Reflections: Latest CHICAGO Tour Has Strong Leads in MacLeod, Marroquin

CHICAGO on Broadway's Terra C. MacLeod and Bianca Marroquin are back on the road as the accused celebrity killers and reluctant vaudeville partners Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart, respectively, whose combination delivers equally strong lead performances.

New Orleans, LA (NOLA)-- "The Hot Honey Rag," a vaudeville double act performed by merry murderesses Velma Kelly and Roxie Hart during the finale of John Kander-Fred Ebb-Bob Fosse's smash musical CHICAGO, demands nothing but the two lead actresses' only precise dance movements done in tandem--from the every flicking of their fingers to the fast twisting and turning of their feet.

Casting the right actors to play the figuratively twin roles of Velma and Roxie--similar to that of true-to-life conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton in Bill Russel-Henry Krieger musical "Side Show"--is most crucial: both actresses (think of the original 1975 CHICAGO stars Chita Rivera as ex-starry Cook County Jail inmate, Velma, and fellow internee Gwen Verdon as Chicago Tribune's newfound darling of the press, Roxie) should not only display their triple threat skills, but, more importantly, complement each other well.

This complementary pairing is especially so critical in the nearly bare, black box theater staging of Walter Bobbie-helmed revival of the lukewarmly appraised original Broadway run of CHICAGO, where every deliberately minute stage movement--danced or acted--becomes the focal point of every member of the audience.

Imagine my dismay when veteran actress Charlotte d'Amboise, playing Roxie at 48-years-old, effortlessly seduced the audience, armed with her high-voltage stage presence and still incredibly high kicks, while the much younger actress Nikka Graff Lazarone, playing Velma in her late 20s, was rather too tentative or too cartoony at certain times for my liking, when I first saw the show in 2012--its 16th year on Broadway.

The unevenness in the performances between d'Amboise and Lazarone forthwith affected my viewing pleasure; I left the theatre wanting for a more edgy, biting Velma from Lazarone. (A case of a typical tired Broadway show, whose nth-time replacement castings could have made a dent on the most successful all-American musical, to date? I hope not.)

Thank God for Second Chances

The 16th U.S. Tour of CHICAGO, which premiered and ran for a week (October 7 to 12) at the breathtaking atmospheric theatre in NOLA, the newly reopened Saenger Theatre on Canal Street, gave me a second chance to fully experience the theatrical brilliance in this dark musical comedy--excellent on all fronts; and mesmerizingly still exhilarating after all those years on Broadway, and after all those conspicuous celebrity stunt castings, i.e. Wendy Williams and Sofia Vergara as scheming prison matron Mama Morton, to sustain patronage from New York City's densely tourist market--the biggest single market among long-running titles on Broadway.

Plucking two of Broadway's favorite Velmas and Roxies, Terra C. MacLeod and Bianca Marroquin, respectively, to star in the latest touring company of CHICAGO, which currently plays the Orpheum Theatre in San Francisco, California (November 7 to 16) and will run at The Theatre at Solaire Resort and Casino in Manila, Philippines by the end of the year (December 3 to 21), brings back the equally strong lead performances I have come to expect from the actors filling the shoes of 1996 CHICAGO stars Bebe Neuwirth (Velma) and Ann Reinking (Roxie), who also choreographs this revival production in the style of Fosse.

MacLeod, whose statuesque beauty, which reminds me of another outstanding Velma, Ute Lemper, and potent comedic timing, which MacLeod also made full use of when she played the Lady in the Lake on several occasions in the riotous musical comedy Monty Python's "Spamalot," brings to the fore a slick and sensuous, sometimes neurotic, Velma.

Marroquin's Roxie, whose character's point of view serves as one of the anchors of the show, selflessly accompanies MacLeod's Velma with equally sharpened dance skills and a natural comedic flair, which comes off very unique to hers as she infuses her Latina roots into the character--not even a single trace of Renee Zellweger's 2002 film version of Roxie is found here.

A rather sensitive portrayal of the character, especially towards the end, Marroquin's Roxie's ephipany in the musical number "Nowadays," (It's good, isn't it grand? Isn't it great? Isn't it swell? Isn't it fun? Isn't it? Nowadays), unexpectedly brings tears to my eyes. That is how Marroquin refreshingly interprets that particular song, which most of the time depicted satirically by actresses who played the wannabe vaudevillian.

CHICAGO is a musical adaptation of Chicago Tribune reporter-cum-playwright Maurine Dallas Watkins' 1927 play of the same name. Its story was inspired by the real-life murder trials of acquitted celebrity criminals Beulah Annan, the basis for Roxie, and Belva Gaertner, the basis for Velma.

A tepid production of the musical first ran on Broadway, starring Rivera and Verdon, in 1975. New York City Center Encores! successfully revived intest in CHICAGO in 1996, which paved the way for the musical's return to Broadway, starring Neuwirth and Reinking, on the same year.

Now celebrating its 18th year on Broadway, CHICAGO is poised to claim the title Second Longest-Running Show in Broadway History from Andrew Lloyd Webber's whimsical musical "Cats" on November 23, when CHICAGO plays its 7,486th public performance at Ambassador Theatre on 49th Street.

I urge you to catch MacLeod and Marroquin star in CHICAGO in San Francisco, CA (visit shnsf.com) or in Manila, Philippines (visit ticketworld.com.ph).

You are in for a "grand, great, swell, and fun" time!