Question re: CHICAGO Me And My Baby

[morosco]

Posted: 9/28/18 at 9:51pm

Watch this. Holy sh*t! Do all the actresses who play Velma get spun off the stage that quickly when they're on the ladder?!?! It doesn't event look real.

Me And My Baby

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 9/28/18 at 9:58pm

To be quite honest, I really haven't noticed all that much how fast Velma is spun around.  It's a treat for those people who are seeing it for the first time.  

[reed23]

Posted: 9/29/18 at 10:16am

Can't say I'm wild about how broad and silly the opening is between those two; and, like the rest of the show, the tempo of the song/dance is wildly faster than when it opened in 1996.

By the way, here is Ann Reinking performing the original dance which Gwen Verdon (and two of the men) performed on Broadway. There was a previous version, an Eddie Cantor baggy-trouser number with Gwen and all the men (photos exist); Fosse replaced that with the version below in previews. I suspect it was to lighten Verdon's singing load (too bad, because the lyrics are funny – which you can't really tell at the current Broadway tempo.) But the new dance was quintessential Verdon/Fosse. It's fun to hear Peter Howard's original dance music, and the original orchestration of it, which didn't make it onto the cast album. You can hear, when the scoring gets quieter, where the dialogue occurred. Get a load of the audience response, during and after. Ann Reinking replaced Verdon in early 1977 and played Roxie until the show closed in late August after nearly 1000 performances. 

Ann Reinking Dances "Me And My Baby" from the original CHICAGO

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 9/29/18 at 10:27am

Here is Gwen Verdon performing “Roxie” in the original 1975 Broadway production of CHICAGO:



 

[reed23]

Posted: 9/29/18 at 10:53am

And here's the original "Me And My Baby" number during the out-of-town try-outs.

[everythingtaboo]

Posted: 9/29/18 at 11:38am

To answer the original question, as many times as I've seen it I can tell you it's not that quick all the time. Sometimes it's so slow the joke dies. *cough AFW cough*