When you feel like the world is going to hell in a handbasket, it is strangely reassuring to read or hear a voice from the past complaining about how bad things are. An ancient Greek philosopher grumbling over “the youth of today”. A medieval monk bemoaning the politics of hatred. A 19th century scribe skewering greedy and deceitful leaders.
The long march of history, one hopes, is towards greater liberty for a greater number of people. Yet, viewed in ecological terms, life on this planet has never been quite so precarious. Populist nationalism is on the rise. So there’s comfort in the belief that human societies go through cycles of freedom and tyranny, or slide from peace and prosperity to warfare and want. This too shall pass. We have never had it so good? Inaccurate. Things are worse than ever before? Not quite.
A version of this phenomenon is presented to audiences watching Chicago, the musical celebrating its 50th anniversary, having opened on Broadway in 1975. It is set another 50 years before that, in the era of jazz and prohibition and speakeasies, of mobsters and the Charleston and moral panic.
John Kander and Fred Ebb’s show is based on a play of the same name by Maurine Dallas Watkins, who had been a journalist in the 1920s and covered the trials of women who murdered their husbands or lovers, but were acquitted and became celebrities. These real-life stories bequeathed to us an unforgettable pair: Velma Kelly, the vaudeville killer whose star is on the wane, and Roxie Hart, the upstart dreamer for whom homicide is a prerequisite to fame and fortune.
One of the show’s beautiful, comic-poignant moments is a duet between Velma and Mama Morton, the eminently bribable matron of the women’s block at the Cook County Jail. The two women kvetch about how “nobody’s got no class” anymore. “Whatever happened to fair dealing and pure ethics and nice manners,” they ask. “Why is it everyone now is a pain in the ass?”
Of course, Velma and Mama are singing this not only in prison but also in a glass house — they have played the game just like everyone else, and are in no position to throw stones. The satire here is directed not at these delightfully corrupt and ruthless characters but at those who hanker after a point in the unspecified past when people showed “old values and fine morals and good breeding”.
— There is a philosophical truth in here, somewhere between stoicism and hedonism.
Set against this is Chicago’s brazen, triumphant conclusion: when Roxie loses the limelight to the latest celebrity killer, she and Velma team up to win it back. They know not only how fickle public attention can be but also how “nothing stays”. Life may be “good, grand, great, swell, fine”, but sooner or later it’s all “gonna change”.
There is a philosophical truth in here, somewhere between stoicism and hedonism. If you’re feeling on top, make the most of it, because soon you’ll be back down at the bottom; eat and drink, as it says in the biblical book of Isaiah, for tomorrow we die. Alternatively, if you’re suffering, cheer up: things may be bad but that won’t last. In 50 years, they sing, everything will be different — but also, therefore, kind of the same.
Chicago thus leaps between the 1920s and the 1970s and the 2020s (anachronistically dipping into the 1950s when Roxie and Velma refer to Harry Truman and Ike Eisenhower). The good news for audiences in Johannesburg is that, after an acclaimed run in Cape Town, a new production of the show is coming to “the Chicago of SA” in October. Admittedly, that moniker was given to Sophiatown in the 1950s — which has also been called “the Harlem of SA” — but it does feel like Jozi is an apt home for Chicago the musical.
I’ll be writing more about the production in next week’s column. But if I were you, Joburgers, I’d get my tickets now. As the characters in Chicago could tell us, it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there. And yet: a bit of song and dance makes everything seem better.
‘Chicago’ is at the Teatro at Montecasino from October 3 to November 9.
This article was first published in Business Day.
