Review: Arizona Broadway Theatre Presents CHICAGO ~ A Class Act!

Whatever happened to fair dealing? And pure ethics and nice manners?
Why is it everyone now is a pain in the ass?
Whatever happened to class?

When Mama Morton, a prison matron, and Velma Kelly, one of her felonious wards, lament on the state of ragtime affairs, they may be channeling a concern that is as relevant today as it was in the turbulent jazz age of the '20's. But there's also irony in the question as the two are finely tuned manipulators in their own right.

Their characters fit within our media-influenced imagination of that exuberant era, rife with bootleggers and flappers populating smoke-filled speakeasies.

It's fair to say that we'll not see their like again. There never was nor will there ever be a time in American life exactly like America's heyday before the Great Depression.

However, if there is a theater piece that best evokes the rhythm and texture of the era and infuses it with captivating themes of murder and deceit, CHICAGO fits the bill.

The power and appeal of the celebrated musical is on display at Arizona Broadway Theatre in a production that sizzles with pizzazz and features vibrant and scintillating performances by Tiffany Sparks as Velma and Liz Fallon as Roxie Hart, two murderers who, with the crafty counsel of Billy Flynn (the debonair and well-voiced Kiel Klaphake), manipulate the press and the court to win acquittals.

Cast and crew have been waiting eighteen months to bring this show to life and now, at last, they have let the sparks fly.

Kudos to director/choreographer Kurtis Overby for capturing the energy and tensions of the story and creating a full, energetic, and well-rounded staging of the show. Likewise, to Michael Ursua and his nine-piece band for their brassy jazzy accompaniment.

Liz Fallon is superb as Roxie, a vibrant song-and-dance presence, bringing vitality and flair to her role and capturing the duality of a character so self-absorbed, ambitious, and needy that she'll do anything for a step up from a dead-end life. Violating her husband's trust. Knocking off a two-timing lover. Concocting a lie about the shooting. Feigning pregnancy to finagle a verdict of not guilty. (A fawning press and a feckless one-man jury, played by to the hilt by Danny Durr, work to her favor.) Anything to grab the headlines and to see her name in lights. Here's a shooting star you just gotta love!

Tiffany Sparks lives up to her surname, embodying her role as Velma with just the right mix of sass and vulnerability. The street-wise, high-kicking, aspiring vaudevillian aims not to be undone and supplanted by her fellow inmate's rising popularity. She will do what she can to get the billing she deserves, come Roxie or high water. From her opening All That Jazz to the closing Nowadays with Roxie, Sparks is a magnetic on-stage presence. You just gotta love her, too!

Robust and defining performances from Kiani Nelson as Mama Morton (When You're Good To Mama) and Andy Meyers as Roxie's cuckolded husband (Mister Cellophane) are savory toppings on an already sweetened cake of casting.

Touches of elegance imbue Cassandra Klaphake's stunning costumes and Nate Bertone's lavish bordello-red set design. (CK deserves an extra plaudit for casting this production with a sterling array of talent and versatility.)

The ensemble deserves a very special shoutout. From the sexy and evocative routine in Cell Block Tango to the flash of Razzle Dazzle, these song-and-dancers give it their all and grace the stage with energy and agility.

Beyond its entertainment value, CHICAGO can be seen as a metaphor of American life, a mirror of our culture ~ a tale of the 20's scribed in the '70's and forecasting a condition that, decades and multiple performances later, remains unabated. It is dark satire, dressed in razzmatazz, of the hypocrisy in a system that glorifies corruption, manipulates the media and the courts, and makes celebrities out of criminals. Albeit the star murderesses of this fiction celebrate their life of abandon and infidelity and proclaim that "In 50 years or so, it's gonna change you know," it hasn't and it apparently won't.

Mind you, this is not the glamorous world that F. Scott Fitzgerald depicted in The Great Gatsby. In 1925, his generation of writers wondered, just as Mama and Velma do, if America had lost its moral compass. The novel, in its own way, is ultimately a portrayal of the darker side of the times and a pointed criticism of the corruption and immorality that lurked beneath the glitz and glamour.

Coincidentally, just a year after the publication of Fitzgerald's classic, Maurine Dallas Watkins, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, wrote a play about the women in the Cook County Jail and the crimes they committed ~ among them, Beulah Annan and Belva Gaertner, both accused and acquitted of murdering their lovers, and the true-life inspirations for Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly. Entitled CHICAGO, the work inspired later adaptations, the most celebrated being the eponymous Tony Award winner, written by Bob Fosse and Fred Ebb (with John Kander and Ebb's music and lyrics).

So, back to the question, Whatever happened to class? Well, look no further than Arizona Broadway Theatre's production of CHICAGO and the magnetic performances of Sparks, Fallon, Klaphake and cast for all that class!

CHICAGO runs through October 30th.

Photo credit to ABT

Arizona Broadway Theatre ~ https://azbroadway.org/ ~ 623-776-8400 ~ 7701 W Paradise Lane, Peoria AZ

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