Bob Fosse Chicago Musical Critique

When we think of musicals, the first thing we think of is ‘Wicked’, or ‘Lion King’, or the “Book or Mormon’. Chicago is a musical which defies all these cutesy stereotypes. It’s a powerful 113 play which is all about corruption, crime, and media manipulation. This dark play, directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse, is the longest running musical on Broadway. Originally opened in 1975, it failed to impressed audiences and it was shut down, after a meagre two-year release. It was reopened on Broadway in 1996, and has been running since. So will this play impress me, or will it make me realise why it failed to impress early audiences? Chicago is about two murderesses trying to manipulate the media, and become famous, in order to escape their sentence. The concept of this high-school production of it was the same as
The only place where it really went high-concept, was the song ‘Razzle Dazzle.’ In this song, when Billy explains to Roxie why she should not be nervous, he explains that she should make a show of the trail, comparing it to a circus. For the song, song, there are trapezes, and you can see people people hanging from it, making it literally into a circus. All the stunts were performed by students and it was quite marvelous to see. The set for Chicago was a unit set. It was a large wooden structure with stairs and podiums and doors. The back wall was completely plain. There were chairs that went on and off for some scenes. THe costumes were innovative. Since this was a high-school version of Chicago, all the clothing were risque, but not too revealing. All the clothes were black, or some dark shade. Most of the clothing fit the color scheme, which was red and black. The lighting was very subtle, but helped accentuate the mood. The wigs on the characters were very realistic and