In Chicago, murder, sex and sensationalism sells and the characters are only too happy to provide it.  They love being in the spotlight, but the public eye doesn't care who they are, only the spectacle they can create. So needy characters struggle to one-up each other and be seen.  But even when their hopes are dashed, there is no sentimentality: they don't regret their choices, just having been left behind.  Their self-love is pure, and only spoiled when there is no audience to reflect it back.

The play follows Roxie Hart's notoriety after she murders the furniture salesman she was having an affair with. It continues through a series of staged publicity stunts, where she hires the money-loving lawyer Billie Flynn and battles the infamous Velma Kelly for the spotlight, until her grand courtroom finale, after which she has been one-upped by a mass murderer and made into old news. By the end, it's unclear if she has used the public or if the public has used her.  While she manipulates the eye of the public through her lies ("not that truth really matters"), the public devours the spectacle and then leaves her cold ("it's nothing personal").

The play is littered with effective dramatic metaphors.  The puppetry of a press conference is portrayed by having Flynn actually speak for Roxie, as would a ventriloquist.  The circus act of an execution is portrayed as a high-ladder rope act.  And the showmanship of the courtroom literally becomes a glitzy performance.

Rachel Stanley's interpretation of Velma is much softer and sincere than the cold, hardened Velma presented to us by Catherine Zeta-Jones in the famous film.  She manages to be sexy at times, whilst old and washed-up at others.  She throws her leg over chairs with complete confidence at one moment, and then tries desperately to convince Roxie to let her back into the spotlight, giving the play its highest stakes and dramatic tension.  During one dance that recalls Velma's vaudeville performances, her sensual actions become puppet-like, exposing how simple and manufactured her sexuality is, and parodying the mechanical, puppet-like response from us, her voyeurs.

Roxie looks like a sexed-up Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, and Claire Taylor plays the part with a similar naive innocence.  Like a little child who just wants attention, she is willing to use her cuteness to get it.  There isn't much vindictiveness or irony in her performance, but it is consistent. We watch her pretty face interestedly, but we don't crave it. Though she is sexy, innocent and ambitious, as she should be, she could be more sexy, more innocent and more ambitious. She stumbles upon her notoriety, rather than engaging in a fierce war with it.  She is more Britney Spears than Madonna.

The rest of the characters don't really work. The leads were clearly singers, and the chorus, dancers.    For instance, the essence of Roxie's husband is that he's a nobody - he's cellophane, and people see right through him (as the song goes).  In a world that is obsessed with being seen, we never feel the full tragedy of this anonymity.  Instead, we get a more generic boring, unremarkable husband.

Marti Pellow, the pop star become stage actor, gives a painful performance as the lawyer, Billie Flynn.  His singing is adequate, but his dancing is rigid and his overdrawn, long cackling laughs are not funny and don't cover up his unnuanced portrayal. Billie Flynn is extremely arrogant, but on some level we should like him enough to give him our much sought after attention. Because of this lack of nuance, the actors end up pandering to the audience - with overdrawn cackles, for instance - to get their laughs, rather than having them come from the excesses of their characters.

The opening scene is sexy, with big muscles, lots of curves and slow sensual movements to a snare drum beat, the men every bit as sexy as the women.  By the end, though, Velma and Roxie's big final number is underwhelming and the raw sexual energy has been transformed into mere glitz. The 12-piece jazz band is consistently impressive, taking their own turn in the spotlight for solos after intermission.  But even they take up a huge chunk of the stage, making the choreography feel confined.

With many moments of unintentional irony, the production values of the show mirror the content, with an emphasis on the glam and entertaining over the emotional and gritty.  In a show where there is little distinction between acting a part and acting genuine, we're almost disappointed that the cast comes out of character for their curtain call.  We want them to keep trying to one up each other for our attention - never releasing us from the grip of a reality that refuses to separate itself from performance.

Oliver Morrison, 13.10.04