Jessie Feyen as fake celebrity Roxie Hart shows she knows how to razzle dazzle and simmer in Chicago. Photo / Ben Pryor
Jessie Feyen as fake celebrity Roxie Hart shows she knows how to razzle dazzle and simmer in Chicago. Photo / Ben Pryor
Chicago Act Three Productions Directed by Steve Sayer Musical direction by Lottie Perry Choreography by Tegan Hardy Wallace Development Company Theatre Friday, April 9 Reviewed by Damian Thorne
In a modern theatre world of digital screens and directors who paint by numbers it was my extreme pleasure to witness Steve Sayer's extraordinary vision for Kander, Ebb andFosse's Chicago. The musical we haven't seen in Palmy for more than 26 years finds the right director as Sayer finally harpoons his white whale and delivers a passion project that has to be seen to be believed.
With a design background, Sayer has plonked his Chicago on a gorgeous static set with clean lines and plentiful performance spaces generously allowing his cast to shine with lots of room for the, at times, astonishing goings on.
Tegan Hardy knows her Bob Fosse and there are some moments in her choreography that caused my recently enhanced jaw to drop to the floor with her dancers perfectly executing their routines. Hardy has layered detail on to detail and the ensemble make her moves seem so tidy it's obvious she is a grand teacher indeed.
A cast full of standouts is the best way to describe the performers with even ensemble players shining brightly. Mention must go to the Maskill brothers Zak and Jake, whose interaction in Me and My Baby is comic timing personified – despite their 1935 invented Y fronts and an out-of-era mullet.
We've all read the previews on Alex Hughes, an accountant by day who takes on her first lead in Velma Kelly – the role Catherine Zeta-Jones ran away with a best supporting actress Oscar for in 2002.
Alex Hughes should never step back into a chorus after her performance as Velma Kelly in Act Three Productions' Chicago. Photo / Ben Pryor
Hughes should never step back into a chorus after her performance tonight, even a flat microphone mix didn't prevent her from opening the show strong, giving her character real heart, and high kicking her way to the finale.
Jessie Feyen and I dated back in Little Shop of Horrors – I was the dentist to her Audrey, and she is generous to her fellow performers, meticulous in every detail of her character building, and always easy to watch. Feyen knows how to razzle dazzle, how to simmer, how to vamp – her fake celebrity Roxie Hart is better than Renee Zellweger's who played Roxie in the movie and was also Oscar nominated.
Thank you to Lindsay Yeo's wife. Without her permission to be absent from parenting their three young girls we would have missed the best Billy Flynn ever in the existence of Billy Flynns. Yeo is note perfect, both with his singing and his electrifying personification of the seediest lawyer in town. He glides around avoiding too much choreography (I giggled as we must we have the same agent), but lands his Flynn perfectly in every spotlight he is given, selling me a used car along the way for good measure.
Erica Ward as Mama Morton soars high in the Steve Sayer-directed Chicago. Photo / Ben Pryor
I've mentioned the phenomenal ensemble but these guys are expertly supported by Erica Ward's Mama Morton – soaring as high as Ward's love of aviation; Ben Pryor's beautiful total loser Amos Hart, breaking the hearts the number is designed to with his rendition of Mr Cellophane; and the always reliable Alexia Clark giving us a thrill we didn't know we needed during the later moments of act two.
If I had to grumble it would be that the second act does lumber along under the weight of the plot, and there's some very pedestrian music tracks throughout, but especially during the Vaudeville numbers, that are really entry level and just don't have enough padding.
I'm really clutching at straws as this Chicago, an early look at reality television and fake news, is a joyous thing, eclipsing the near-perfect aforementioned 2002 film version, and giving us theatre at its most ingenious and most inventive. Heck, it has everything, even the word vociferous – which leads me to vociferously implore you to get a ticket and see Chicago immediately.
• INFO Chicago runs until April 24. Tickets can be bought here.
