Chicago #1
OPENING: June 3, 1975
CLOSING: August 27th, 1977
Seen: August 1977
LOCATION: 46th Street Theater
When you open up any streaming service, what’s the first option under “TV Series?”
In my household at least, the first thing that will pop up will be cop shows. These TV procedurals have been dominating our screens since episodic TV became a thing. And even before that, murder was a popular topic in the movies. And before that, murder mystery novels were extremely popular.
I think it’s painfully obvious that our society has a fascination with murder.
True crime has been fascinating the masses for as long as there has been media to report it. One of the earliest cases of media frenzied true crime was the 1919 case of Emma Simpson, accused of killing her ex-husband. There was no doubt that she shot him; she did it in open court. The shots did not kill him, an infection in the wounds is what ultimately took his life. But Emma was nonetheless arrested and then later acquitted of murder charges.
Emma’s trial was sensational. First of all, people could not wrap their minds around the idea of a woman who would shoot her husband in open court, despite the fact that he had cheated on her with his sister-in-law and then gaslit her about the whole ordeal. Secondly, she was represented by Clarence Darrow. And lastly, her acquittal led to a media frenzy around other accused female murders – almost none of whom were found guilty.
Two of these women were named Beulah Annan and Belva Gaetner. And they would become the inspiration for two characters named Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly in Maurine Dallas Watkins’s play Chicago.
The story, for those of you who do not know this iconic piece of theater, is the story of Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly. Roxie is a bored housewife who takes up with a furniture salesman, only to shoot him when he breaks off the affair. Velma is a cabaret singer who walks in on her sister getting busy with her husband. Velma claims to “black out”, only to come to her senses and find herself covered in their blood and both dead in front of her. The two meet on “Murderess Row” and they find the limelight together from behind bars.
Gwen Verdon, famously contemptuously married to Bob Fosse, read the play and absolutely fell in love with it. She took it to Fosse and essentially blackmailed him to turn it into a musical for her. When John Kander and Fred Ebb were brought on board, continued a partnership that lasted until Ebb’s death in 2004. It was also decided early on that if were Chicago were to work as a musical, it needed to be satire. The concept of the entire piece, while rooted in fact, was so outlandish that viewers of the 1970’s would have a hard time taking it seriously. Verdon would play Roxie Hart, Chita Rivera would play Velma Kelly, and Jerry Orbach was procured to play sleezy yet successful lawyer Billy Flynn.
But the road to Broadway, despite the killer cast (Pun intended) was not an easy one. Production was almost shut down shortly after rehearsals began when Fosse had a heart attack. Production had to be put on hold while Fosse recovered. To make things more complicated, he was also editing the film Lenny at the same time.
Once Fosse was able to once again focus his energies on Chicago it opened on Broadway on June 3, 1975. But the reaction was not favorable. While the show was designed as a parody to make it more palatable to the audiences of the time, it was as though they did not seem to get it. Clive Barnes hated it, claiming that there was nothing original about it. However, he did seem to be arguing with himself: In the same review, he flipflops between lambasting the production and praising it. Like the average theater goer, I think the Good Brit enjoyed the production but was having an internal struggle with a musical about murder.
In the end, this indecision about how to approach this unusual musical won. The original run of Chicago only survived on Broadway for two years and it was viewed in a negative light. When my dad saw it several weeks before it closed, Ann Reinking was playing Roxie. As Fosse’s girlfriend (You read that right – Fosse’s wife and girlfriend played Roxie in this short run), it could be construed that she got the role because of her significance in his life. However, Reinking was an extremely talented and dedicated dancer. I cannot find anything that says that she would not have gotten the role without Fosse’s help – she had previously taken over for Donna McKechnie in A Chorus Line, so her abilities were in no way questionable – but it does make me wonder: Was Chicago so far down on the Broadway food chain that no one else wanted to attempt it?
It also must be said that this was the second or third time that my dad saw Jerry Orbach on stage and I don’t think it was the last. Orbach was one of those performers that both my dad and my aunt had a deep respect for. He died when I was fifteen and I never got to see him live. This is one of the biggest regrets that I have, but there was nothing I could have done about it, as Orbach stepped off a Broadway stage for the last time eight years before I was born.
But despite the side eye Chicago received in 1975, it had more life to give. It was revived in 1996 by Ann Reinking herself and that revival is now the longest running revival and second overall longest running show in Broadway history. So what does that mean? It means that the world just wasn’t ready for it yet. The production confused audience members of the 70’s, but audience members of the 90’s and beyond loved it.
Timing is everything. Chicago is living proof of that. And true crime? Timeless.
CAST: REPLACEMENT
VELMA KELLY: Lenora Nemetz
ROXIE HART: Ann Reinking
FRED CASELY: Gary Gendell
SERGEANT FOGARTY: Richard Korthaze
AMOS HART: Rex Everhart
LIZ: Carla Farnsworth
ANNIE: Joan Bell
JUNE: Sally Neal
HUNYAK: Candace Tovar
MONA: Debra Lyman
MARTIN HARRISON: Laurent Giroux
MATRON: Georgia Creighton
BILLY FLYNN: Jerry Orbach
MARY SUNSHINE: M. O’Haughney
GO-TO-HELL KITTY: Gina Ramsel
HARRY: Ron Schwinn
AARON: Jeremy Blanton
BAILIFF: David Kottke
COURT CLERK: Ross Miles
DANCE ALTERNATES: Hank Brunjes, Monica TIller
STANDBYS: Candace Tovar (Roxie Hart); Elaine Canvilla (Velma Kelly); Mace Barrett (Billy Flynn); Joan Bell (Matron); J.K. Ryan (Mary Sunshine); and Richard Korthaze (Amos Hart)
Barnes, Clive. “Stage: ‘Chicago,’ Musical Vaudeville”. New York Times, June 4, 1975. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/06/04/archives/stage-chicago-musical-vaudeville.html?searchResultPosition=1
Berg, Caitlin. “The History Behind The Musical ‘Chicago’: How the 1920s Crime and Vaudeville Inspired The Show.” New York Theatre Guide, October 7, 2022. https://www.newyorktheatreguide.com/theatre-news/news/history-behind-musical-chicago-1920s-crime-and-vaudeville
Bordman, Gerald. “American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle.” New York: Oxford University Press, Inc., 1978.
Hite, Robert. “Understanding Kander and Ebb, Composer and Lyricist of ‘Chicago’. The Sunflower, April 19, 2016. https://thesunflower.com/3439/opinion/understanding-kander-and-ebb-composer-and-lyricist-of-chicago/
Internet Broadway Database. “Ann Reinking”. www.ibdb.com Accessed April 2023.
Internet Broadway Database. “Jerry Orbach.” www.ibdb.com Accessed April 2023.
“The Inspiration for Chicago: Two Merry Murderesses.” Broadway in Chicago (Blog). Accessed April 4, 2023. https://www.broadwayinchicago.com/broadway-in-chicago/the-inspiration-for-chicago-two-merry-murderesses/#:~:text=CHICAGO%20the%20Musical%20is%20based,Beulah%20Annan%20and%20Belva%20Gaertner.
Miller, Julie. “Fosse/Verdon: How Bob Fosse’s Near Death Experience Inspired ‘All That Jazz’.” Vanity Fair, May 14, 2019. https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/05/bob-fosse-heart-attack-all-that-jazz-gwen-verdon
Wisdom, Cindy. “Belva Gaetner: The Real Velma Kelly.” Scandals and Sweets, December 31, 2020. https://scandalsandsweets.com/belva-gaertner-the-real-velma-kelly-2/
Wisdom, Cindy. “Emma Simpson.” Scandals and Sweets. Accessed April 4, 2023. https://scandalsandsweets.com/emma-simpson-court-house-murderer/
