When Liza Stepped Into Chicago- Page 3

[SondheimFan5]

Posted: 9/12/11 at 12:24am

There used to be videos with audio only of Liza doing the role during a performance on that site...anyone know what happened to those?? They were gold. Just brilliant. I think it had a lot of the show, I know there was stuff by Jerry and Chita too...

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/25/15 at 10:42am

Bump.

Because sometimes you just have to remember that once upon a time, Liza stepped into Chicago to help out some friends.

[EthelMae]

Posted: 1/25/15 at 12:31pm

It was so long ago but I do remember waiting on line for standing room. Word had gotten out that Liza would replace Gwen. I remembering standing and squatting down to see the onstage orchestra who were situated high above the stage-the 46th Street Theatre has that awful overhang-Mezz hanging low over the Orch section! I remember a notice as you walked into the theatre announcing Liza and an announcement made over the PA system-which was greeted with cheers. I wish I could remember more about the show. The only that sticks is Chita going off on a piece of scenery as Liza went centerstage for I Am My Own Beat Friend! And Chita doing unreal things to a chair in When Velma Takes the Stand!

Posted: 1/25/15 at 4:02pm

After seeing Kander and Ebb's Chicago in 1975, Ethel Merman complained to her friend Rose Marie, "You know what Gwen Verdon says right at the beginning? 'I gotta pee!' Can you imagine that in a musical? Jeez, that ain't Broadway." However, when Merman attended a performance of the Tony-winning Torch Song Trilogy, playwright/star Harvey Fierstein asked what she thought of the show, and has quoted her as responding with, "I thought it was a piece of s***, but the audience laughed and cried, so what the ***k do I know?"

[Robbie2]

Posted: 1/25/15 at 4:34pm

PalJoey, Thank you for sharing this and just look at all the posts that you created!
What a fabulous musical theater history treat.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 1/25/15 at 4:44pm

Merman and AfterEight and MiniAfterEight would have been such good friends.

[madbrian]

Posted: 1/25/15 at 4:47pm

So, since this is BWW awards season, should this bump have been accompanied by, "For Your Consideration".

[Someone in a Tree2]

Posted: 1/25/15 at 4:51pm

Bumping a thread like this is always in order.

The week I saw CHICAGO must have been in the summer or early fall of '75, my first time coming into NYC from college in Massachusetts, expressly to catch some Broadway shows on my own. Monday night was my first view of the long-playing PIPPIN, Saturday matinee was a hard-won orchestra seat to the sold out A CHORUS LINE, and Wednesday night was CHICAGO. I could swear it was Lenora Nemetz and Chita playing Roxie and Velma, but the Playbill is long gone that would have proved it. I remember being in the back of the mezzanine, and moving down to sit on the stairs for most of the show to have a clearer shot of the forestage than my seat had afforded.

Let me tell you, that show was pitch dark, in tone as well as illumination level (apologies to Jules Fisher's lighting). The clothes, the poses, the come-ons from the cast-- were skanky and hypnotic and as nasty as the scenes Fosse would later create for his burlesque strippers in ALL THAT JAZZ. The set was all black plexi and hidden uplights that would pop on from in the deck. Cramped floor space mostly occupied by the bandstand and curved stairs that would track in later. The tension was pulled taut from the first vamp to the last popping flashbulb of the finale. Unforgiving, unpretty, uninterested in flattering the audience one bit (as opposed to the easy-to-love Pippin production around the corner). You were gonna be schooled here, and you might not necessarily enjoy it a whole lot of the time. In a way, I imagine it tried to go where FOLLIES had gone 4 years earlier, and the THREEPENNY OPERA revival at Lincoln Center would successfully achieve a year later, that "quote-unquote Brechtian" musical that wrestles with bitter truths in the guise of popular entertainments.

I was thrilled to see the show even if I didn't love it as a 19-year-old. (What do 19-year-olds know anyway?)

The rehearsal-clothes concert-staged revival that has usurped the meaning of the show CHICAGO for so many younger theatergoers on this board turned a hypnotic and difficult piece of total theater into a glitzy Vegas-y artifact. They don't know what they're missing.





Updated On: 1/25/15 at 04:51 PM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 1/25/15 at 5:50pm

that "quote-unquote Brechtian" musical that wrestles with bitter truths in the guise of popular entertainments

You just said in a 16-word phrase what people like After Eight have been bitching about since Show Boat, Pal Joey and Carousel.

How do we tell those people that there is room for BOTH musicals that wrestle with bitter truths AND popular entertainments?

At any rate, Liza showed up for her friends. And that's what it's all about, isn't it?

[MichelleCraig]

Posted: 3/28/17 at 8:55pm

Wow. It was so great to somehow stumble on this thread tonight. I never saw Liza in CHICAGO; first saw her on Broadway in THE ACT, a sub-par show with a few good numbers and Liza giving it her all...and then some. I only wish I could've seen her in CHICAGO...when it wasn't a Vegas-like tourist attraction. Oh, hell...I loved the revival, too!

[broadwaybabywannabe2]

Posted: 8/8/18 at 4:25pm

Liza was staying at my hotel when i was a Concierge while filming ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT...and i was able to talk with her one night and told her i was lucky enough to have seen her do CHICAGO...she thanked me for telling her that...it was thrilling to talk with her about CHICAGO...she did correct me too as i mentioned GWEN VERDON being out 10 weeks and she said it was only 5 weeks...but still what a thrill to talk with the Legend~!
 

Updated On: 8/9/18 at 04:25 PM

[BuddyStarr]

Posted: 8/9/18 at 8:21am

Interesting, watching those videos....Ann Hathaway could easily do Liza in a biopic but they would have to film it sooner rather than later.  She would have made a great Liza when she was younger.

[Joseph B.2]

Posted: 10/5/19 at 8:29pm

Regarding Me and My Baby.  First when I saw the show pre-Broadway in Philadelphia, Gwen Verdon was out, Lenora Nemetz was in.  The number was not the cakewalk.  It was the six chorus guys backing Roxie in diapers as "Babies" dancing in the background and crying.  I have an audio recording of this performance.  By the time the show got to Broadway, Fosse changed the choreography to the cakewalk.  However, when Liza substituted for Gwen, the Diaper choreography was back in.  I have a recording of her performance (audio) as well and you can hear the babies crying in the background.  I may be wrong but I don't think so as I recall the switch back and I have the recording.  Maybe if Tony Stevens reads this, he can confirm as he did the steps for Fosse. I think the cakewalk would have been too much choreography to learn so quickly for Liza.  Not sure the reason.

[Jarethan]

Posted: 10/5/19 at 10:48pm

God, this brings back memories.  I saw Chicago when it first opened, and liked - didn't love -- it.  I remember thinking that the first act was too long.  When I read that Liza was going to be in it, I got tickets immediately, which meant that I saw the show twice in a very short period, which was a lot for me at the time (ticket prices had to be paid twice and there were other shows to see).  

I loved it the second time --  I suspect that I had probably managed to get the album, and was more familiar with the score the second time.  Liza  was terrific, although clearly not the dancer that Verdon was.  I  remember thInking that Liza was very game, and sorta came across as one of those heroines her mother played who was going to  'put on a show' with Mickey Rooney.  1000 Watt desire to please. . By the time, the original production closed, I had seen with Verdon,  Minelli, and Reinking.  IMO, all three were excellent, but Verdon was just special.  I also remember thinking that Reinking sounded exactly like Verdon when she sang.  I don't remember seeing her in anyt other subsequent (she had left the revival before I saw it for the first time), so I don't know whether she was imitating Verdon or just happened have the same voice.

Of course, I have never seen anyone who I thought was as good as Bebe Neuwirth was as Velma.

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 10/6/19 at 9:59am

" Interesting observations, Gaveston2. Thanks for sharing them. I've always heard that it was too "dark," usually listed as a reason for a tepid but respectable first run, but not that the message was heavy-handed and over-served. "

I always wondered why the revival was so much popular than the original and will be like "Phantom" and run forever -lol.

[magictodo123]

Posted: 10/6/19 at 12:18pm

This was an incredible thread to read. Thank you to everyone for sharing what is was like to be in that audience! 

[devonian.t]

Posted: 10/6/19 at 5:31pm

A classic thread about classic Broadway- with some classic posters!

[inception]

Posted: 10/6/19 at 7:08pm

Does anyone know what happened to Pal Joey? It looks like his last post was in December 2018

[g.d.e.l.g.i.]

Posted: 10/7/19 at 4:26pm

I'm in sporadic touch on Facebook, as one is with many friendly acquaintances; without elaborating in a way that some might consider invasive, right now he and his husband are making the most of PJ's retirement and busy living their best lives now. I'm sure he still lurks from time to time, so he may even chime in himself, who knows?