Review: CHICAGO at Casino De Paris

Chicago has returned to Paris, extending its run through April 26, 2026, back at Casino de Paris where the first French-language production in 2004 came from Canada with lyrics by Laurent Ruquier.  The most polished French production, however, took place at Mogador in 2018 when the late, great Anne Reinking came to Paris in person to oversee for the last time her own Fosse-styled choreographic re-creation, which won her a Tony in 1997 after its highly successful Encores! concert version transferred to Broadway, where it’s still running, reaching over 11,000 performances and holding the record as the longest-running American musical revival in Broadway history. 

Aside from the excellence of the music of John Kander and the lyrics and book by Fred Ebb, along with the overall vision of the master, Bob Fosse, Chicago’s long run owes a lot to stunt casting, which makes total sense, as the show has always been about phony celebrities. The best example of this is Pamela Anderson, who surprised everyone by delivering an excellent performance as Roxie on Broadway in 2022. 

This new Parisian production sought to generate similar buzz around pop star Shy’m (winner of the French version of Dancing with the Stars) as Velma Kelly—a casting choice aimed at boosting visibility. However, after less than two months, Shy’m announced a temporary medical withdrawal, with no return date specified, though she expressed hope for a quick comeback. 

Stepping in is Lisa Lanteri, previously in the ensemble, who brings a solid dance and musical theatre background to the role, making her Velma the best performance of the cast (we don’t how long this interim arrangement will last or if Shy’m will resume before the run ends). Vanessa Cailhol also stands out as Roxie Hart, providing the production's strongest dramatic anchor. With classical training and experience in theatre and dance, she delivers sharp character work, crisp comic timing, and a nuanced blend of vulnerability and ambition. 

Pierre Samuel brings touching resonance very theatrical, almost talked-through, rendition of “Mister Cellophane,” and J. Lebraud nails Mary Sunshine’s comedic irony. Jacques Preiss, on the other hand, falls short of possessing the right charisma for Billy Flynn, while Waku Malanda makes for a weak and not fully convincing Mama Morton, rendering this cast generally inferior to the previous production at Mogador, which also benefitted from some authentic Fosse style thanks to Alex Frei, who was a featured dancer and assistant to Ms. Reinking. 

This latest French staging is professionally mounted and tightly executed, yet it highlights a growing issue with the show: its increasingly rigid structure and static aesthetic often make it feel more like a polished lineup of greatest hits than a fully charged musical. What began as a bold vaudevillian reinterpretation of Maurine Dallas Watkins play, has now become a safe formulaic concert: efficient for long runs because of the low costs (almost no costumes or scenery). Shy’m’s absence only amplifies this, exposing the production—stripped of its marquee draw—as a sequence of expertly crafted numbers rather than a fully integrated musical theater experience. 

Having been lucky enough to witness the Mr. Fosse's original staging on Broadway in 1977 with Reinking stepping into the shoes of Roxie, and again the following year on tour in San Francisco, with the original and unforgettable pair, Gwen Verdon and Chita Rivera, I’m personally longing for a fully staged revival of Chicago, be it a duplicate of the original or not, like the Leicester Curve mounting by Drew McOnie in 2013. 

The biggest flaw of the enduring concert version from Encores! has always been for me the fact that the first act is too expositional, each character presenting their number one after the other, leaving the bulk of the story to the second act, when all of the dark cynicism of celebrity culture and the American justice system finally come to light.  I don’t remember the two acts of the original being so unbalanced, but I do remember how the presence of real sets made the choreography even more minimalist, a deliberate choice by Mr. Fosse to tease the audience with relatively little dancing—even though two of the greatest musical theater dancers were on stage! 

Just like Kander and Ebb’s other masterpiece Cabaret, Chicago is multi-layered work which deserves to be interpreted different ways, with different stagings and visions, as Cabaret has always had (Fosse’s movie version being one of them). No matter how great and entertaining the concert version is, no matter how worthy the success of putting this once almost forgotten masterpiece back on the map after the mixed success of the original production, it should not forever be the only option!  Very often, foreign audiences who first discovered Chicago through the excellent, Oscar-winning film adaptation by Bob Marshall in 2002, are disappointed by stripped-down aspect of some numbers, especially the “Cell Block Tango,” splendidly enhanced on film. That’s why Chicago should join Cabaret—and, since recently, West Side Story and A Chorus Line—as a classic Broadway musical open to reinvention.

Recevez l'actualité de Broadway sur WhatsApp

Recevez les dernières mises à jour, les nouvelles de dernière minute et une couverture exclusive directement dans l’application.