"Start the car, I know a whoopee spot, where the gin is cold and the piano hot, and all that jazz ...."
The whoopee spot this week is the National Theater, where the killer girls of Chicago are taking center stage every night through Sunday and twice a day next weekend.
While the stagebill likes to play up the link between the 1924 murders that form the basis of the story of Chicago and today's celebrity trials and media scrums, the real reason Chicago has been such a hit since it was revived (overhauled, actually) in 1996 was the talent of the three men responsible for the original 1975 show -- John Kander and Fred Ebb, who wrote the great music and lyrics and Bob Fosse, the director and choreographer, whose highly charged and very sexual choreography stays in the audience's minds long after they have left the theater.
PHOTO COURTESY OF KHAM
The revival stripped the fat from the original and paid homage to Fosse's career by incorporating stylistic images from his other hits, including the musicals Sweet Charity, Pippen, Cabaret and the film All That Jazz. Fosse's long-time muse and protegee Ann Reinking did a fabulous job recreating his style in doing the choreography for the revival.
There is just something about Fosse's choreography that makes it hard for the audience to sit still -- you want to be tapping your toes, rolling your shoulders, doing that pelvic hip roll and trying to hold your arms straight out and snapping your fingers. If only you could.
But since most of us can't, we have to be content with watching others, and the dancers in the cast, clad in a variety of minimalist black costumes, do a great job.
Chicago's staging is also minimal, which makes it ideal for a touring show. There's an outsized caricature of a jury box in the center that holds the 13-piece orchestra and musical director, flanked on both sides by a row of chairs where the cast sit when not performing. But that's fine because there's not really that much of a storyline or dialogue except what is needed to string the musical numbers together -- just like a vaudville show.
But from the minute Terra MacLeod, as cabaret-singer-turned-murderess Velma Kelly, starts the opening lines of All That Jazz, she has the audience eating out of the palm of her hand. In a black chemise and slicked-back hair, she is the very image of a Fosse flapper.
Her rival for press attention is the red-headed Tracy Shayne, whose compact body appears barely big enough to contain the energy of chorine and would-be-star Roxy Hart, who is just bursting with desire to become famous.
Her opening number, Funny Honey, is performed from half-way up a ladder on stage right, and it's hard to pay attention to what's happening over on stage left, where her poor husband is attempting to take the blame for killing her lover.
These days, any company performing Chicago faces the tough challenge of competing with the film version that starred Renee Zellweger and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Not only is the tempo of several of the songs slower in the stage production, the smaller cast size and stage restrictions means the big production numbers don't have quite the same eye-popping, over-the-top flash of their film counterparts.
Nevertheless, Cell Block Tango and We Both Reached for the Gun were well-executed, and Razzle-Dazzle did just that, with multi-colored foil confettii floating down over the dancers.
Special kudos go to Kevin Carolan, who plays Roxie's hubby Amos Hart, a sad-sack figure in black cardigan and tie. Carolan makes Amos' solo Mister Cellophane his own, with nothing more than a pair of white gloves for props.
Also full of surprises was R. Bean, who plays the reporter Mary Sunshine, whose first song A Little Bit of Good was one of the songs not used in the film version.
Chicago runs through Sunday, July 17 at the Taipei National Theater at the CKS Memorial Hall. Chinese translations of the song lyrics are provided by light boxes on either side of the stage. Unfortunately, the only remaining tickets are the really expensive ones (NT$3,000 to NT$6,000), but if you have the money, you won't be disappointed. You do, however, have to provide your own gin.
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