The thing that sticks out for me from the only stage production I’ve seen was that the part of Mary Sunshine (the gossip reporter played by Christine Baranski in the movie) was cast as a man, who was revealed to be a man in one of the songs that Billy Flynn sings - so was this part of the original show, or something unique to the one I saw?
Yes, in the original production of Chicago, and traditionally in all stage productions of it, the part of Mary Sunshine is played by a man in drag. Usually in the cast listing only the first initial of the person playing the part is shown, to keep from giving away the “secret” until it is revealed during the performance. I believe there’s another play that does the same thing, but I can’t remember it at the moment.
anyrose, I think I have a CD of The Fantasticks with Jerry Orbach, too. That was one of my wife’s favorite shows; I also have a DVD of the movie that was made of it, with Joel Grey, Barnard Hughes, and Teller (playing Mortimer).
I wasn’t able to re-watch Chicago this time around and don’t at the moment have a whole lot to add to the analysis, but I did want to point out that this was the first musical to win the Academy Award for Best Picture since Oliver! in 1968, and only the third musical to even be nominated for Best Picture since All That Jazz in 1979. (The other two were Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and Moulin Rouge!.)
I don’t have a cite for this, but I remember reading that there were plans for a film version of Chicago in the 1990s but it was abandoned because the studio didn’t think there was a market for musicals.
I’ll introduce a little film class jargon here that might be useful in future discussions. There are two basic types of musicals or musical numbers, “integrated”/“straight” (characters suddenly start singing and dancing on the street or wherever they are) and “unintegrated”/“staged” (characters only sing and dance if they’re performers within the context of the story).
Chicago opens with a staged number, where Velma Kelly is singing and dancing because she’s a professional singer and dancer who is onstage at a nightclub. The other musical numbers in the movie are presented in the style of staged numbers (see “When You’re Good to Mama”, where Queen Latifah is shown onstage, interacting with an audience, and sneaking behind the scenes for a smoke) but are not actually supposed to be “real” performances within the world of the story. I consider these numbers to be examples of a third style of musical number, the fantasy or dream number, but I can see how they’d arguably be straight numbers instead.
I differ from most critics and I believe even the filmmakers in that I don’t think that all of the fantasy numbers in Chicago represent Roxie’s fantasies. I think several work better if they’re the fantasies of other characters, such as Amos with “Mr. Cellophane”, Velma with “I Can’t Do It Alone”, and Mama with “When You’re Good to Mama”.
As you can see in the YouTube clip, immediately after a musical number in which Mama makes it very clear that she believes in “the system called reciprocity”, Roxie attempts to get Mama to do a favor for her for nothing. Did Roxie imagine a number that explained something she didn’t yet understand herself? Maybe the fantasy numbers are supposed to be something Roxie imagined after the fact, but my interpretation of Chicago is that not just Roxie but almost everyone likes to sometimes imagine being a star and expressing themselves on stage. It’s not Roxie but Mama herself who fantasizes about Mama being a glamorous, sexy cabaret performer who’s applauded for explaining her “one hand washes the other” philosophy in song.
I also dislike Zellweger; but she was good for this role. Roxie had limited talent and was over her head. Zellweger portrayed that well (all she had to do was act naturally).
She was preggers during production, so that may have limited her abilities.
Okay, she’s off the hook for the cartwheels, then. Overall, though, I was impressed at her dance skills – I thought she was clearly the best of the four main stars.
Might you be thinking of M.Butterfly?
The movie was horrid.
Yes, I think that’s the one.
Oh, I agree. Even my wife said so. I think we only watched it once. She was particularly annoyed that they had dropped one of her her favorite songs, “It Depends on What You Pay” and replaced it with something called “The Abduction”.
We managed to see a live production of it shortly before she died, which wiped the taste of the movie from our minds.
Anyway, back to Chicago – our current theme is “period and nostalgia” – what did you think of it as an evocation of the 1920s? Did it seem like an actual portrayal of the period to you, or more of commentary that didn’t particularly care about being accurate?
Plus – how would the movie have been different if Mary Sunshine had been played in drag? Would it have been better? worse?
Hate to post questions and run, but I’ve got an appt. – will be back later with my thoughts on this –
Re period: I noticed that when Roxie was being booked, she was measured according to the Bertillon scale: There’s a very short glimpse of Zellweger topless, back to the camera, with her arms spread against a measuring device. Nice touch.
It seems period that Taye Diggs would have played the piano player in the club where Roxie goes for her audition, but I find it highly unlikely that Mama Morton would have been a black woman in the 1920s. Prison matrons were civil servants; would a black woman have gotten the job?
I loved the casting except for Richard Gere, which I am lukewarm about. My husband thought John C. Reilly has too much presence, but was unable to come up with an alternative.
I hadn’t been exposed to Chicago before the movie came out, although I was familiar with some of Fosse’s other stuff. I loved the movie, since it couldn’t suffer in comparison to the stage show for me.
I was pleasantly surprised with Gere’s singing, and tap-dancing. Ditto for Reilly.
I think my favorite numbers are “All that Jazz” and “Cell Block Tango.” I like the ventriloquist scene too… actually it’s hard to pick a favorite.
About a year and a half ago I was visiting NYC and decided to see a Broadway show. I wanted to do Wicked, which I had just read, or Spamalot. Chicago was playing, but I wasn’t planning on seeing it since the movie was so fresh in my mind.
Until I saw the cast. Starring as Billy Flynn… Joey Lawrence! How could I not see that?
He wasn’t bad, but I probably should have held out for Wicked tickets.
IIRC, in the original stage musical the Taye Diggs character served as a sort of narrator (rather like the emcee in Cabaret or, more closely, Everyman in A Man for All Seasons), so you saw a bit more of him than you did in the movie. Also. Mama Morton was also played by a black actress in the original stage musical, but I can’t say how period that would have been.
I wish I could remember who I had seen play the leads in the touring company I saw in the 90s. I know Joel Grey had played Amos in the 1996 Broadway revival, and I have the CD of that show and he really nailed the part.
I’m not sure how well having Mary Sunshine in drag would have worked in the movie. Trying to cast any “name” actor for the part would have been difficult without giving away the secret. In the revival the part was played by D(avid) Sabella, Ernie Sabella’s brother, in what I believe was his only Broadway appearance.
I’ve seen on here before people questioning the plausibility of a black prison matron in 1920s Chicago, but given what we know of Mama’s character I didn’t find it hard to believe. The film doesn’t require the audience to think that it would be common for a black woman to have a cushy civil servant job, only that a particularly shrewd black woman managed to get herself in the position of being owed favors by the right people. And Queen Latifah was great in the role, reason enough to suspend a little disbelief.
I’ve never seen Chicago onstage, but I take it that it’s supposed to be a surprise that Mary Sunshine is played by a man? Even if a relatively unknown actor had been cast in the part, I’d think it would be a lot more difficult to find an actor who could “pass” in close-up on the big screen. If the audience is thinking “Mary Sunshine looks like a drag queen” or “Mary Sunshine sure has a mannish face” then it wouldn’t be all that surprising when she’s revealed to be a man.
Even if it’s not supposed to be a big shock to the audience, I think that’s the sort of thing that works well onstage but is difficult to pull off in a movie. A theater-going audience is going to accept that some of the performers may not be the same age, race, or sex as their characters, but this isn’t how casting is usually handled in movies.
No, the original Mama Morton was Mary McCarty. However, at one point in 2001, during the revival, Mama Morton was played by Jennifer Holiday (of Dreamgirls fame)
eta -
re the period of the piece - I cannot say much for the historucal accuracies, but the costumes and sets were certainly authentic. Well, except for the fantasy costumes in Cell Blck Tango, of course. I especially loved Mama’s dress in When You’re Good to Mama and Roxie’s dress in Roxie.
Ooh, my first “multi-quote” post – neato!
Lamia – I missed your post #23 when you first made it – I’m gonna blame the malfunctioning “view first unread” settings – I go to the end and scroll up when I can’t do “first unread.”
Anyway – helpful post, thanks. I specifically wanted to respond to the following:
That makes a lot of sense, and I agree with you. The “it’s all about Roxie’s fantasy life” explanation doesn’t entirely make sense when you apply it to just about any number that she’s not in. “Mr. Cellophane,” could only be her fantasy if she were capable of a great deal of empathy, whereas she obviously had no empathy at all.
Very cool – I remember that shot but didn’t really think about the significance of that. Thanks for the info.
Agree – I thought about this between posting the question and getting back to the thread. It’s possible to “pass” onstage in a way you just can’t onscreen – there’s both a literal and figurative distance between the actor and the audience in live theater that makes such a masquerade possible.
Agree – gorgeous costumes, slinky and sexy and (as far as I can tell) authentic. Very glamorous.
I liked the admonition to “stay away from jazz and liquor”.
I didn’t catch that either when I first saw it. I think a lot has to do with the white scarf reflecting some of the red lights around it.
Favorite part of that song: “he ran into my knife… he ran into my knife ten times!” followed by the really long red scarf pull. I also loved way “Pop” (the one who fired two warning shots into her husband’s head)- the way she’s always striking matches- just a nice little “pscyho!” touch.
Latifah’s “Just a touch of lesbian” was great also (“ain’t you the pretty one?” and then the man’s tux at the end). When You’re Good to Mama is my favorite number by far. She said in an interview at the time she based it on a Bessie Smith song. Particularly love the green scarf she pulls from her cleavage after stuffing in a dollar. (That’s not a cigarette her character’s smoking backstage, incidentally.)
Does anyone know in which scenes Catherine Zeta Jones was pregnant? One of my favorites of her moments is the casual “on me” signal to her sister’s spotlight in “All that Jazz”. And why is it that she’s a thoroughly selfish double murderer but you still feel sorry for her when you see her ‘holey’ stocking at the end?
Christine Baranski made an interesting comment (and incidentally I totally agree the Mary Sunshine would not have worked on screen): she said that she had trouble getting into character until it dawned on her that in spite of the name her character’s a total cynic who knows damned good and well both girls are guilty and is writing them as victims (well, Roxy anyway) to get readership. Loved her floating dance with Richard Gere in the press conference/ventriloquist number.
Another favorite moment is during the Razzle Dazzle number: “I OBJECT!” “Sustained!” “I hadn’t asked a question…”
I’m still brooding about Richard Gere. I’ve got two problems with him as Billy Flynn:
First, he’s too good-looking. [Full disclosure – though I thought Gere was too much a pretty-boy to be sexy as a young man, once his hair went gray – mwrrr!] I think it would be more effective if Billy Flynn were a little scruffier, more obviously a hustler. Jerry Orbach was about right – he’s not attracting all these female clients because he’s a studmuffin, but because he’s really good at what he does.
Second, he’s not much of a dancer. God bless him for learning a few steps and doing them well, but you can only master so much in your first year of tap. Real speed only starts to come after about a year, and the fancy stuff takes longer than that. Wouldn’t it have been cool if the “Razzle Dazzle” number had involved some seriously flashy tap-dancing?
That said, I’m not sure who I’d put up for the role instead. The combination of dancing with also some singing and acting … and white (looks longingly at Savion Glover) … hmmm.
I love Chicago despite really really disliking the stage musical. It’s a rareity that finds me preferring a filmed version to the original.
Catherine Zeta Jones cemented my girlcrush with this role. Yowsa! And I’m not usually a big fan of Renee Zelwegger, but I think she acquitted herself (ha! pun not intended) admirably. Her voice was a little shaky, but hey, so was Gwen Verdon’s. Of course, Verdon could dance rings around Zelwegger, but Zelwegger’s the stronger actress, and in general I thought her performance won me over. Same for Richard Gere, whom normally I’m not gaga over, but he surprised me. If all my girlcrush points hadn’t been taken by La Catherine, Queen Latifah would’ve gotten those left over. She’s luscious, in looks and vocals. And of course, John C. Reilly was heartbreaking playing the only sympathetic character in the bunch.
The one downside was, as others have said, the quick cuts that took focus away from the dancers. The only people who may have needed this sort of ‘cheat’ were Zelwegger and Gere, but Zelwegger didn’t really benefit from it (her “Roxie” number was one of the few that didn’t cut all over the place) and Gere, according to the director’s commentary, didn’t require it. The style seems to have been counter-intuitive, resulting in people assuming the performers weren’t doing their own dancing. Indeed, the director seemed kinda surprised that audiences had this reaction; his seemingly not realizing how his own style would affect the audience is a bit depressing. This is why it’s a shame that there are so few directors left who know how to shoot choreography anymore.
I’m just relieved Baz Luhrmann didn’t get his manic, sugar-high hands on this, as I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to stomach his cartoony style and my appreciation for this musical would’ve remained stillborn.
IMO Kevin Spacey was born for this role. He sings beautifully, has the perfect ‘charming carny/huckster’ persona, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen him tapdance.
Yeah, he’d be good – and your suggestion reminds me: Christopher Walken is actually a pretty good dancer, as we’ll see in December when we get to Pennies from Heaven. He’d be good too.
Travolta was supposedly the first choice for Billy Flynn, but obligations and salary demands led to Gere.