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It’s a dog-eat-dog world for entertainment these days.

To get us in a seat, an evening at the theater has to throwdown with demands of family, work, the Internet, movie rentals and hours of TiVo’d offerings. Add in the crowds, parking and a $65 ticket?

Two and a half hours becomes a precious, precious thing.

Sometimes the gamble pays off, though. Sometimes, as it was with “Chicago Live!” Tuesday night, it’s such a full-throttle guzzle of live theater that it leaves you wondering why you don’t get out more often.

Which is exactly what you would expect from the Tony-winning “Chicago,” which is driven by the Protean elements of great musical theater: memorable lyrics (by Fred Ebb, as perfectly cynical as Cole Porter’s are perfectly romantic), melodies (whip-smart and hummable by John Kander) and dance (in Bob Fosse’s hands, world-weary sexy and painfully cool).

But what’s playing on Broadway — and at the Phil through Sunday — is not, strictly speaking, the original, which closed in 1977 after a two-year run and tepid reviews.

A revival in 1996 jimmied some of the elements, including the choreography, which was recreated by Fosse high-priestess Ann Reinking. Six years and six Tonys later, “Chicago” has become something of a fixture on a Broadway that seems, at times, to be nothing but revivals and tributes. Stars are shuffled like cards —Bebe Neuwirth’s Velma exchanged for Ute Lemperer’s, then, Ruthie Henshall’s and on and on — but like Roxie herself, the patent-leather slick and glamorous spirit of the piece endures.

On Tuesday evening, the stage was empty, save a Bentwood chair hung with a bowler hat. It’s just the beginning of the cascade of Fosse-isms that even the dance-dumb will likely recognize. Then it begins.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” announces a tall blonde (is there any other kind in a Fosse project?) in a fishnet body suit, “you are about to see a story of murder, greed, corruption, violence, exploitation, adultery and treachery: All those things we hold near and dear to our hearts.”

We laugh because it speaks to our darker selves, but also because we know what’s coming. Rob Marshall’s star-driven film made sure that if you weren’t among the 12 million who saw the stage production, you would know the plot: Murderesses Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly vie for celebrity in 1920s Chicago. But the course of fame does not run smooth.

It’s not much of a story, really, but who cares. From those first moments, as Velma and the company shimmy and slide to the mood-setter “All That Jazz,” you are reminded that more than anything, this is Fosse’s show. Every element — from the bowler hats to the packs of half-crouched, impossibly muscled dancers with a predatory glint, to the exquisite physicality of the rolled shoulders, the splayed fingers, the coltish leg positioning — it’s a vernacular that is indelibly Fosse.

Delicious, if a little antique, and perfect for the fractured, self-conscious reality of this piece.

In contrast the movie, which was forced to place the action in real world contexts of seedy boarding houses, jazz-hot nightclubs and stuffy courtrooms, the stage version dwells in a disjointed netherworld that’s Brechtian spare. Little stage decoration, little dialogue and a modular, vaudevillian structure. Here, the fourth wall, an invisible force that seals the stage action into a world separate from the audience, is an inconvenience players often ignore.

For instance, “Tap Dance,” which comes about midway in the first act, pairs Roxie’s bid to sell her hapless husband on raising the $5,000 for her defense side-by-side with three male dancers doing a snarky softshoe. Both set pieces play against a riser with a working 13-piece orchestra and bored-but-amused company members who watch the action, on stage, along the action’s edges. She’s successful, of course, and shares her glee directly with the audience — as if we are the fans she’s always dreamed of.

It’s a traffic jam of shared focus with a funny, sly message. A welcome relief to the one percent of our brain that equally seedy “Desperate Housewives” requires.

The performances are sterling from the moment the spotlight hits the stage.

DeJean, a veteran of the Broadway company, plays Hart as a bubbly user in the Shirley MacLaine line, as poisonous as she is sad. She’s got an able voice, nice gams and a wonderful knack for mining the comedy of the role.

Terra MacLeod, who has played Velma in roadshow productions since 2003, is as lean as a butcher knife, working Reinking’s backbreaking choreography with stunning ease.

Both are able centerpieces — at least one of them on stage for almost every number — for a show that runs full-tilt-boogie from the get-go.

Also eminently watchable: Carol Wood’s Matron Mama Morton, whose caring is matched by her jaundiced view of the world. And Greg Evigan, who you might remember from TV’s “B.J. and the Bear,” makes the smarmy attorney Billy Flynn game-show plastic and almost human.

Finally, the company is fabulous. Each works their ever-shifting roles with the kind of truth you don’t see much in life, much less when someone is singing and dancing.

So put down the remote, shelve the Netflix movie for a day and strap yourself in for the thrill of what the best of musical theater can offer.

If you go

What: “Chicago Live!”

When: 8 tonight through Sunday; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Where: Philharmonic Center for the Arts, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd.

Tickets: $65 ($39 for students)

Information: www.thephil.org or 597-1900