Review: A CHORUS LINE At The Phoenix Theatre Company

Guest Contributor David Appleford again graces the pages of BroadwayWorld with his keen observations and knowledge of theatre history in the following review of The Phoenix Theatre Company's production of A CHORUS LINE, directed by Jeff Whiting and featuring "a standout ensemble of performers."

Here now - From the keyboard of David Appleford:

At rise of curtain, the bare stage of a Broadway Theater becomes the single, solitary, set of The Phoenix Theatre Company's dynamic and ultimately exhilarating new production of the 1975 musical A CHORUS LINE, now playing at the Company's Mainstage until May 14.

The time is mid-seventies. There's a dancer's open audition for an upcoming, nameless Broadway production soon to begin rehearsals. On this particular day, the show's director, known simply as Zach (Rob Watson) is looking for something specific: out of all the dancers assembled before him, all he needs is four boys and four girls for the chorus. That's it. No star turns, no one looking to enhance their career, and no individual stand-outs. Zach wants dancers who blend. He wants a small ensemble with the ability to perform and move as one. He wants a chorus line.

Among the many awards the original production garnered when it first opened on Broadway - it won nine of its twelve Tony Award nominations - audiences tend to forget that it also won both the New York Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Play of the Season and the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, awards you would not ordinarily associate with a song and dance musical. While almost universally praised by critics, the bare, open stage was a surprise for some audience members expecting to see Broadway standard set designs and a lot of that show-biz, sparkling, razzle-dazzle throughout. And worse, for those who tune out character conversation but would rather concentrate on nothing other than the music and choreographed twirls, for some, A CHORUS LINE was often mistakenly considered a plot-free musical.

That showbiz dazzle finally comes, but that's at the end. Before we even glimpse costumes that glitter, the line-up of auditioning dancers will reluctantly but ultimately reveal to the director stories about themselves, their influences, and what their future might be as if they were on a psychiatrist's couch, not a Broadway stage. They may be auditioning for the chorus, but the director wants to know them as individuals, if only for a few minutes.

It's at that moment that each dancer steps forward and becomes the focus of the conversation, something that will temporarily separate them from blending into a chorus until their spotlight moment is over and Zach tells them to step back and take their place in the line once again. Knowing exactly where these character monologues originated - taped workshop sessions from Broadway dancers - helps enhance the appreciation of the musical's drama. It also explains why writers James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante won a Pulitzer.

Like the characters in the show, those who auditioned for this Phoenix Theatre Company production have to possess the same qualities and abilities their fictional counterparts possess. They perform their art with nothing but their bodies. Yet, for these Phoenix Theatre Company performers, dancing is only one thing; they also need to sing and act and do it well for the show to work. The Phoenix Theatre Company's production has assembled a standout ensemble of performers who, like the characters they're portraying, project their individual qualities as actors when called upon to answer Zach's probing, often personal questions, but can fall back and blend once again with the others when required to sing and dance as one.

It's a large cast. There are twenty-four performers, with five more listed as swings waiting in the wings to take over at a moment's notice. Like any live theatrical production where each performer has their up-front moment yet rarely leave the stage, it would seem unfair to mention some without mentioning them all, yet this cast works with each other as a whole in the true spirit of being a member of the chorus that is one of the major strengths behind director Jeff Whiting's Phoenix Theatre Company production.

By default - it's the way the book is written - out-of-work dancer, Cassie (Sarah Wiechman) in her breezy signature red dress, tends to have that extra, longer moment in front of everyone else. Plus, her demanding solo song and dance, The Music and The Mirror, can't help but become one of the show's highlights, even though what she's trying to prove is that Cassie is just a member of the line. "I'm not a star," she declares with a sense of desperation, fearing that she won't be cast, "I'm a dancer!" Curiously, the original design of Cassie's fantasy sequence with the mirrors had the character accompanied by four male dancers on the tryouts, but it was cut just before the show's Broadway opening and remains as we see it on the Phoenix mainstage, an inspiring solo performance.

However, what really makes this Phoenix Theatre Company production work as well as it does is how it adheres to the original. Unlike several musicals that can often benefit from fresh revivals and new presentations, A CHORUS LINE is not a show to update. It needs to remain in the mid-seventies, otherwise, it doesn't make sense, a mistake that helped the 1985 movie version fail spectacularly.

The excellent, live, ten-piece orchestra, led by its musical director Dr. Randi Rudolph, avoids the movie trap of changing some arrangements to reflect disco and keeps to the original sound of Marvin Hamlisch's best theatrical score. Lauran Stanis is credited as choreographer, but the staging is wisely based on the original, timeless Michael Bennett choreography. Adriana Diaz is the show's costume designer, and while the performers are essentially in their plain rehearsal clothes, Diaz doesn't veer far from how that original lineup on the show's famous poster appeared.

But the real period telling is the moment when the dancers group and discuss their fears of what the future might hold and the difficulty of finding work, any work, on the Great White Way. When Connie (an endearing Justine Horihata Rappaport) states, "They're not doing big musicals like they used to," she's making an accurate statement. Back in Broadway's early history, it wasn't unusual for more than two hundred plus new shows to open in a season. In 1974, when those Michael Bennett workshops were in place, only eighty-four new shows opened, with fifty-four of them closing within two months. When Richie (Michael Charles) states, "There's no work anymore," at the time of the show's opening at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway in 1976, that was truly the case. Making that statement today in the age of Andrew Lloyd Webber spectacles and the continuous array of large-scale juke-box musicals either currently running or on a national tour, Connie and Richie's heartfelt fears simply wouldn't make sense.

Plus, the central core of what A CHORUS LINE is truly about remains clear with this Phoenix Theatre Company production, something that, again, was completely lost in the film, particularly when the show's power anthem for all dancers, What I did For Love, became in the movie a wistful flashback of a love affair gone wrong between Cassie and Zach.

Often, the show is referred to as a piece about young dancers trying to break into the business. It's not. For one thing, most of these auditioning dancers are experienced pros who fear they may soon be too old to ever be cast. A CHORUS LINE is about the sacrifice a performer makes in order not to stand out so that he or she can work selflessly as a team.

Audience members unfamiliar with the show may leave two hours later having felt they had come to know and made friends with a group of talented individuals whose company they would gladly seek again. Those who know A CHORUS LINE should leave thrilled. It's not just a handsome production; to date it's the standout of the current season.

The Phoenix Theatre Company ~ 1825 N Central Ave, Phoenix, AZ ~ https://phoenixtheatre.com/ ~ 602-254-2151

Photo credit to Billy Hardiman ~ Photo 1 ~ Full cast; Photo 2 ~ Sarah Wiechman

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