“Chicago”
landed on the stage at the Broward Performing Arts Center last night
bringing all the ‘razzle dazzle’ that has made it the longest-running
American musical in Broadway history and the third longest running show
on Broadway opening in 1996. From the opening, this musical with lyrics
by Fred Ebb and music by John Kander, originally conceived, directed and
choreographed by Bob Fosse never lets down with all in the cast triple
threats of dancing, singing and acting..

“Chicago”
is based on a true story about two women, Beulah Annan and Belva
Gaertner, the former fatally shooting her lover and the latter her
husband. A reporter, Maurine Dallas Watkins, in 1926, wrote a play about
it. In 1942 a hit movie opened starring Ginger Rogers, now called
“Roxie Hart” with the character based on Annan. In 1975 a full out
musical by Ebb, Kander and Fosse opened on Broadway about Roxie and
Velma, the latter based on Gaertner, presenting, in vaudeville form,
women who became celebrities after getting away with murder going on the
vaudeville circuit  to cash in on their noriotory. In 2003 an Oscar
winning Best Picture was produced. Now, 38 years later, after first
seeing the stage as a musical, it is as relevant to our society as it
has always been.

The
star above the title, John O’Hurley, plays Billy Flynn, the lawyer who
very easily  manipulates the press including the head reporter, called
Mary Sunshine, played by D. Micciche, just as he uses Roxie as a puppet.
Everyone uses someone to get something for themselves whether it is
Roxie (Anne Horak) using her husband Amos (Todd Buonopane) or Velma
(Terra MacLeod) using the prison matron Mama Morton (Carol Woods) or
both women ‘working’ Flynn as he uses them to make the money he loves so
much.

The
score by Kander and Ebb is one of their best with showstoppers like
“All That Jazz” and  “The Cell Block Tango”while Fosse’s choreography,
redone by Ann Reinking, fills the stage with sex, and innuendo, with
many of the cast in costumes, by William Ivey Long, showing a lot of
skin. Buonopane stops the show singing “Mr Cellophane” but it is Anne
Horak, with the thinnest legs I have ever seen on a dancer, and Terra
MacLeod, who razzle dazzle us from the opening “All THat Jazz” to the
last number “Hot Honey Rag”.

“Chicago” is a razzle-dazzle ‘em Broadway musical that works on all levels.

1st act  1 hour and 9 minutes   Intermission 20 minutes    2nd act  55 minutes                    

Next show at the Broward Performing Arts will be “The Book of Mormon”  November 26