women were called flappers, for their short provocative skirts and actions. Belle Brown Overbeck Gaertner A.K.A. Belva Gaertner, once known as the "Queen of Chicago's cabarets,"was a 38 year old cabaret singer, she had been divorced twice. She was wealthy and stylish, despise work and grew easily bored with her milionare husband. A Hyde Park socialite who felt halfes dressed without gaudy jewelry. Belva was a party lover and a heavy drinker. She was dating a man who was 10 years younger, Walter Law
“You know some guys just can’t hold their arsenic” (Chicago). Theater in the 1920’s was greatly influenced by prohibition, mobsters and large murder cases as shown in the musical Chicago. Prohibition fueled many of the social issues of the day and also influenced theater. 1920’s theater was in turmoil as American society struggled to establish a new moral code. The musical Chicago gives examples of corruption in the legal system and the changing roles of women in society. Beer and alcohol has been
specifically women were becoming more involved in crime. Murderess row was a group of 3 women, Katherine “Kitty” Malm, Belva Gaertner, and Beulah Annan, and a reporter Maurine Watkins. The three women all have something in common, murder and they also were the inspiration of a famous show, Chicago. The three women associated with murderess row all killed a man. Kitty killed a night watchman, Belva killed her lover (not specified as her official boyfriend), and Beulah killed her lover (she was in an affair
In the 2002 musical rendition of Chicago, directed by Rob Marshall, the viewer is taken back to the roaring 20's where industry is laying its' foundation and residents are surviving and thriving. Historically, the film is accurate in regards to the portrayal of speakeasies, the beginning of jazz, and the gritty town, but some detailed discrepancies were apparent in the technology of the time. The film adaptation takes you directly into a speakeasy where a cabaret singer Velma Kelly, played by Catherine
Chicago is an American musical with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Ebb and Bob Fosse. Set in Prohibition-era Chicago, the musical is based on a 1926 play of the same name by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins about actual criminals and crimes she reported on. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the "celebrity criminal." Fred Ebb explains: “So I made it [Chicago] a vaudeville based on the idea that the characters were