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Stage Review: 'Chicago' still delicious one year later
Wednesday, February 17, 1999 By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic
Strut, tilt, smirk, bang! ... pelvis, elbow, flank, chin ... sequin, gold, satin, blare ... wriggle, shrug, slither, sssss ...
Add it all together and it can be no other than "Chicago," the wonderfully raunchy, gleefully cynical Bob Fosse-Kander & Ebb musical that opened last night for a week at the Benedum.
It's barely 13 months since it was last here in this taut concert-style revival. That it's back so soon is welcome but also unusual. But the times do have a way of keeping "Chicago's" 1975 social satire topical and punchy. A couple of years ago, it felt fresh-minted by the O.J. trial, its scorn for celebrity legal posturing right on the contemporary mark.
Well, we've just survived another of those high-profile trials, and while a lot of the satire still sticks, it's refreshing to get back to meatier scandal. All Monica All the Time just doesn't measure up. As "Chicago" says, murder, sex and corruption - that's what we most relish in our headlines, is it not?
We certainly do relish them in this musically delicious, physically enticing package directed on Broadway by Walter Bobbie. I have been criticized for commenting on the physical attractions of performers, but I would be failing my sacred duty as a critic if I neglected to tell you that this tour features some of the most gorgeous and talented bodies I've ever seen in one show, men and women.
The story, as you may know, concerns a clutch of lady murderers in 1920s Chicago, all manipulating (and being manipulated by) a corrupt legal system and fickle, scandal-mad media and public.
There are two "Chicago" tours now on the road. The Roxie company was the first launched, so there was some anticipatory disappointment last year, when we were sent the new Velma company - a fear washed away by the splendid product that arrived.
This year, we have the Roxie company, all different. (Of course, in a year most touring shows change pretty completely, anyway.) The names aren't as big, but the skills are. Belle Calaway is a tasty Roxie, her Jane Powell-like cuteness and rag-doll plasticity curdled sweetly into an insidious pleasure. Deidre Goodwin is a statuesque and sinuous Velma in the mode of last year's Stephanie Pope. Together they are a satisfying complement and contrast - pepper and salt, sweet and tart, angle and curve.
Adrian Zmed doesn't have the worn glamour that would be useful to the role of Billy Flynn, the silver-tongued shyster. But his boyish bounce also serves the satire - so cynical so young! Carol Woods has a surprisingly cheery mien as belting Mama Morton, the poisonous matron with a heart after all.
"Chicago" also pauses in its pervasive cynicism to acknowledge the pain, moments well realized by Bruce Winant's Amos and Krissy Richmond's Hunyak.
The true stars are Kander & Ebb's brilliant score and Fosse's choreography, recreated by Ann Reinking. "Chicago" is frank in its enjoyment of limber bodies doing those teasing Fosse gyrations - dance compressed to jazzy essence. Special kudos to the merry murderesses - Richmond, Ida Gilliams, Michelle DeJean, understudy Jennifer Welsh, Sharon Moore and Angie Schworer.
Glad to see them back.
STAGE REVIEW
Chicago
Where: Broadway Series nonsubscription extra at Benedum Center, Downtown.
When: 8 p.m. through Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets: $34.50-$50; 412-456-6666.
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