Ensemble of Chicago (Toronto Musical Productions) in rehearsal

Other than the 2002 film, which I barely remember, this community theatre production of Chicago, presented by Toronto Musical Productions, is my first-ever experience of it! Relatively familiar with the numbers and having spent many years considering it not one of my favourites, I have to admit, seeing it staged, I dig it. The John Kander (music) and Fred Ebb (lyrics) musical with a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse, is a giddy satire of American sensationalism in self-aware cabaret form. Aside from the iconic Fosse of it all, the vaudevillian framing device with its Brechtian trappings—the on-stage band playing people off at request, “My exit music, please”—allows everybody to be in on the joke.

And, of course, “everyone loves the big bambooz-a-ler.” Continue Reading