Chicago Sizzles At LTA

(Monday) March 1, 2010

By Carla Branch
alexandrianews.org

Andy Izquierdo (Billy Flynn) and Ensemble. (Photo: Shane Canfield)

On Saturday night, Chicago opened at the Little Theater of Alexandria and demonstrated community theater at its best.

In 1926, Maurine Dallas Watkins wrote a play about two Chicago murder trials. Bob Fosse’s musical adaptation of that play opened on Broadway in 1975 and set those murder trials to the music that is so familiar and that LTA delivered so well. The music must be sold as much as sung and Jordan Hougham as Roxie Hart, Bethany Blakey as Velma Kelly and Andy Izquierdo as Billy Flynn did just that.

Chicago’s Merry Murderesses featuring Bethany Blakey as Velma Kelly. (Photo: Shane Canfield)

Roxie and Velma are murdering flappers who admit to killing their lover/husbands because Roxie’s lover was about to walk out on her and Velma’s husband was “doing the nasty” with her sister, who she killed as well. For $5000 each, the femme fatales place their lives in the hands of sleazy attorney Billy Flynn. From the opening bars of “All that Jazz” to their final number together, Hougham and Blakey are convincing opportunists who want to be stars. Izquierdo’s rendition of Flynn’s courtroom antics is impossible to risk and too believable.

Choreographer Amy Carson clearly understood the talents of her lead actors and supporting cast and did not ask more of them than they were capable of giving. The result was a fun, easy-to-watch show that made one forget it was community theater. The 12-piece orchestra performed the ragtime score with enthusiasm and skill and provided an admirable accompaniment to the vocal numbers.

Jordan Hougham (Roxie Hart). (Photo: Shane Canfield)

Chicago is the best show I have seen at LTA in the past year and well wroth the price of a ticket. The show runs through March 20.

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