"Chicago" gets close and personal at the Robin Dawn Dance Academy in Cape Coral

Musical composer John Kander is on everyone’s mind lately. The 96-year old recently teamed up with Lin-Manuel Miranda for a new broadway Blockbuster, New York, New York. And Season 2 of Schmigadoon takes place in Schmicago, a fictional world where theater geeks revel in parodies of the dark, sultry musicals of the 70s and 80s such as "Pippin," "Sweeney Todd," and of course, "Chicago."

It is against this backdrop that Gypsy Playhouse at Robin Dawn Dance Academy in the Cape is producing "Chicago."

While the music of Kander and Ebb is reason enough to attend one of Gypsy’s four performances of the show, what differentiates this production from the movie and every other live performance of the musical that you may have seen is the setting.

Lauren Miller, who portrays Matron Mama Morton, says that Gypsy Playhouse’s cozy black box theater will allow audiences to enjoy "Chicago" in a way just not possible in a normal theater or on the silver screen.

“This show is much more intimate, up close. We’re practically in your laps, and you’ll enjoy this, I think, in such a different way if you have seen the show before because of that,” said Miller.

To borrow a line from Mama, the black box setting creates a high degree of reciprocity between the actors and the audience.

“Chicago is written as a cabaret-style show - as if the actors and characters are speaking directly to the audience and as if they’re playing in a cabaret in the 1920s, and going back and forth between their private lives and the cabaret,” said Eileen Little, who plays headliner Roxie Hart.

Even people in the back row will be close enough look into the actors’ eyes, smell their perfume, see the sweat glistening on their bare flesh. Parrish Danesh thinks this proximity will enable the audience to appreciate his character, lawyer Billy Flynn, in a much more profound way.

“He is con man, a showman and everything like that,” said Danesh. “And I think we can convey that so much better when we’re right there interacting with the audience. And then they can see my facial expressions. They can see the gestures. They can see how I’m interacting with my cast mates in those scenes and things like that. And how he manipulates each and every character into what he wants as the end game, which is getting these lovely ladies off. Not guilty, right? Not Guilty. All I care about is love.”

By having the characters speak directly to the audience, all productions of "Chicago" break the proverbial fourth wall that separates the actors from the audience. But by fixing audience members with knowing stares and menacing glares, and incorporating the audience into the action unfolding just inches away, the performers in this production convert the audience from bystanders into confederates – insiders who relate to them in a much more personal and sympathetic manner.

Nowhere is this more evident than with Velma Kelly. In most productions, Velma is portrayed as cold, calculating and completely jaded.

Paola Cifuentes, who stars in the role, thinks her character is misunderstood.

“Velma is in a way misperceived. I think she became hard in jail because of what she lived through," said Cifuentes. "I mean, if you think about it, she was going on tour with her sister and her husband, and, you know, she caught them in an infidelity … But going to jail led her to become more cold, and have to fight through this and I think the audience will perceive that.”

Roxie also gets a bad rep in most other productions. In this one, the audience will see her more as a damaged child who is trying to compensate for the love she didn’t get growing up with the love she hopes to one day receive from adoring fans.

For Eileen Little, the song “Roxie” is the key to understanding what motivates her character.

“She still feels like a kid and that the song really showcases that child-like and play-like quality of her and just how whimsical she can be believing that she’s the star of everyone’s world,” said Little.

Gypsy Playhouse’s black box intimacy, combined with these humanized characterizations of Roxie and Velma and every other character in the show, is guaranteed to Razzle Dazzle audiences. Performances are April 28 through 30 at Robin Dawn Dance Academy in Cape Coral.

FAST FACTS:

• ‘Chicago’ opens for 4 shows only on April 28 at Gypsy Playhouse
• ‘Chicago’ play dates, times and ticket information
• Meet Gypsy Playhouse’s ‘Chicago’ merry murderesses
• When it premiered, Chicago gained notoriety for breaking the previously-sacrosanct theatrical fourth wall (in which actors pretend for the sake of the story that they cannot see or hear the audience). The characters in Chicago take turns talking directly to the audience, even blowing kisses.
• The six-time Emmy winner is the longest still-running American musical in Broadway history. In fact, only the just-closed Phantom of the Opera had a longer run.
• When it opened, the musical featured the choreography of the legendary Bob Fosse. While Robin Dawn Ryan gives a nod to Fosse, she provides her own unique style of choreography for this production. “She caters to the people she has in her cast,” notes singer/dancer Paola Cifuentes (who plays Velma Kelly). “You do see some Fosse hints to the dances that she choreographed, but it is mainly built to our cast and our group of people … which makes it stronger, with more people dancing in unison, flowing with the music and the song.”
• This production also features a number, “When Velma Takes the Stand,” that Paola Cifuentes (Velma Kelly) choreographed with Parrish Danesh (Billy Flynn). Cifuentes and Danesh also choreographed numbers in The Addams Family Musical (as Morticia and Gomez) and Rocky Horror (as Janet and Brad), both for Fort Myers Theatre.
• Attendees will also enjoy a number of Kander and Ebb songs that were not included in the 2002 film starring Renee Zellweger as Roxie Hart, Catherine Zeta Jones as Velma Kelly and Richard Gere as Billy Flynn – such as the delightful duet between Velma and Mama,  “Class,” Roxie’s “Me and My Baby,” and “When Velma Takes the Stand.”
• The musical is based on true, headline-grabbing murders and their corresponding trials which took place in Chicago in the 1920s.

To read more stories about the arts in Southwest Florida visit Tom Hall's website: SWFL Art in the News.

Spotlight on the Arts for WGCU is funded in part by Naomi Bloom, Jay & Toshiko Tompkins, and Julie & Phil Wade.