An Old Friend, ‘Chicago,’ Plops into Our Laps

Touring versions of long-standing Broadway musical hits present peculiar dilemmas and rewards for audiences. Conversely, new audiences present both opportunities and pitfalls for artists on the tour.

The main pitfall: the touring productions are not like the originals. The main opportunity: the touring productions are not like the originals.

This is by way of attending to the evaluation and experience of the latest incarnation of “Chicago” — the Kander and Ebb musical that is in some ways the late Bob Fosse’s most characteristic show — which continues through the weekend at the Kennedy Center Opera House.

Lots of female stars have played the two anti-heroines of the show, Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, including Bebe Neuwirth, Melanie Griffith, Brooke Shields and sundry pop stars. Renée Zellweger won an Oscar in the 2002 movie version as Roxie, playing alongside Catharine Zeta-Jones, with Richard Gere as Billy Flynn, the flim-flamboyant, razzle-dazzle lawyer.

This production has the pop star Brandy Norwood as Roxie Hart, and she — a former teen star and then major vocalist — brings something new to the proceedings. Her distinctly pop style and sound, tremulous, vibrating, note-holding and all, may not quite fit the brassy Broadway style of the show, but it makes you sit up and listen and carries with it both originality and emotional effect.

A hoofer she’s not. She approaches things with casual moves that don’t call attention to themselves, which makes her both partner and foil for Terra C. MacLeod, who’s all strutting, aggressive and lithe, a short-haired tigress seeking the spotlight like a heat missile.

What’s startling about this production (in a good and refreshing way) is how “Chicago” plops into our laps like an old friend. It takes place in the rip-roaring 1920s. This is a show about the jazz age, about scammers, gamers, about showtime and showbiz and celebrity, when sensational murders splashed on the front pages of tabloids like blood splattered in the city of Chicago, where Al Capone wasn’t just a mobster but a star.

In the age of reality shows, true-crime shows and, yes, dare we say, where the tweet has replaced the tabloid headline as news, “Chicago” is right at home. We live in loud times and “Chicago” is nothing if not loud and overblown.

The great thing about “Chicago” is that the show’s biggest star remains Bob Fosse, who exited the world in classic style right here in Washington, lo, these many years ago. Walking to the National Theatre with ex-wife Gwen Verdon to see a revival of his “Sweet Charity,” Fosse suffered a heart attack, collapsed and later died at George Washington University Hospital.

Fosse put his personality and stamp on showbiz because he understood it better than anybody. He came out of vaudeville, circus and carny life, and was himself a dancer before coming to the fore and taking his place as a chronicler of life as show business supreme. “Chicago,” “Sweet Charity,” the films “Cabaret,” “All That Jazz” (in which Roy Scheider played a Fosse-like character who has a heart attack) and “Lenny” were all testaments to the grit but also to the grand grime and fakery that was showbiz at its best and worst.

The touring production of “Chicago” retains that flavor and often sounds like an echo of our screen worlds, live in the aisles. In addition to Brandy and MacLeod, it features a brassy Roz Ryan as Matron Morton, a strutting Brent Barrett as Billy Flynn (a performer who can hold a note longer than anyone) and Paul Vogt as Amos Hart, Roxie’s pathetic husband, as well as a character named Go to Hell Kitty.

Fosse may be gone, but his thumbprint remains on “Chicago” — and on our times, as well. It should be noted that the opening-night audience, as befitting attendees at a circus, roared.