Chicago
MrM and I went to see Chicago last night, and it was fantastic - one of the best musical productions I've seen.
The two leads were very impressive in their different ways: Sharon Millerchip was captivating as Roxie and clearly having a great time hamming it up (and she has a great face for it); Caroline O'Connor as Velma had fantastic comedic timing and spectacular vocal control. And they could both dance as well as sing and act - I think the first time I've seen that on stage: normally the principals do a few steps here and there, but the actual dancing is left to the ensemble, but not this time. And the chorus and swings were really strong, beautiful, fit dancers - it was even a bit frustrating in some of the numbers because I couldn't watch them all at once!
We didn't get to see Gina Reilly's interpretation of Mama Morton, which was a shame - I was looking forward to seeing what she did with a straight role - but her understudy, Caroline Kaspar, was fine, although perhaps a little overshadowed by the rest of the cast (or possibly by my memory of the fantastic performance by Queen Latifah in the movie). The actor who normally plays Amos was away too, and his understudy, Nick Jones, gave a great performance as the weedy husband who fades into the background. And I loved the set, with the musicians dominating the stage and the rest of the cast working around them.
And now it's time to go dancing myself. :-)
The two leads were very impressive in their different ways: Sharon Millerchip was captivating as Roxie and clearly having a great time hamming it up (and she has a great face for it); Caroline O'Connor as Velma had fantastic comedic timing and spectacular vocal control. And they could both dance as well as sing and act - I think the first time I've seen that on stage: normally the principals do a few steps here and there, but the actual dancing is left to the ensemble, but not this time. And the chorus and swings were really strong, beautiful, fit dancers - it was even a bit frustrating in some of the numbers because I couldn't watch them all at once!
We didn't get to see Gina Reilly's interpretation of Mama Morton, which was a shame - I was looking forward to seeing what she did with a straight role - but her understudy, Caroline Kaspar, was fine, although perhaps a little overshadowed by the rest of the cast (or possibly by my memory of the fantastic performance by Queen Latifah in the movie). The actor who normally plays Amos was away too, and his understudy, Nick Jones, gave a great performance as the weedy husband who fades into the background. And I loved the set, with the musicians dominating the stage and the rest of the cast working around them.
And now it's time to go dancing myself. :-)