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“Isn’t It Swell . . . Nowadays?”: The Reception History of Chicago on Stage and Screen

Kennedy, Michael M.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1397735101

Abstract Details

2014, M.M., University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music: Music History.
The musical Chicago represents an anomaly in Broadway history: its 1996 revival far surpassed the modest success of the original 1975 production. Despite the original production’s box-office accomplishments, it received disparaging reviews regarding the cynicism of the work’s content. The musical celebrates the crimes and acquittals of two murderesses, and is based on Maurine Dallas Watkins’s coverage as a Chicago Tribune reporter of two 1924 murder cases, from which she generated a 1926 Broadway play. The 1975 Broadway production of Chicago: A Musical Vaudeville utilized this historical source material to comment on contemporary American society, highlighting parallels between the U.S. justice system and the entertainment industry, which critics and audiences of the post-Watergate era deemed as too cynical. Although Chicago initially achieved a mixed reception, the revival’s producers made few changes to John Kander’s music, Fred Ebb’s lyrics, and Ebb and Bob Fosse’s book, aside from simplifying the title to Chicago: The Musical. This suggests that the musical’s newfound success can be attributed to a societal shift in the perception of its subject matter. With further success from Chicago’s 2002 film adaptation, the originally dark and sardonic material became a smash hit and found itself as mainstream entertainment at the turn of the millennium. The contrast between the revival’s and film adaptation’s rave reviews and the musical’s initial mixed reception has received little scholarly attention. This thesis provides the most thorough account of Chicago’s reception history, which includes a comparison of the critics’ reviews of both Broadway productions in addition to a selection of reviews for its first national tour and 2002 film. An interdisciplinary methodology with criminological and sociological theories demonstrates that Chicago’s growth in popularity has paralleled American society’s changing attitudes towards crime, deviance, and celebrity worship—from reactionary conservatism of the 1970s to narcissistic consumerism of the 1990s, when audiences finally could identify with Chicago’s anti-heroic femmes fatales undermining law and order.
bruce mcclung, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Roger Grodsky (Committee Member)
Jonathan Kregor, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
131 p.
Music
Chicago; reception history; Broadway revival; Bob Fosse; John Kander; Fred Ebb

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Kennedy, M. M. (2014). “Isn’t It Swell . . . Nowadays?”: The Reception History of Chicago on Stage and Screen [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1397735101

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Kennedy, Michael. “Isn’t It Swell . . . Nowadays?”: The Reception History of Chicago on Stage and Screen. 2014. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1397735101.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Kennedy, Michael. "“Isn’t It Swell . . . Nowadays?”: The Reception History of Chicago on Stage and Screen." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1397735101

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1397735101
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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.