Chicago: 35 recommendations
Sections:
Sub-sections
The twisted tale of corruption and the concept of the celebrity criminal is based on Maurine Dallas Watkins’ 1926 play of the same name.
The story and characters find their origins in true events covered by Watkins while she was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, with the famous characters of Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart based on Belva ‘Beauty Of The Cell Block’ Gaertner and Beulah ‘Most Stylish on Murder Row’ Sheriff Annan respectively.
The original play was a great success on Broadway and on its subsequent tour, but it was when the rights to the play were sold to legendary actor, director and choreographer Bob Fosse that Chicago as theatre audiences today know and love it was born.
With a book, music and lyrics by Kander and Ebb (Cabaret), Chicago: A Musical Vaudeville opened on Broadway in 1975 but, like every other new show that year, was sadly overshadowed by A Chorus Line. The show was, however, well received in the West End when it opened at the Cambridge Theatre in 1979, playing for 603 performances.
Chicago was the phenomenal success it deserved to be when it was revived on Broadway in 1996 and in London in 1997, with the Broadway production winning six Olivier awards and the West End show at the Adelphi Theatre taking two Olivier awards, Best Actress in a Musical for Ute Lemper as Velma Kelly, and Outstanding Musical Production.
For the past ten years, Chicago has developed a tradition of casting celebrities in its key roles, and these have included Ruthie Henshall, John Barrowman, Tony Hadley, Kelly Osbourne and Marti Pellow.
Having proved itself a mainstay of the West End, Chicago returned to its original London home at the Cambridge Theatre in 2006, where it continues to wow audiences with its heady blend of drama, eclectic musical numbers and eye-popping choreography.
Reviews
The Evening Standard
When it comes to sheer subversive pleasure – and how rarely it does – no theatrical night this year matches the delights of Chicago. This ravishing song and dance comedy about two young American women in 1929 getting away with murder, thanks to a lawyer so bent he can barely look anyone in the eye, is twenty-two years old. But how freshly its authors, John Kander and Fred Ebb capture a mood of Nineties cynicism about the way the world works, or doesn’t. How timely its witty view of the American legal system as ‘just the serious side of showbusiness’, with murder marketed as entertainment. Mooning romantics who like their musicals to trill on the way to happy endings for young lovers will, however, be put out. Kander and Ebb, creators of Cabaret and Kiss Of The Spiderwoman, hark back to a Jazz Age Chicago where love has been taken off the menu, hypocrisy is a girl’s best friend and it’s greed that gets you going places.
The Guardian
Barely have I heard such drum beating as prefaced the opening of Chicago, But, even if it is not the greatest musical ever, it is a highly intelligent, expertly choreographed revival of the 1975 Kander and Ebb show that, in Walter Bobbie’s production, suggests Brecht has finally reached Broadway. The show tells a simple story. Roxie Hart, a humble garage mechanic’s wife, shoots her lover and comes to realise that, in the Chicago of the 1920’s, murder is a passport to celebrity. Finding that fame is fleeting, however, she fakes prison pregnancy, treats her trial as if it were a giant audition and achieves the showbiz acclaim she desires.
