MORE ON CHICAGO THEN AND NOW By Peter Filichia
When we left Roxie Hart last Tuesday, she was singing “My Own Best Friend” – all by herself.
Yes, John Kander and Fred Ebb originally conceived their song as a solo for the woman that Fred Casely wished he’d never met.
Only as time went on did Velma Kelly, an equally guilty murderer, join the number – probably after Chita Rivera was engaged to star in the 1975 production with Gwen Verdon.
That Roxie was originally scheduled to sing the first-act closer alone was revealed in Bob Fosse and Ebb’s August 3, 1973 script of CHICAGO. This was 22 months to the day before the show hit Broadway. Last Tuesday, I examined the changes and similarities between that iteration’s Act One and the Act One that we now all know and love.
Well, seven days sure makes for a long enough intermission, so let’s return to Act Two of that early script and see what we can see.
It started as it does now with “I Know a Girl,” Velma’s song about Roxie’s unstoppable luck.
(Although considering Roxie’s brainstorm to proclaim herself pregnant, we must admit that the sneaky lass made her own luck.)
Some of Velma’s lyrics differ: “I know a girl – a girl with so much gall – she could knock her head against a red brick wall, and sooner or later, the wall would fall, and not even dent her hat… but this is a girl like that.”
Wonder if Ebb was dissatisfied with the word “red”? Granted, bricks come in various shades, but we can justifiably infer that he used that color simply to fill that pesky extra syllable.
Roxie’s “Me and My Baby” originally had a verse: “I had a secret folks were talking about. I had a secret, but the secret is out. And now that it’s out, I’m happy to spread the wonderful word, ‘cause I want you to know that a perfectly marvelous thing occurred.”
Interesting that Ebb returned to the phrase “perfectly marvelous” which he’d used in his first Tony-winning hit. In case you can’t quite place it, may I direct you to any of CABARET’s cast albums?
In “Me and My Baby,” Ebb originally had Roxie sing, “Baby’s rough and full of stuff and incidentally, so am I.” Hmmm, have you ever heard a baby described as “rough”? A toddler in “The Terrible Twos,” yes, but a baby? That may be why Ebb picked up his pencil once again.
“Mister Cellophane” is word-for-word the song we know, but “When Velma Takes the Stand” is only sketched out; the title is the only “lyric” shown. What are in place, though, are Velma’s speeches, including the one in which she reveals that when testifying, she’ll “cry – buckets!”
“Razzle Dazzle” offers an intriguing difference. The lyric we know as “Throw ‘em a fake and a finagle, they’ll never know you’re just a bagel” was originally reversed, albeit not word-for-word: “What if, at heart, you’re just a bagel? Throw ‘em a fake and a finagle.”
Which is better? Let’s call it a toss-up.
“Class” – which is funny because Velma and Mama Morton complain about the lack of it without realizing that they’re utterly devoid of it, too – was originally and paradoxically a little more genteel. “Now ev’ry crude little crud is impossibly crass” gave way to the reference to flatulence.
And although “Jesus Christ, ain’t there no decency left?” was already written, at this point it was just a stand-alone line that didn’t include the line that rhymes with “theft.”
(To be fair, this could have been an omission made by a typist who had overlooked it.)
Next came a reprise of “Razzle Dazzle,” this time sung by Mary Sunshine. You may be assuming that she warbles it just before Billy reveals her as a man in drag, but that’s not what Fosse and Ebb originally planned. A character who’s simply been called “Beautiful Girl” (and what does that remind you of?) is the one that Billy reveals as a female impersonator.
So, Mary Sunshine was originally to be played by a genuine woman – just as she would be when Christine Baranski portrayed her in the Oscar-winning CHICAGO movie.
You know that after Billy calls for his exit music (“All I Care about Is Love”) and gets it, Amos calls for his and is greeted by silence. It’s a nifty way to establish that the entire world regards him as a nonentity. However, in this script, that excellent joke isn’t yet there. The orchestra actually plays “Mister Cellophane” as he leaves the stage.
The 1973 script shows that “Nowadays” is yet to be written; instead, co-stars Roxie and Velma sing “It.” The lyrics read a bit mundanely: “We wanna get ‘It.’ Please give us some ‘It.’ The girls without ‘It’ just might as well quit.”
Ebb inevitably references the silent film star who was known as “The ‘It’ Girl.” Hence, “That feminine ‘It’ creates quite a stir. Just take Clara Bow. What girl wouldn’t go trade places with her?”
Less than inspired, isn’t it?
The final song is one whose melody you have literally known since you heard the first notes of CHICAGO’s Overture. It was the final song that Roxie and Velma were to sing: “Loopin’ the Loop,” referencing the 35-block part of Chicago that, some say, got its name from the cable cars that once circled the area.
Whatever the truth, if you’re familiar with the Overture, you can sing along:
“There’s a new step that’s moving around Chicago
From ev’ry speak to ev’ry Kiwanis group.
Even your maiden aunt’s
Learnin’ a brand new dance:
Loopin’ the loop, loopin’ the loop, loopin’ the loop.”
And while we’re detailing changes, how about the biggest one that CHICAGO has made? We’re talking about the first musical to be nominated for nine Tonys and lose them all. A CHORUS LINE won in most categories, but PACIFIC OVERTURES and even the revival of MY FAIR LADY did their part to see CHICAGO skunked.
But ho-ho-ho, who’s got the last laugh now? This is no small feat, given that Broadway revivals, no matter how heralded, tend to have shorter runs than the original productions did. This is even more surprising when one considers that when most of these musicals first debuted, there were far fewer tourists to support them. When the 1992 revival of GUYS AND DOLLS opened to one rave after another, it seemed sure to surpass the original’s 1,200 performances that the show had racked up 42 years earlier. But it fell shy by 57 showings.
The irony is that John Kander and Fred Ebb not only provided an exception to the seemingly irrefutable rule with CHICAGO, but they also did it with CABARET. Its 1998 revival ran more than twice as long as the 1966 original: 2,377 performances to 1,165.
But CHICAGO has done more than four-and-half times better. In January it will eclipse its original 936-performance 1975 run by 25 years – a full quarter-century. What’s more, if CHICAGO runs 17 more weeks from this December 10th date, it will have outrun the original A CHORUS LINE by 5,000 performances and counting.
And don’t you think it will?
Peter Filichia can be heard most weeks of the year on www.broadwayradio.com. His new day-by-day wall calendar – A SHOW TUNE FOR TODAY – 366 Songs to Brighten Your Year – is now available for pre-order on Amazon.
