Killer moves

Chicago is hot; Reinking's not

by Carolyn Clay

CHICAGO, Book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse. Music by John Kander. Lyrics by Fred Ebb. Directed by Walter Bobbie. Choreography by Ann Reinking in the style of Bob Fosse. Musical direction by Vincent Fanuele. Set design by John Lee Beatty. Costumes by William Ivey Long. Lighting by Ken Billington. Sound by Scott Lehrer. With Ann Reinking, Ruthie Henshall, Adrian Zmed, Bruce Winant, Carol Woods, and J. Roberson. At the Shubert Theatre through May 30.

It's been more like 42nd Street! backstage at Chicago, with scheduled star Sandy Duncan fracturing her foot in rehearsal and needing the length of the Boston run to recover. Instead of firing up the understudy, however, the producers have brought in the much-lauded 1996 revival's Tony-winning choreographer and original star, Ann Reinking, to fill in. It sounded like a good idea. I, doubtless among many others, was excited by the opportunity to see Reinking reprise her turn as killer woman-scorned Roxie Hart. After all, she's to Bob Fosse choreography what Mrs. Patrick Campbell was to Shaw.

But Reinking has spent the better part of the past two years on the other side of the footlights, choreographing various productions of Chicago and both co-directing and choreographing Fosse, the homage to the late choreographer/director that passed through Boston last fall and is currently on Broadway. When the Duncan emergency presented itself, she flew in from the Netherlands, where she was putting Chicago into wooden shoes, to save the day. Alas, the actress/dancer, who's in her 40s, isn't in good enough shape to hold her own in the role that two years ago won her a Tony nomination. It doesn't help that she's playing it in a short, body-obscuring black sweater that wreaks havoc with the show's undulating, hip-jutting choreography and puts too much responsibility on Reinking's limbs and shimmy. I should point out that I saw the renowned performer and Fosse muse in what was only her third performance with the national-touring company that also stars English musical-theater star Ruthie Henshall and Grease vet Adrian Zmed. But at that point, at least, her funny, spirited, yet effortful performance was throwing the pace of the stripped-down, steamed-up revival that was such a sensation when it sizzled through the Colonial Theatre something over a year ago.

That said, the high-concept Chicago remains a terrific show, slinky, seductive, and utterly soulless. When the Kander/Ebb/Fosse work based on Maurine Dallas Watkins's 1926 play first hit Broadway, in 1975, it had the misfortune to go head to head with A Chorus Line. The story of dueling jazz-age murderesses battling for headlines and hoping to turn their notoriety into show-biz careers, Chicago was thought by some to be too cynical for its time. Resurfacing in the age of O.J. and Louise Woodward, the bumping, grinding combination of Brechtian sneer and vaudeville glitz fits right in. Promising to give us "the old razzle-dazzle" in the form of a tale of "murder, greed, corruption, violence, and treachery -- all the things we hold near and dear," the musical proceeds to do so, throwing in the signature Fosse moves that make you suspect the scantily clad dancers are all contortionists on Viagra. Toward the top of Chicago, Henshall's Velma, on her stomach on the stage floor, bends a leg over her back and to the ground in such a way that you'd swear bones had been removed.

Olivier Award winner Henshall played Roxie in the London production of Chicago; as usurped headliner of "the six merry murderesses of Cook County Jail" Velma, she's scheduled to join the Broadway company following the Boston run. Diminutive, tomboyish, and a strong singer, she's a brassy, likably lowbrow Velma who brings sharp moves to "I Can't Do It Alone" and "When Velma Takes the Stand." And her second-act duet with Carol Woods's full-throated Matron `Mama' Morton, "Class" (one of the few moments in the show not filled with movement), is a comic high point.

As ace lawyer and showboating mercenary Billy Flynn, Zmed sings well but is more Frankie Avalon than Johnnie Cochrane. Bruce Winant is aptly unobtrusive as Roxie's put-upon/cheated-upon husband, Amos, whose white-gloved hands come shimmeringly to life for "Mister Cellophane." In the acting department, Reinking's huskily purring Roxie combines ditziness and silky opportunism with a genuinely felt desperation that sometimes seems out of synch with the hardness of the rest of the show.

Vincent Fanuele conducts the hot jazz band that occupies most of the stage, inside a burnished gold frame. And the sinuous cadre of buff guys and endless-legged chorines who play small roles and pull off the derby-wielding, pelvis-pivoting, sexy mechanics of the Fosse-inspired choreography pulses with precision and sass. Really, Reinking's choreography is the star of Chicago -- even if, attempting it here, the suddenly-pulled-into-service dancer seems hoist on her own petard.