‘Chicago’ ready to jazz up Manila

Pop.

Six.

Squish.

Uh uh.

Cicero.

Lipschitz.

Now you can add to that list:

Manila.

Yes, Manila will join the “Cell Block Tango” on Dec. 3, when the Philippines gets to experience the Broadway production of the longest running musical in history: Chicago.

They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what happens in Chicago travels the whole wide world. The Tony-winning musical has clocked in over 7,000 performances in 24 countries (surpassing Cats), and as we found out, its story is as fresh and relevant as when the Bob Fosse musical opened in 1975.

Part of the freshness is in the casting, and the Manila run at Solaire will do without “stunt casting” — the industry term for juicy roles played by celebrities — focusing instead on a troupe of veterans and fresh dancers who keep the musical crackling from its opening number to the toe-tapping ending. (And if you have only seen the movie version, you owe it to yourself to experience Chicago onstage.)

We caught the show on its premiere night at New Orleans’ respected Saenger Theatre, and had a chance to talk with cast members and technicians about what makes Chicago continue to kick out the jams, over 7,000 performances later. Here’s the scoop.

Walk into New Orleans’ 1920s-era Saenger Theatre, and you feel history all around you. The city is the birthplace of jazz, after all, and Chicago — with music by John Kander and Fred Ebb — draws its energy from that early Dixieland sound, fed by trumpets, trombones, tubas, banjos. Watch Terra MacLeod take the stage as Velma Kelly during the opening number, and you’re drawn into a world that’s half Cabaret, half tribute to the jazz era. Terra brings a strong physicality to her Velma — her ballet and dance roots show — and it’s the kind of role she’s grown into over a decade onstage. “I see more of her humor, less of the dark,” she says about her character’s singing and dancing murderess. “The dark is there, you don’t have to pound it; you murdered someone, it’s there. But now I see there’s layers to her. Maybe my sixth year or so, I started seeing the humor and lightness, maybe because in my own personal life I was able to laugh things off more.”

In Chicago, Velma Kelly is the reigning queen of the cellblock whose diva status is usurped by new arrival Roxie Hart. Terra originated the role in her native Montreal, where she performed Velma’s classic lines in French. (“The fluidity of the French language is different… Like when Velma walks away from Billy, who’s just rejected her trial defense, she turns and says, ‘May I have my exit music, please?’ In French it says, ‘Je vous laisse, mais pas sans mon trombone.’  — ‘Yes, I’ll leave, but not without my trombone.’ I love that line in French, it’s so powerful. It’s like, I’m going to leave, but not without my music!”)

For those weaned on the Rob Marshall hit movie from 2002, the first thing you notice about this Chicago is that Velma’s the blonde, and Roxie’s the brunette. And though she dominates the stage with movement, for Terra, a bigger challenge is sometimes doing nothing. “Sometimes the hardest thing to do onstage is just to be still, to just take a moment and let the audience identify with your stillness,” she says. “That’s apparent with Velma when Roxie rejects her and says, ‘Nothing personal.’ And the direction is to look at her and look at the audience and say, ‘Nothing’s personal.’ And it’s so raw! And for a second, there’s that vulnerability; onstage, all these people are looking at you, and you’re doing nothing. That can be difficult.”

Though Velma’s character is hard as nails, Terra’s grounded in real life by her family, her “support system”; the idea of celebrity — as celebrated in the play — doesn’t appeal to her. “I never wanted to be famous. I’d be a horrible famous person, because I’m shyer than people think. With 3,000 in the audience, I can do anything; but one person in the audience I know, I get nervous. It’s so weird!”

Bianca Marroquin is without a doubt the most comical, most vulnerable Roxie Hart we’ve seen. She has a mischievous grin that lights up the stage, and in person, she’s like a string of firecrackers that never stops. She’s been jetting around the last few months, between Mexico (her birthplace), New York, California, the Philippines, and now New Orleans for the tour’s opening here.

Ensconced in the Saenger’s dressing room area, she barely stays still, mentioning her recent lightning-quick visit to Manila to promote Chicago (“I was on the flight longer than I was in Manila”) and talking about how her killer character, Roxie Hart, manages to win over the audience. “The very tricky part of Roxie is that you see her kill somebody in the first five minutes,” notes Bianca. “Then you have to get the audience on your side. And it’s complex. But I’ve learned that the only way you can do this is be honest; you tell them, ‘Look, I have a dream like you have a dream; I love Amos, but I can’t go against my nature.’ So the more honest you are with them, the more effective the character will be, and more delicious in the end.”

Ms. Marroquin has had an amazing journey — from childhood on the Mexico-Texas border, learning English in the US while landing roles in the Spanish version of Chicago in Mexico City. This led Broadway to come calling, and over the course of 13 years, she’s gained insight into her character’s limitations, and how these tie in to the show’s theme — about the thirst for instant celebrity. “Look, Roxie’s not a talented woman. That’s why she hasn’t made it; Velma’s made it. But Roxie’s smart: she’s hungry, she manipulates the press, she steals Velma’s lawyer and lies in court, and she gets away with it in the end.”

There are still numbers in the show that get to her, every night. “The show is so important to me. Every time I sing I Am My Own Best Friend, it says a lot to me. Every night I sing it, I’m reminding myself to keep fighting, things about life and rules, and there’s no one else that will help you, you’re on your own, you have to do it yourself. That song is an important reminder.”

Also Nowadays, with its chorus refrain, “You can like the life you’re living, you can live the life you like.” (“All the obstacles that come your way, it tells you to keep standing strong.”)

Bianca couldn’t make her Roxie connect with so many if the audience didn’t see a little of themselves in her performance. “I’m sure there’s a part of Roxie in every single person sitting out there,” she says. “I’m sure that they can relate with her at some point.”
Truth is, Bianca loves the audience, and they love her, and she loves them for loving her. But fans of Chicago already knew that.

One of the amazing things about Bob Fosse’s Chicago is how, when it first premiered in 1975, critics were indifferent; audiences, too, were turned off by a cynical musical about corruption and killers. Now it seems as prophetic and modern day as the latest reality TV show or celebrity murder trial. My, how things have changed. Or have they? Fosse’s musical was based on a 1926 play by Maurine Dallas Watkins, a police reporter who was captivated by the real tales of women on death row. With shows like Orange is the New Black now making prison life “chic” for TV viewers, it’s amazing how well Chicago’s unvarnished take on prison stands up, especially in showstopping numbers like Cell Block Tango.

Choreographer David Bushman explains how things come full circle: “One thing we believe is that 1975 might not have been the time for the show to resonate,” he says. “When the revival came around in 1996, not only the film, but the things going on in our culture at the time were a mirror to the show.”

Ah, yes. There was OJ Simpson standing trial, for instance. Tabloid TV shows had begun to proliferate, offering paparazzi views of Hollywood celebrities. And a little demon called reality television was just being born.

One of the things Chicago refuses to do is judge its characters. The ladies exist in a self-contained jail world where they admit their crimes, yet say “they had it coming.”

“I think even when an actor portrays a mass murderer, that actor cannot judge that character,” says Bushman. “If we’re going to believe them, they can’t judge. With the play, the characters are who they are, and the story happens off of it; our job, as actors, directors, is there is no judgment; our job is to depict that world.”

Well, Roxie and Velma do have a second act, I point out.

“Yes, they do!” agrees Bushman, “and they thank the American public for supporting them through their horrible ordeal!”

Part of the genius of Bob Fosse is to transform a cellblock into a vaudeville stage, and vice versa. This makes the stage stark and riveting, and also easy to move the production around the world. The musical evolved from a series of vignettes — songs and short skits that tell the story — something that drew on Fosse’s background in burlesque theater. “So instead of going into full-scale sets for each scene, we could create a jail in that burlesque space. The fact that (original choreographer) Ann Reinking went there in the revival is a tribute, in that sense, to Bob and vaudeville in its purest form. The emphasis was not on production values, but on these bare-bones vaudeville acts that are based on really great writing and comedy and storytelling.”

Sleight of hand, too, plays a part in Fosse’s storytelling.

“There’s an essential quality of making you look where we want you to look,” adds Bushman. “It’s the purity of that distilling of movement that’s so captivating in his work… With Fosse, there’s always at least three things going on at once, and often they seem like they’re in conflict with each other. So the dancers are managing something happening musically, and moving against it, or with it, depending on the moment, and telling a story which can be much more subtle underneath.”

He draws parallels to hip-hop, and the dance moves of Michael Jackson. Kids today even look to Cell Block Tango as an inspiration for countless YouTube tributes.

Says lighting director Scott Lehrer, the 2002 movie simply pushed things into overdrive: when it came out, everybody — even teens — wanted to see Chicago on Broadway. “The movie was a big success with teenage girls! All of a sudden there were teenage girls doing Cell Block Tango, which is a little weird to me!” he says. “All of a sudden families coming to New York, the kids are saying, ‘We want to see Chicago.’ And it’s not a kids’ play!”

No, not exactly. It’s a play for the ages.

* * *

Chicago, produced in Manila by Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, David Atkins Enterprises and Concertus Manila, is coming to Solaire Resort and Casino new Lyric Theatre from Dec. 3 to 21. Visit wwwChicagoTheMusical.com for more information. Tickets are on sale through TicketWorld. Call 891-9999 or visit www.ticketworld.com.ph.