The original title of the musical "Chicago," the world renowned musical, is ‘A Brave Little Woman.' Chicago in 1920s was full of passion for jazz music and coldhearted murder crimes. A famous stage queen Velma Kelly shots her husband and sister dead after witnessing their affair. She is charged with first class murder and gets arrested.

Velma is reported as a historical murderer in many news media. But she makes an agreement with Mama, the infamous prison ward, that her profits after freedom will be shared, and she hires Billy the lawyer with obscene amount of cost. Billy uses the obsession of press gathering for provocative stories, to obtain free release condition for Velma.

On the other hand, Roxie the chorus girl of a club has an affair with Fred, who is a friend of the club owner. She does this to get fame, despite the fact that she has a loving husband Amos. She ends up killing Fred after realizing that she was being taken advantage of. Amos lies to the police investigation to go to jail for her but realizes the truth and sends her to the prison. Roxie gets jailed in the same prison with Velma and coincidently meets with Billy. Billy gets interested in Roxie's case and receives grand cost from Amos. The two women’s lives begin to face a great ordeal from then on.

People begin to forget about Velma and Roxie becomes the new talk of the town. Velma asks Roxie to make an alliance with her but Roxie declines the offer. But people’s attention on Roxie begins to recede and Roxie lies that she is pregnant to get the attention back. As promised, Billy succeeds in getting Roxie released. But the attention does not last long. A new provocative case is revealed right before the verdict is made and no one cares for Roxie’s case anymore. Roxie is left all alone. But she teams up with Velma and dances with her for the celebration of life.

Kang In-Jung  Cutejung88@changwon.ac.kr

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