A little theater never hurt...much

Tonight we went with friends to see the Broadway production of "Chicago" at our summer musical fair. We had two stars that were mentionable. One was Lisa Rinna of Days of our L*ves, but better known more recently for her talents on Dancing with the St*rs. She played the lead of Roxy Hart. Meanwhile, Tom Wopat played attorney Billy Flynn. If you don't remember who this is, think of Dukes of Hazard - now think Luke Duke! Still don't know? The dark haired cutie who always sat on the passenger side of the General Lee! Ok - give up? Not John Schneider...the other DUKE. Whew!

It was a disappointment - I must admit. There was no set - instead they had the band up on stage and used props throughout. There was no story-telling and it basically went from one song to the next. If you've seen the movie, then the live theater version is a whopper of a disappointment. Being that I'm married to a theater teacher, we are not movie snobs. We LOVE going to the theater, but the sound quality was really bad, the acting was just ok, and Lisa could not keep up visually with her cast mates. She was not nearly as strong as her Velma Kelley counterpart and anytime they sang or danced together, it was like water and oil. Not to mention she has dark hair and I was looking for the blond ambition Roxy Hart! They did not blend, there was no magic. It was just not a very good show. When Tom Wopat made his grand entrance, the audience gave a half-hearted clap and he said "where is everybody?". I'm thinking that was not in the script. He was just shocked that we didn't give him the intro he felt his character deserved? Evey number they did lacked pizazz like the movie had. There was not enough energy and there was no set, as I mentioned - and hardly any story - so if you had never seen the movie, you were screwed. There is no way you would truly get the story - they skipped over way too much. Mama was a great singer, but she didn't even wear a 20's era costume. She just walked out in a black suit, sang, and never moved an inch from her spot. Same for Amos and his Cellophane performance. Hardly moved at all. Roxy (Lisa) did very little dancing and the singing was not up to par with her costars.

Are you getting the feeling that I was disappointed and so was AB (as were our friends)? We found a great little place for dessert afterwards - so we could certainly say that the company was better than the show, which made the night not such a loss. We had been anticipating this show so much, so I can't tell you how fussy we felt after seeing it and being like "what the heck was that?!?"

Se la vie...