose dramatic scenes. The dance, the drama, the dialogue is always racy, biting and sarcastic. And, in true Vaudeville form, it gets bawdy.
I think the high point of the evening was watching Carol Woods as “the keeper of the keys, the countess of the clink,” Matron “Mama” Morton. Fans of the 2008 Beatles musical Across The Universe will remember her as the emotional mother who sings and weeps beside the casket of her dead son, bemoaning his death during the Detroit riots during the incredibly emotionally charged “Let it Be.” She also received a standing ovation during the 2008 Grammy Awards, singing the same song. She was a joy, with pipes for days.
On an otherwise rainy, dreary, damp night, the Palace Theater was hot. While you’ll be hard up to catch me in a pair of fishnets, it did make me want to learn to tango.
Chicago: The Musical plays at the Palace Theater (34 W. Broad St.) June 8-13. Tickets range from $22.50 to $67.50 and can be purchased at the Ohio Theatre Ticket Office (39 E. State St.), all Ticketmaster outlets, and www.ticketmaster.com.
VIDEO COURTESY OF CAPA/BROADWAY ACROSS AMERICA