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Jan. 26, 1998
Sensationalized press coverage leads to Broadway hit
A University of Delaware professor examines how media-sensationalized murder trials became the Broadway hit, "Chicago" in a new book by the same name.
Tom Pauly, UD professor of English, traces the history of the Tony Award-winning revival of "Chicago" back to Maurine Watkins, a young Chicago Tribune reporter, who made media darlings of the women on Chicago's Murderess' Row in the 1920s and penned a 1926 Broadway comedy as a result. Pauly's examination of fact becoming fiction and of media manipulation of court cases is included with his reprinting of Watkins' script-- its first reappearance since 1926.
The book also includes the first republication of her newspaper articles--including interviews with the likes of tough-talking Belva Gaertner, a married cabaret singer accused of shooting her lover, who gave Watkins such memorable quotes as "Gin and guns--either one is bad enough, but together they get you in a dickens of a mess," and sweet Beulah Annan whom Watkins called "the prettiest murderess" and who faked a pregnancy to win jury sympathy.
Today, Belva and Beluah are immortalized as the characters Roxie and Velma in the Kandler-Ebb-Fosse musical version of the show.
Pauly didn't start off researching a musical, he started looking at crime and the public's fascination with it.
"I was interested in crime as it got fictionalized in the 1920s. Then, like now, there was an enormous amount of actual crime being conveyed into movies, plays and novels," he said.
Watkins' court reporting and subsequent Broadway comedy was "the perfect story for my research," Pauly said. "Her comedy was a good example of fiction inspired by facts. [The plot] is a reminder that lurid murders were as aggressively commercialized 70 years ago as they are now.
"Roxie's (the lead character) resourceful progression toward acquittal is a rollicking indictment of a news-as-entertainment culture. Much of the humor derives from the fact that everyone prefers Roxie's outrageous fabrications to the hard evidence of her lover's corpse.
"Her transformation from vengeful killer to tabloid saint feeds a voracious public appetite for diversions and earns her celebrity, exoneration and a career in show business.
"'Chicago' is not just a witty portrait of how crimes get converted into personal gain: it is itself an exploitation of actual events."
The play's 1926 success (182 performances) brought conflicting emotions to Watkins, who suppressed the fact that the show had been developed from her newspaper articles.
"[She] worried about how her audience might respond, were it to know how involved she had been in the process she was mocking," Pauly said.
In later years, she is said to have been overcome with guilt for her role in the acquittal of the real-life murders. Although the play was the basis for the 1928 movie "Chicago" and the 1942 film, "Roxie Hart," starring Ginger Rogers, Watkins never again released the rights to the play in her lifetime.
In the 1950s, director and choreographer Bob Fosse became interested in converting Watkins' comedy into a musical. However, it took him almost 20 years to secure the rights, which were not released until after Watkins' death in 1969. Pauly ran into similar frustrations securing the rights for his work as well, and fortunately had a signed a contract for them before the revival ever opened.
Just as his research looks at the power of the press, the professor has had his own unique experiences with the press as a result of his book and the revival's success. He has been surprised to find his relatively obscure academic work being sold in the lobby of the Schubert Theatre where "Chicago" is enjoying an extended run. In addition to Broadway sales, there are plans to sell it in conjunction with the touring company as well. If the revival had been a flop, the book probably would have remained an academic work.
Similarly, theatre critics' rave reviews of the musical helped Pauly get an article he wrote on the show's origins published in The New York Times.
"A week before the musical's opening night a Times editor called to say they were interested in my article but would only run it if the show was a success. If the show was a flop, it would be, 'thanks anyway,'" Pauly explained.
Obviously, the show was hit, the article was published and the next thing Pauly knew Court TV was inviting him to appear on a show to discuss "Chicago," and press coverage of crime. It's been an unexpected flurry of activity for something that began in a rather low-key way.
Many, including Pauly, think the 1975 Fosse production would have been more successful than its 898 performances and be better remembered had it not opened in the same season as "A Chorus Line."
The 1996 revival, netted Tony Awards for stars James Naughton (now replaced with Hinton Battle) and Bebe Neuwirth and director Walter Bobbie, and earned the Tony for Best Revival of a Musical. Ann Reinking, a Fosse protÈgÈ, also starred in the revival and won a Tony for her choreography. (She has since left the show and her part is being played by Marilu Henner.) The production also received a Tony for lighting and is being planned as a possible movie with Madonna and Goldie Hawn mentioned as possible leads.
Meanwhile, tickets to "Chicago" continue to be among the hottest on Broadway.
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For more information on the musical Chicago, see
http://www.rcavictor.com/chicago/index.html For photo of author Tom Pauly see
http://www.english.udel.edu/personnel.html For press release information
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