Chicago––Liza Put-In
Recently a small sliver of musical theater history was unearthed when an audio cassette tape recording labeled “Chicago––Liza Put-In” was discovered and posted on YouTube. Made during the put-in rehearsal for Liza Minnelli when she joined the cast of Chicago, replacing star Gwen Verdon as Roxie Hart, the recording is a rare artifact documenting the focused, concentrated efforts of a small group of brilliantly accomplished theater artists as they labor to provide a seamless transition from one star performer to another in a show that was then on shaky footing.
The 1996 Broadway revival of the John Kander (music)-Fred Ebb (book and lyrics)-Bob Fosse (book and staging) musical is still going strong after nearly thirty years and is now the longest running American musical in Broadway history. But in 1975 Chicago, the jazz age show about two killer-dillers who ride their notoriety to show biz success opened in the shadow of the phenomenon that was A Chorus Line. When star Gwen Verdon withdrew to undergo a medical procedure that would keep her off stage for five weeks, there was genuine concern that the just-opened show would not survive her absence.
Enter Liza Minnelli, the Academy Award-winning star of Fosse’s acclaimed 1972 film Cabaret, and the close friend of Kander and Ebb, whose musical Flora, the Red Menace won Minnelli her first Tony Award when she was 19 years old. The songwriting duo were like big brothers to the star, and had been instrumental in shaping her musical and performing image through custom-tailored songs and special material over the past decade. Her collaborations with Kander, Ebb, and Fosse, including the landmark 1972 TV special Liza with a Z, had in no small part defined Liza Minnelli for audiences around the world.
When the appreciative star heard that Verdon would be absent at a crucial moment in the show’s early life, she immediately volunteered to replace her. Her only stipulation: no advance publicity and no changing of the marquee or Playbill to indicate that Minnelli was replacing Verdon. An announcement before each performance would matter-of-factly state, “At this performance, the role of Roxie Hart, usually played by Gwen Verdon, will be played by Liza Minnelli.”
Of course word of the substitution got out immediately, provoking a box office tsunami that guaranteed Minnelli’s five week run was a sellout. It’s difficult to overstate Minnelli’s show business stature in 1975. She was still basking in her Cabaret/Liza with a Z double whammy, was a top concert draw, and was one of the most written about and––long before social media–– followed celebrities on the planet. She was an international, cross-media sensation far beyond the reaches of Broadway. Liza dropping in on Chicago was like the Beatles stopping off to play an impromptu set at a local bar. Broadway-style pandemonium was the only possible outcome.
What’s most striking about the eighty-six minute recording is the good-natured camaraderie that comes through in what had to be an anxious situation. Minnelli was going on after an intense six-day rehearsal period and this was her first time doing the show with the rest of the cast. There’s laughter and easy joking, but also intense concentration and detailed instructions from the director. For all the characterizations over the years of Fosse as a dark, demanding demigod, here he’s a calm and polite, but in-control, leader. He refers to the male ensemble as “gentlemen” and displays endless patience with his new star. “Sorry to do this to you,” he says as he asks for another try at a number.
Fosse and Minnelli in rehearsal.
The crisp, sharp-edged direction and emphatic comic turns heard here from the entire cast will be a revelation to anyone who has sat through a rushed, over-played performance from the ongoing revival either on Broadway or the road. Verdon’s co-stars, Chita Rivera, as Velma, Roxie’s jailhouse rival, and Jerry Orbach, shyster lawyer to them both, give glimpses of their vivid, funny characterizations. And Fosse’s coaching of Chicago’s vaudeville finale, “Nowadays” and “the second dance” (later known as the “Hot Honey Rag”) is a small master class in his distinctive style (he directs Minnelli to use “teacup hands”) and a reminder of his vaudeville dance influences (“Take it from snake hips,” he says, and later offers instruction on the “mess around”).
Fosse, Minnelli, and Rivera rehearse the “Hot Honey Rag.”
Above and beyond everyone else, there is Liza. Self-deprecating and eager to please, she takes Fosse’s direction like a pro, makes minute corrections instantly, and praises her co-stars. (“Oh, that was so good I forgot the line!” she roars after a Jerry Orbach speech.) When she and Rivera dance the frenzied “Hot Honey Rag,” just before they end with a climactic cartwheel into a split, Rivera encouragingly asks, “You gonna do it?” to which the exhausted star shouts, “Yes!” as they finish to cheers and applause from the cast.
While Verdon was a tough Roxie who understood time was running out to parlay her sensational crimes into a vaudeville career, Minnelli is a waif with a quick temper just beginning to understand all the chances ahead of her. She’s in peak voice on run-throughs of “Me and My Baby,” “Nowadays,” and most thrillingly, “My Own Best Friend,” previously a duet for Verdon and Rivera here repurposed as a Minnelli solo showstopper. The twenty-nine year-old star’s voice is fresh and vital, but burnished with maturity. It’s the full-on Liza! experience: the fluid phrasing, the throbbing vibrato, the slow build to the final belted notes sung as if it’s the last thing she’ll ever sing. Minnelli later recorded “My Own Best Friend,” but this rehearsal take is the spine-tingling ultimate. (There’s a slightly edgy moment when the otherwise good-humored Rivera inquires about how to re-enter after the number she used to be in. “Does it make any difference when––or where––I come from?”)
Liza sings “My Own Best Friend.”
So who cares about a scratchy, sometimes-inaudible, fifty year-old audio recording? There’s already a bootleg sound recording of the full show with Minnelli on YouTube, and there’s even video footage of her and Rivera rehearsing the “Hot Honey Rag.” But this peek into the rudiments of a Broadway rehearsal is a reminder of both the artistry and the sweat equity of singular talents like Minnelli, Fosse, and the entire Chicago crew at a high point of accomplishment. Corny but true: you won’t see––or hear––the likes of them ever again.
Chita and Liza take a bow.