Touring ‘Chicago’ will satisfy movie fans, but not discriminating palates By CHRIS PAGE
Get Out
Let’s talk about appetite.
The fat little touring production of “Chicago: The Musical,” currently bellying up to Phoenix’s Dodge Theatre, wants to gobble up any crumbs of fans left in the wake of the 2002 movie. No doubt there are a lot of those folks, hungry to see a little theatrical teppanyaki — that is, “Chicago” made before their very eyes.
For them, this show will satisfy that craving fine enough. Though it skimps on costumes and sets, this “Chicago” is peppered with as much goofy comedy as an episode of “Laugh-In,” and features a cookin’ cast of Broadway performers, including “The Dukes of Hazzard’s” Tom Wopat as the greasy lawyer Billy Flynn.
Basically, this bus-and-truck touring production is a theatrical Olive Garden, serving a rather mediocre main course for indiscriminate palates. It’s too bad most of the audience at the Dodge (where the ambiance is too big, too echo-y) hadn’t tried the tasty special at Phoenix Theatre five months ago: an authentically homegrown, intimate dish of “Chicago” that not only looked higher-budget than the touring show but was packed with more flavors than a jalapeño-and-wasabi omelette. That production had a fire in its belly, and its performers, including an amazing Flynn in Dennis Rowland, were eager to serve.
Comparatively, Wopat dishes up his Flynn — normally a scrumptious character of irony and manipulation — surprisingly lukewarm. (Actually, ditching the appetite metaphors, he’s a black hole of anti-charisma that couldn’t be cured even by launching the General Lee over the stage. Yeah, he’s that dull. His singing is OK, though.)
The touring “Chicago’s” only real razzle-dazzler is Bianca Marroquin, who played Roxie Hart on Broadway last year and delivers her here fresh and spunky. As the starry-eyed wannabe starlet doin’ hard time for manslaughter, the deliciously dirty-strawberry-haired and wine-red-lipped Marroquin is one part Gidget, two parts Tabasco, all topped with club soda effervescence.
Bus-and-truck touring shows tend to be like concession stand nachos: gourmet price, cheap taste. So while this “Chicago” is funny, somewhat stylish and very sexy — with its leggy performers decked out in enough fishnet to upset a tuna sandwich in your tummy — just don’t expect to swallow it up and ask for seconds.
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