I visited the show on Sunday the 25th of November. And to be honest, I still doesn't know what my opinion is.. The Mogador Theatre is beautiful, a great old theatre. But as in those old theaters, the sound system is old (read: bad). I've seen the show in 3 different countries so I was really excited about this French version. Just as they do on Broadway and on West End, the casting was ‘marketing’ based. Velma Kelly (Sofia Essaïdi) and Billy (Jean-Luc Guizonne) both lost the talent-show Star Academy almost 10 Years ago. Sofia just isn’t Velma, she misses the sexiness and the acting qualities, and can’t keep up with the choreography. Jean-Luc is not the best actor, but is succeeding as lawyer Billy Flynn thanks to his nice warm voice and charismatic body language. Roxy Hart, starring the Dutch Carien Keizer is a nice surprise, finally someone who’s Roxy can keep up with the original of Ann Reinking. Her Roxie is funny, moving and above all very sincere. She controls the role, songs, choreographies to perfection and is, in my opinion, the salvation of the evening. The level of the ensemble is average, a nice different group of people. I would definitely recommend Chicago, but I would personally wait for Sofia to be replaced by Fanny Fourque (from March).
Faut qu’ça jazz ! D’accord, mais où ? Au théâtre Mogador à Paris et sur…Humanvibes ! www.humanvibes.com/content/interviews-des-artistes-de-chicago-le-musical-faut-quca-jazz?ck=
