‘Chicago’ comes to town
Getting away with murder has never been so alluring.
Starting Tuesday, Chicago brings its steamy mix of casual homicide and illicit passion to the Auditorium Theatre. It stars former Dukes of Hazzard actor and now Broadway star Tom Wopat as Billy Flynn, the lawyer who defends trigger-happy chorus girl Roxie Hart.
This Broadway musical has been touring the world for 12 years under Tony Award-winning producers Barry and Fran Weissler. That might seem a long time to spend in the company of murderers. But Hart is a canny celebrity criminal who plays the media for all it’s worth.
In fact, the recent mob of Wall Street bad boys is a perfect backdrop for Chicago’s glitzy villainy.
“It’s very timely, I’ll tell you that,” says Barry Weissler, who opened his Broadway revival in 1996. “I first did Chicago after the O.J. Simpson trial. It proved that you can get away with murder if you’re rich and famous enough.”
That said, the 1920 nightclub milieu of Chicago might seem a little uncouth to Bernard Madoff or Jeffrey Skilling.
Both of the musical’s high-stepping heroines are fighting to beat murder raps. Roxie goes to jail for shooting her lover, a nightclub client. Fellow hoofer Velma Kelly makes short work of her husband and sister after interrupting them in bed.
Billy plays the media with cynical virtuosity to get Roxie and Velma acquitted. But his legal appeals take a back seat to sex appeal, thanks to Bob Fosse’s flamboyant dance numbers.
“I met Bob, though we were never good friends,” recalls Weissberg. “It was my loss. If you ask me whether his style can be felt in Chicago, the answer is an overpowering yes. Sex, danger, fashion — they’re all there.”
Those ingredients were squeezed and teased to the breaking point in the popular 2002 movie version starring Renee Zellweger as Roxie and Catherine Zeta-Jones as Velma. But Weissberg strongly prefers the musical.
“The stage show’s numbers are more fully fleshed out,” he says. “The movie really didn’t have the greatest dancers and singers in the world.”
Both versions have a real-life background every bit as racy as their plots. They’re based on stories by Chicago Tribune reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins, who covered sensational 1924 murder trials.
Nightclub singer Belva Gaertner (the original Velma) was charged with killing a man found shot to death in her car in March 1924. The following month, Beulah Annan (Roxie) was accused of murdering her lover, then relaxing to a dance record for two hours before phoning her husband about the mishap.
Both women were speedily acquitted, thanks to slick defenses by two lawyers who become the models for Billy. Watkins turned her reportage into a hugely successful 1926 play that inspired Cecil B. DeMille’s 1927 silent film, Chicago.
Another movie treatment, Roxie Hart, appeared in 1942 with Ginger Rogers in the lead role. Two decades later, choreographer Bob Fosse saw rich potential for a musical but couldn’t win Watkins’ blessing. She had become a born-again Christian and abhorred the thought of a show celebrating loose women, gin and crime that pays.
Yet following her death in 1969, Fosse helped secure the rights to the play from her estate. The new musical became a Broadway smash in 1975 and earned six Tony Awards.
The role of Roxie quickly became an irresistible magnet for song-and-dance divas — luring Gwen Verdon, Liza Minnelli, Ann Reinking and most recently Destiny’s Child star Michelle Williams. In the local production, Bianca Marroquin portrays Roxie and Terra C. MacLeod plays Velma.
Extremely diverse actors have played Billy, from Jerry Orbach to James Naughton. Wopat may seem an odd choice, but his resume includes far more than his seven-season television run on The Dukes of Hazzard. He starred in the Broadway productions of Chicago, 42nd Street, City of Angels and Annie Get Your Gun.
This will be the third time that Chicago has visited the Auditorium Theatre in the last 11 years. But familiarity is unlikely to breed contempt for this red-hot jalapeño pepper of a show. Its picture of urban corruption stays close to the bone in 2009. And Fosse’s choreography still oozes with calculated decadence — though for him, it wasn’t an act.
Working on the musical, he said: “The time to dance is when your emotions are just too strong to only sing about how you feel.”
If you go
What: Chicago, presented by Rochester Broadway Theatre League.
Where: Auditorium Theatre, 885 E. Main St.
When: Tuesday through Sunday. Shows begin at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 and 7 p.m. next Sunday.
Admission: $32.50 to $64.50.
Call: (800) 745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com or purchase at the Auditorium Theatre box office.
