Now back for a much-trailed revival at Sadler’s Wells, A Chorus Line was the show that changed musicals forever when it opened off Broadway in 1975. It worked against all the odds. There was no big number before the interval because there was no interval. Until the very end, there was no really big number at all, not if you’re thinking costumes, sets, props – and that’s exactly what people were thinking at the time. But, most of all, it was thought it had to be a no-hoper because it had no stars. And stars were the main factor that drew people to the theatre.
How wrong they were. Not only did it win nine of the 12 Tony awards for which it was nominated, it also won a Pullitzer Prize for drama – a feat for a musical about as rare as hen’s teeth. Its creator, Michael Bennett, based it on a series of interviews with regular hoofers – the dancers who make up the chorus line of musical shows. Maybe “interviews” would be too formal a description of these late-night, post-show sessions where Bennett provided food and wine and got the dancers to talk about themselves, their histories and why they became dancers. And that, in essence, is the show.
There are times when you feel its age – 50 years ago attitudes were very different. It’s hard to imagine now the agonising not uncommon at the time about owning being gay or, in these days of RuPaul, the shame when one dancer’s parents see him dressed as a woman in a drag club. There are the young girls, beguiled by ballet who want to be ballerinas (the haunting “At the Ballet”) but have the wrong style or the wrong body – one is too short, another (Chloe Saunders is a magnificent Val) goes for “enhancements” of her assets in the number “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three”.
This is, though, a show with one great number after another in Marvin Hamlisch’s fabulous score. Right from the start, “I Hope I Get it” sets the tone revealing the pressure, even desperation, of the audition. The brutality of that process is made very clear at the end of the show when half the cast steps forward to be told they haven’t got it by Zach (Adam Cooper as the highly manipulative director). As his one time lover Cassie, Carly Mercedes Dyer uses every note of her number “The Music and the Mirror” to try to explain to him why, even if he thinks she’s star material, she wants to get back in that chorus line. It’s even more explicit in “What I did for Love” – the love the dancers have for just, well, dancing.
Chorus Line is such an ensemble piece, though, it seems wrong to pick out individual performers – and this is quite a company with each and every one of them at the top of their game. Other than a few mirrors, the generous Sadler’s Wells stage is pretty bare and, until the big finale, everyone is dressed in rehearsal clothes – albeit brilliantly lit by Howard Hudson. There’s a terrific band on stage (mostly hidden) and Ellen Kane’s choreography builds magnificently to The Big Moment when the entire cast, golden and bespangled perform “One (Singular Sensation)” and bring the house down. Wonderful.
A Chorus Line runs at Sadler’s Wells until 25th August. For more information, including performance dates, and for bookings, please visit www.sadlerswells.com.
Photos by Marc Brenner
