Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
‘Chicago’ in Miami
Jaime Camil stars at Arsht Center through May 13.
It will be a South Florida exclusive when Latino actors Jaime Camil and Bianca Marroquin star in “Chicago” during the national tour’s stop May 8-13 in Miami.
The Mexican performers will reprise the roles they played on Broadway in 2016 — Camil as the oleaginous lawyer Billy Flynn and Marroquin as the merry murderess Roxie Hart — for one week only at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. That 2016 turn in the show created by Fred Ebb (book and lyrics), John Kander (music) and Bob Fosse (book and choreography) was historic, the first time two Mexicanborn actors led a Broadway musical.
Set in the Windy City during the Roaring Twenties, “Chicago” tells the story of flappers who attempt to get away with murder with the help of their attorney, who teaches them how to throw grit and grime into the wheels of justice by becoming front-page sensations. Early in the show, one character sums up the plot as a “classic tale of violence, envy, exploitation, adultery and treachery. All those things we hold near and dear to our hearts.” The original 1975 Broadway production starred Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera and Jerry Orbach and got mixed reviews. It also had the misfortune to bow the same year as “A Chorus Line,” which broke boxoffice records and swept the Tony Awards. However, the stripped-down minimalist 1996 revival was a huge hit and brought home six Tonys. The 2002 Oscar-winning film version starred Renee Zellweger, Catherine ZetaJones and Richard Gere.
Camil is probably best known for playing the father Rogelio De La Vega in the CW’s “Jane the Virgin” and voicing the character Papá Enrique Rivera in the animated movie “Coco. In addition to starring in “Chicago” on Broadway, Marroquin also appeared on the Great White Way in “The Pajama Game” and “In the Heights.” Both Marroquin and Camil are big names in Spanish-language television, having gotten their starts in telenovelas, and both were regulars on the theater stage in Mexico. The two are also longtime friends.
“We met many, many, many years ago,” Camil says during a recent interview. “She’s a very talented performer.”