Will ‘Chicago’ ever feel dated?
COME ON, BABE: Taylor Lane as Velma Kelly and the ensemble perform “All That Jazz” in the touring production of Chicago The Musical, part of the BroadwaySF season at the Golden Gate Theatre. Photo by Jeremy Daniel
Maybe we should feel sad that there will apparently never be a moment when Chicago, the 1975 musical by John Kander, Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse, won’t feel completely of the moment. The show is about murderers hungry for the glory and reward of fame, but it might just as well be about internet influencers murdering our time and brain cells with a similar desire for fame and all it supposedly brings.
Everything about the show is lurid, venal and lascivious. The entire score (glorious) and choreography (also glorious) could be distilled down to a vamp and a hip thrust. It was dirty, funny and sexy when Fosse unveiled his original production starring Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera as the merry murderesses. Somehow it was even more so when City Center’s Encores! series revived it in 1996 and took it back to Broadway, where it’s still running 32 years later. The show is now the longest-running American musical in Broadway history (Phantom is British and ran longer) because audiences can’t get enough of sexy humans moving and singing beautifully but behaving very, very badly.
THE NAME ON EVERYBODY’S LIPS: Ellie Roddy is Roxie Hart. Photo by Jeremy Daniel
We’re now so late into the Chicago game that the current non-Equity tour now briefly at the Golden Gate Theatre as part of the BroadwaySF season features these kinds of credits in the program: “Re-creation of Original Production Direction by” or “Re-creation of Original Production Choreography by.” This means that Walter Bobbie and Anne Reinking, who were reviving Chicago in the style and spirit of Fosse, are now being reinterpreted by David Hyslop and Gregory Butler respectively. Happily, the production still has the sleek simplicity of the revival, with its on-stage band and laser-like focus on the performers.
The scathing humor inspired by the plot’s rampant egotism and corruption feels as fresh as ever, but what really stings is the way our legal system is portrayed as another division of show business where all you have to do is give ‘em the old “razzle dazzle” to get exactly what you want.
Main characters Velma Kelly (Taylor Lane) and Roxie Hart (Ellie Roddy) are both hardworking chorines doing their best to make the ‘20s roar, and if committing a murder might help them seize more of that elusive spotlight, well, who would miss a philandering or mistreating man or two as sacrifices in their quest for stardom?
POP, SIX, SQUISH, UH-UH, CICERO, LIPSCHITZ: “Cell Block Tango” remains one of the great musical theater numbers of the last 50 years. Photo by Jeremy Daniel
Fold in a hapless sap of a husband (Andrew Metzger as Amos Hart), an avaricious lawyer (Connor Sullivan as Billy Flynn) and an easily bribe-able prison matron (Illeana “illy” Kirven as Mama Morton) and you’ve got a pleasing stew that at once represents artists like Kander, Ebb and Fosse working at their height to depict humans at their lowest. Our worst has never looked better – or been pleasing audiences for so long!
Especially delicious numbers include the irresistible opener, “All That Jazz,” the ever-enjoyable “Cell Block Tango” and a riotous “We Both Reached for the Gun.” The ostrich plumes of “All I Care About” will never not be marvelous, and “Razzle Dazzle” is almost masochistic in the pleasure of its harsh truths like, “Give ’em the old flim flam flummox, fool and fracture ’em. How can they hear the truth above the roar?”
This touring production has a sizable level of sizzle, which is saying something for a production that’s been going for more than three decades. There’s a lightness to some of the cast that gives Disney animated film vibes when we’re expecting more of a condom stuck to the bottom of your stiletto vibes. Some performances are more energized than others, and the acting levels are all over the place, but where it counts – especially in the ensemble numbers – the show does its work giving you both a slap and a tickle.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Chicago: The Musical continues through March 9 as part of the BroadwaySF season at the Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor St., San Francisco. Running time is 2 hours and 30 minutes (including one intermission). Tickets are $55-$201 (subject to change). Call 888-746-1799 or visit broadwaysf.com.
