CHICAGO: SHOW BIZ IS MURDER

The women are beautiful, the women are sexy, the women have spunk and humour and they can sing and strut and dance. They want to be stars, for a period of their lives they are stars and their desire to remain stars drives their every action. Their personality and talent and sexiness means that we want them to be stars as well, we follow their journies and we root for them

Oh yeh. One more thing.

The women are murderers

This is the world of Chicago, the Tony award winning musical currently running in Toronto at the Princess of Wales Theatre.

This play has been around a long time, it has been to Toronto before, but Collette and I have never before seen it. I did see the screen version many years ago; I enjoyed the movie very much and vowed that if ever returned here, we'd see it

Est voila

Chicago is the story of Roxy Hart and Velma Kelly, two showgirls during Prohibition era Chicago who gain fame not for their gams or their voices, but for the murders that land them in the Cook County jail. Velma is the elder "stateswoman" riding her tabloid fame to an acquittal and vaudeville tour .. both elements highly hopeful. Her reign as Chicago's most darling murderess is spoiled by the arrival of Roxy; younger fresher and with the blood of her lover fresh on her hands

Both women are represented by snake oil salesman (they call him a lawyer) Billy Flynn, who promises to get the women off their charges and on their way to fame. As he sings in his first solo, Billy does everything for love ... love here defined as 5,000 dollars

The play follows the two women in their quest for an innocent verdict and fame .. whichever comes first.

I remember Chicago the movie as being sexy and the stage version definitely does not shy back from that. The dancer's outfits seemed to have been designed by the strip club outlet of Victoria's Secret and the choreography is by Bob Fosse .. don't really need to say anything more

The play is way funnier than I remember the movie being; the film went for more pathos, there is some of that here, particularly in the character of Roxy's cuckoled husband and a Portugese showgirl/prisoner, but mostly the show goes for laughs and it gets them easily.

Bianca Marroquin as Roxy is a revelation; the woman can sing and she can dance but she is also an incredibly gifted physical commediene. Her facial expressions and body gestures are hilarious, she's like Lucille Ball in heels and stockings ... but with a better singing voice.

Equally effective and physically gifted is Terra MacLeod as Velma. She knows how to play to the back of the house, she has legs that go on for a month or two and her timing is impeccable. When the two women perform together you understand what the term "showstopper" means

The real surprise here is Elvis Stojko as Billy Flynn .. yes that Elvis. The figure skating Canadian dude.  His Billy is oily and arrogant, he wears his vintage suits with aplomb and there is an awful lot of strut in his walk. His singing voice is perfectly stage worthy and he uses it with a lot of confidence

C. Newcomer takes the small yet important supporting role of gossip columnist Mary Sunshine and turns it into something .. memorable. Trust me on this. One of the most surprising soprano's you've ever seen

As I noted this a Fosse choreographed show so the dancers are an important part of the production. They play multiple roles, are almost constantly on stage, and provide laughs, vocal support and sex appeal with such aplomb I swear the stage was melting

If the skilled and sexy dancers melt the floor, Carol Woods, as the jail's matron, blows the roof off with the most powerful voice in the cast. She also holds her own quite well in the comedy department.

The two performers who bring a touch of pathos to the show are Thomas Bevan as Roxy's sad sack husband a character so unremarkable he refers to himself as Mr Celophane and Naomi Kakuk as Hunyak, the one showgirl/murderer who does not live long enough to be a star and who's only command of English is the phrase "not guilty" and that, and not enough funds to hire Billy Flynn, does not bring you justice in Chicago

There is some social commentary here, about the pay for play legal system, about fame, about what our culture sees as important but that's all in the background; in the foreground is a hilarious, beautifully danced, well acted musical with a lot of moments and numbers that had the audience belly laughing and  cheering.

Chicago has come to Toronto. And it shows us that in the Carl Sandburg's city of the big shoulders, show biz really is murder