“Standby — please hold,” an omnipresent female voice booms throughout Shaikh Rashid Hall on Wednesday night, halting a handful of performers mid-act.
The stage the performers are scattered about seems almost comically small compared to the rest of the venue. It’s dwarfed by the mostly-empty rows of seats that could welcome up to 5,000 people on any given day; looking in from the crowd, you get the feeling that you’re staring through a small window at another world.
Until January 3, this very same hall will be bustling with patrons trying to get to their seats for Chicago: The Musical, the longest-running Broadway revival in history. But during rehearsals on Wednesday, before the opening night, it’s just tabloid! with the cast, crew and an assortment of organisers.
Of course, there’s also the commanding voice that makes demands from somewhere I can’t see: “Please hold.”
One of the actors is in the middle of announcing Roxie’s next number, Funny Honey. He stays in his spot on the floor with his arm thrust in the air, a harsh spotlight shining on him.
“Is that going to be his position?” someone calls from near the stage.
One of about 40 in the show, the actor stays studiously still until the debate over his location is settled, and then, after the go-ahead is given by the booming voice, the show goes on as if never interrupted.
Theme
“It’s a timeless piece,” actress Terra C. MacLeod tells tabloid! of the show, which had its first run in 1975. She’s been playing murderer Velma Kelly on-and-off since 2003. “It’s just come at a time when people can relate to it. I mean, it really is about manipulation of the media, and corruption, with a bit of satire, kind of vaudeville feel to it.”
If you haven’t seen the 2002 movie rendition featuring Renee Zelweger, Catherine Zeta Jones and Richard Gere, here’s the rundown: Velma, who murdered her husband and sister after she caught them in bed together, becomes a vaudeville celebrity for what she’s done. Roxie Hart, an aspiring performer, murders her lover after a spat and follows in Velma’s footsteps of fame, stealing the spotlight. The two women have Billy Flynn in common, a crooked lawyer who claims to play fair and square but distorts the women’s sordid stories into ones that are commercial and glamorous.
Stripped of their signature 1920s glimmering costumes, and swathed in comfy sweaters, tank-tops, yoga pants and shorts instead, the performers have a short amount of rehearsal time to make sure they’re adequately familiarised with this venue. Proper preparations could ensure that little — or nothing — will go wrong during the December 19-January 3 stretch of time that they’re performing the show in Dubai.
Brent Barrett, who plays attorney Flynn and describes his character as “the bad boy that everybody loves”, has been doing the show on-and-off for 15 years. He finds it laughable that some organisers think he can come into the performance without rehearsals.
“Even after three years — like, if I haven’t done the show for three years, and they call me back and I’m gonna [perform in it again] for three or four months — they say, ‘Oh, do you need a rehearsal? Or can you just do the sound check?”
Light-hearted moments
During rehearsals in Dubai, Barrett provides one of the few light-hearted moments onstage. He’s been telling off Roxie’s pushover husband, Amos, when he says: “I spoke to your father myself and you know what he told me?” He pauses, then, laughing candidly as he looks to the rest of the cast, “What did he tell me?” They remind him of his lines, and he quickly slips back into character to deliver them.
For the most part, though, preparations are terse, only stopping every once in a while for a five-minute break, or to rearrange standing cues and spotlights to achieve the sort of precision that has come to be expected of the third longest-running Broadway show.
Roz Ryan, who herself just broke the record for the longest-running lead female in the history of Chicago: The Musical on Broadway as Matron “Mama” Morton, made the necessary calls when she heard the show was coming to Dubai, obsessed with the idea of coming here.
She still gets nervous and excited before shows, she shares; the nerves manifest themselves in one specific manner: the need to go to the rest room.
“It’s not the same thing every night, because the audience is not the same every night. They change the energy,” she says. “Same words, same music, but a different presentation because of them.”
MacLeod, Barrett and Ryan have all been in the UAE before, whether be it in Dubai — Chicago was previously in the city seven years ago — or in the capital city, where the show made a stop in 2007.
Fan response
“It was really fascinating, because we didn’t know how they were gonna receive [the 2006 run in Dubai], but when we were done after the two or three weeks, they wanted another week. They said we could’ve stayed longer,” MacLeod said. “Then, the year later, we went to Abu Dhabi. So, obviously, there’s a demand for [it]. I mean, it’s a Broadway show — it’s a great Broadway show.”
- Chicago: The Musical will run from December 19-January 3 in Dubai at Shaikh Rashid Hall in World Trade Centre. Tickets available at Platinumlist.net beginning at Dh245.
