- Title: USA: 1970'S MUSICAL 'CHICAGO' IS REVIVED ON BROADWAY
- Date: 20th December 1995
- Summary: NEW YORK CITY, UNITED STATES (RECENT) (RTV) EXTERIOR OF THE RICHARD RODGERS BROADWAY THEATRE WHERE "CHICAGO" IS PLAYING
- Embargoed: 4th January 1996 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: NEW YORK CITY, USA
- Country: USA
- Topics: Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVABFXKEBRGXPWFRKASMUK0QOY07
- Story Text: "Chicago," the American musical comedy from the 1970's, is enjoying a hit revival on Broadway and winning the hearts of critics for its debonair, sexy choreography.
The musical was considered too dark when it failed in 1975 -- now audiences say it is in keeping with hard-learned cynicism about the American justice system.
"Chicago" is based on a 1926 play by Maurine Dallas Watkins, written in an era when the city's underworld was very much part of the popular image of American crime.
The original musical "Chicago" was choreographed and directed by the late Bob Fosse, famous as director and choreographer of "Cabaret," "Sweet Charity," and other well-loved American musicals.
John Kander and Fred Ebb, who wrote the songs in "Cabaret," composed and wrote the lyrics of "Chicago". Fosse's dances and the songs of Kander and Ebb sharply mock America's idealisation of love, marriage, and the criminal justice system.
Ann Reinking, dancer and veteran of many Fosse works,stars in "Chicago" as Roxie Hart, a 1930's song-and-dance woman of loose morals and little talent who shoots her lover dead as easily as most people would swat a fly.
In jail, she meets Velma Kelly, played by Bebe Neuwirth, who establishes the smokey atmosphere and gin-soaked tone of "Chicago" with the song-and-dance number "All That Jazz".
Like Roxie, Velma is a hard-boiled vaudevillian who can't understand why an inconsequential act like murder should land her in jail. Both women are befriended by sleazy lawyer Billy Flynn, played by James Naughton.
Flynn believes the best way to free a murderous client is to make her a celebrity --- by feeding the tabloid press hard-luck stories that prove she never dreamed of hurting anyone, even if she did pull the trigger.
In their song, "We Both Reached for the Gun," Flynn reduces Roxie to little more than a ventriloquist's dummy and convinces reporters --- who will never let facts get in the way of a good story --- that Roxie simply acted in self-defence.
Roxie's husband, a spineless wimp named Amos, is the only character who subscribes to old-fashioned morality. But Amos --- played by Joel Grey --- realizes he's all but invisible in this cynical world, and he sings his life story in the song, "Mr.
Cellophane." "I think the stuff that lies beyond and behind all the humour and the dance is very, very serious...about our world and human nature, and about avarice and greed and gluttony," Grey said. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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