Fiona Sweeney

Douglas Reside

Musical Theatre History

April 10th, 2019

Chicago: the Play, the Movies, the Musicals

The history of the musical Chicago, which started out as a play in the 1920’s exemplifies

the development of humor throughout the 20th century, and provides an example of a brilliant

story that took a long time to be understood by a wide theatre going audience. There is much to

be learned from studying Chicago, how different directors viewed it, and how audiences in

different time periods reacted to the cold and blunt, but thrilling story. In this paper I will explain

the history of Chicago, its many adaptations, how it was received, and why it should be taught in

Musical Theatre History.

Prohibition created a topsy turvy state all throughout America during the 1920’s, but no

city was affected quite as much as Chicago. Chicago was the world's capital of saloon culture

and so when booze was made illegal the city was thrown into an era of bootleggings gangs, turf

wars and crime. Lawyers were being used like salesmen, “salesman of phony innocence”

(Mordden, 38) Juries were made of mainly men and women were often acquitted of their crimes

because they were pitied and seen as weak. At the same time, however, many women found a

new liberation in this era. Some women supported prohibition because typically men were

drinking and this was a way of controlling them. Another cultural aspect of Chicago during this

era was jazz. It was not just music, it was a symbol of rebellion, sex, and sin. Another thing that

started becoming popular in the era of Chicago was wisecrack humor. People made wisecrack to

let off steam and also used it as a political tool. It was also popular and cool to smoke cigarettes.
All of these cultural phenomena (sex, booze, jazz, crime, women’s empowerment, wisecracks

and cigarettes) worked together to inform the first version of Chicago (Mordden).

The first version of Chicago was a play written by Maurine Watkins. She was raised in

Crawfordsville, Indiana by very religious parents. Watkins went to Radcliffe College but took a

course on playwriting with the famous George Pierce Baker at Harvard. When she graduated

from college she moved to Chicago to become a reporter. Typically women in this time period

wrote fluff articles, but Watkins specifically wrote about crime. She chose Chicago because of its

infamous correlation to the Prohibition Era. She looked down upon the media and their twisting

of the truth but chose to work for the newspaper anyway to reach her desired audience. In the

spring of 1924 there was a pair of murders committed by women against men they were having

affairs with. The first woman, Belva Gaertner, was a nightclub singer and she murdered her lover

in a car after he tried to break up with her. Afterwards she claimed she was drunk and he was just

killed, but she had no idea how it happened. This woman became Velma in the play. The second

woman, Beulah Annan was notoriously beautiful and got a lot of attention for it in the

newspapers during her trial. She killed her sweetheart and left him to die slowly on the floor

while she played the Victrola. If she had called the police right away he would have survived,

but she waited over three hours before contacting anyone. Annan was soon to become the

infamous Rozie Hart (Mordden).

After she wrote about these famous killings, Watkins went back to the playwriting

seminar where she wrote a comedy called The Brave Little Woman. Using two popular play

tropes together, the courtroom drama, and the crook play, she created a new, thrilling, and

scandalous narrative. This drama raised many important questions about the power structure of

America. Who holds the true power, the media, the murderers, the readers, or the court? Her play
was picked up by the music box, to be directed by George Abbott, who changed the name of the

play to Chicago. They first hired Jeanne Eagels to play the part of Roxie, but she was fired for

not showing up on time to rehearsals. They hired Francine Larrimore to play Roxie, after seeing

her in a new about Noel Coward. The show opened on December 30th, 1926 and was an

immediate success. They had 172 performances in the Music Box before taking the show to

Chicago itself. Watkins did not try to turn her play into a movie, nor did she go back to

journalism. Chicago was seemingly lost in history as time passed afterwards. Watkins was not

particularly bothered by this because she believed that many people had missed the satire and

irony of her play. Some critics thought that her play was written to praise and acquit these “Jazz

Slayers”. However, the play Chicago was written to call attention to the ludicrousy and

immorality of the prohibition era and its glorification in the media (Mordden).

In the 1920’s movies had just become full 90 minute narratives and Hollywood realized

they were going to need to start using Broadway as a source for stories. Cecil B. DeMille was a

Hollywood director who loved working on farce’s. He was immediately drawn to Chicago and

wanted to direct the film version. In order to direct it though there were a few things he needed to

change. While Watkins saw Roxie surrounded by a world of chaos and immorality waiting to

erupt, DeMille envisioned a decent man, who was married to a cold woman. Amos. He also felt

that he needed to find a way to make Chicago appeal to a wider audience, and the general

populace did not understand satire. Before the movie was made DeMille was kicked out of

Paramount Studios and lost funding however, so the movie ended up being directed by Frank

Urson. However, all of his creative vision stayed intact for the movie. Amos was no longer a

bumbling idiot, but a strong and handsome leading man who stole the money he needed to pay

for Billy Flynn’s services from Billy Flynn himself. In the end Amos kicks Roxie out, and
despairs alone in his apartment. Fred Casely, on the other hand, is a older, portly gentlemen. The

silent film was released on March 4, 1928 and grossed about $200,000 (Mordden).

In 1942 a second movie of Chicago was produced. This time it was directed by William

Wellman, with Ginger Rogers as Roxie. Zanuck did not see Chicago as political/ social

commentary or as a satire but as a romantic comedy. In this version Roxie does not commit a

murder at all, but goes along as guilty to launch her showbiz career. At the end of the movie

Amos confesses to being the one to murder Fred Casely. They also introduce a new reporter

named Homer Howard who is Roxie’s love interest. It was not a musical but their were two

dance solos and one musical number in this movie. At this point in history Chicago was very

different than how it was originally written. Roxie is a different person with Ginger Rogers

portrayal and the movie does not incorporate much about the city of Chicago itself. It even had a

new name: Roxie Hart (Mordden).

By the 1970s, America was ready for the satire and edginess of Chicago and along

stepped the perfect candidate to bring it to life: Bob Fosse. In this time period most of the

popular musicals were being created based on popular plays, such as Oklahoma!, Carousel, My

Fair Lady, Hello Dolly and Mame. Many proposals were flooding to Maurine Watkins, begging

her to let them adapt Chicago into a musical. However, Watkins was very uphappy about the

adaptations of Chicago that had previously been done and rejected all of the proposals. When

Watkins died in 1969 she had known the rights to her show would be sold and put in her will that

they should go to Fosse and Verdon. And so the process began. Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse wrote

the book, John Kander wrote the songs, and Fred Ebb wrote the lyrics for Chicago’s adaption to

a musical. This version of the script was very closely tied to Watkins’s original Chicago play.

There is no love story for Roxie and Fosse plays heavily with the bawdy, sexy feel of the city of
Chicago. One of the other interesting things about Chicago is that the heroine, Roxie, does not

have her “I want” song until about halfway through the show. At this time in theatre Roxie was a

very different kind of lead. She was unlikeable, and guilty and motivated by selfish ambition.

This role was predictably played by Gwen Verdon, and as the part of Velma was fleshed out in

the musical of Chicago, the part was given to Chita Rivera. The musical was written as a sort of

vaudeville performance, and every character was modeled after a performer from the

Vaudevillian stages (Mordden).

Show curtain for the original Broadway production of the musical "Chicago." (New York)

Fosse was obsessive and intense during the entire process of creating Chicago. The final

number was re written completely multiple times. The ensemble was comprised of all of Fosse’s

favorite dancers from his broadway career and yet he treated them like they were incompetent.

Even Verdon had to beg him to make the final number a solo. He gave her the first chorus to

herself and made the rest of the song a duet with Rivera. Then Fosse got sick and hospitalized

during the process. The producers panicked and hired someone else, worried that Fosse would

die. So Hal Prince stepped into the production, which made Fosse feel extremely betrayed.
However, not too long after Fosse returned to the project. Chicago opened on June 3rd, in 1975.

The show got mixed reviews. No one could deny how well it was staged and put together but the

material was unlike anything that was shown on a broadway stage at this time. It was abrasive,

cold and in your face, contrasted to the warmth of A Chorus Line which was also on Broadway at

that time. Gwen Verdon also got sick in the early stages of Chicago’s opening, so Liza Minnelli

stepped in for a short time to help out. She was wonderful for the role, learned it very fast, and as

a very popular actress at the time, the crowd went nuts for her. Chicago ran for 900

performances and was nominated in all possible categories, except for Best Featured Actor and

Actress. However, it did not win any of the awards because A Chorus Line swept the Tony’s.

Then Chicago went on tour, where they softened some of the lines in hopes the show would have

a wider appeal to audiences. For example Roxie’s line “I Gotta Pee” was changed to “I gotta go”.

After it toured for a bit Verdon and Rivera reclaimed their roles and the show went to San

Francisco and Los Angeles with the original script and new choreography. Chicago closed in

1978 (Mordden).

Director/choreographer Bob Fosse rehearsing Liza Minnelli for "Chicago" (New York)
 Chicago saw many productions around the world and around the country, but it wasn’t

ready for its Broadway revival until 1995 during OJ Simpson’s trial. This trial paralleled the

intent of Watkin’s original script perfectly. When Simpson was acquitted during his trial in 1995

the public was wondering how someone guilty could have gotten away with murder, and

questioned the press and media for being a huge influencing factor in this decision. And after so

many years Watkins finally had an audience that understood the irony of her script and the true

intent of her story. Simpson’s acquittal was finalized on October 3, 1995 and Chicago was in the

next Broadway season in 1996. The revival of Chicago opened on November 14th, 1996 at the

Richard Rodgers theatre. It is still open today and is the longest running revival of a musical and

the second longest run of a musical of all time, after Phantom of the Opera. The set up for the

revival of Chicago was different than the first run on Broadway. The set was simpler and the

costumes were sleeker and sexier. Velma has her iconic black bodysuit, the ensemble dressed in

fetish outfits and sheer leggings. While the show was written to be immensely elaborate in the

1975 production a lot of Chicago fans love the adaptation because the story doesn’t need it. “We

don’t need sets or costumes… We have a superior decor: the truth” (Mordden 212).

Then Chicago went back to Hollywood yet again. Now this is where things get tricky.

Musical movies have been making a lot of money in Hollywood and the idea of Chicago the

musical, and not the play, as a movie is certainly very intriguing. But Chicago is a concept

musical that blurs the states of fantasy and realism. How could it be done? They toyed with the

idea of Roxie doing all the visualizing but Roxie’s character doesn’t understand the irony of the

songs such as “All I Care About”. They decided the movie itself would do the visualizing for you

and they ran with that concept through complex cinematography. They dropped five songs from

the original show and created all new choreography. The movie was directed by Bob Marshall
and he casted Renee Zellweger as Roxie and Catherine Zeta Jones as Velma. The character of

Roxie is changed slightly from the Roxie in the musical because of the added justification for the

murder of Fred Casely. Originally they are portrayed as two people who use each other for sex,

and when Fred leaves Roxie murders him in cold blood. In the movie, however, Fred is

manipulating her to get her to have sex with him and even pushes her before she murders him.

While the murder is obviously still not warranted, this changes the set up for Roxie’s character

significantly. The movie was a huge production: costing $45 million to produce and grossing

$307 million and won the Oscar for Best Picture. The movie highly popularized the musical

Chicago and now it is almost common knowledge even for non theatre goers (Mordden).

The musical Chicago has a rich history throughout the 20th century and that is why you

should teach it in class. It was written to call attention to social and political problems in the

1920’s has found its way decade after decade to remain relevant to society. Chicago was ahead

ahead of its time for so long and it is a brilliant success story of how an important story can be

eventually be accepted and truly understood by mainstream culture after almost a century of

attempts. Even though we are no longer dealing with prohibition, the lesson of Chicago has

remained applicable to current political and journalism/ media issues. The other thing that

studying Chicago can teach you is the development and reception of ironic humor and satire

throughout the 20th century. It is hard to image a time when all people didn’t understand

sarcasm, but studying the reception of Chicago can help students understand the development of

comedy from Vaudeville to current day. I believe that you should teach about Chicago as a video

lecture and talk about the significance that Chicago had throughout multiple era’s, and how

differently it was received in each.

Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. "Director/choreographer Bob Fosse

rehearsing Liza Minnelli for "Chicago" (New York)" The New York Public Library Digital

Collections. 1975. [Link]

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Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. "Show curtain for the original

Broadway production of the musical "Chicago." (New York)" The New York Public Library

Digital Collections. [Link]

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Mordden, Ethan. All That Jazz: the Life and Times of the Musical Chicago. Oxford University

Press, 2018.