Rare, beefy dance is served up with all the trimmings in a dinner-theater version of Chicago that's close to, but more intimate than, what audiences have long been enjoying in New York and London. Especially in the dance, the quality's there in electrifying performances by Charlene Clark and Jillian Godfrey as murderesses who aim to use their notoriety to become stage stars. Presented as a raunchy vaudeville with slinky, black-clad gangsta gals n' guys shaking, slithering and slanting in often-tilted Fosse fashion. Chicago posits that celebrity can cause the scales of justice to weigh scandal lightly.
As lawyer Billy Flynn, motivated by money to "get the girls off," Chris O'Brocto suavely shows how "Razzle Dazzle" works in and out of courtrooms. A major contrast with Roxie's husband, is "Cellophane Man" Amos (properly pathetic Michael Bajjaly). Newspapers' complicity with pumping up the wages of sin is exemplified by sob sister Mary Sunshine, played by C. Thomas with operatic fervor.
Heading corruption in the Cook County jail is the matron who urges being good to "Mother" to get good out of her. Roberta MacDonald (who originates, then will turn over the role to Judith Ann Davies) is able to reconcile greed and some sympathy toward her charges (albeit with a weaker-than-usual voice). Even ailing, however, she holds her own with Clark in a silly duet bemoaning the disappearance of "Class."
Director Robert Turoff skillfully weaves ensemble members into providing support for the principals (particularly the women as prisoners) and narrative bridges (both as choruses and dancers). A standout among the men, Brad Wages sets the show's tone and themes in beginning scenes. At Roxie's trial, a major production, Wages then distinguishes among all the members of jury, ditzy to sleazy. Musicians on stage hold their own in punctuating the episodes in Velma and Roxie's story. Finally, the gals appear energetically singing and dancing "Nowadays" in front of a curtain of strips of gold, shimmering like the show.
