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
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