All That Jazz

* Since this wasn't published in the place it was written for *

All That Jazz: Chicago in Chicago
By Sylvia Rodemeyer

Fosse’s Chicago is only in town for a limited engagement, but it’s the shot of adrenaline the city needs. Chicago’s namesake play holds a mirror up to the political corruption and status-seeking greed that seems to permeate our government officials as of late, but does it with shimmer, sass and signature songs by Fred Ebb and John Kander.
What has brought shame upon the city in recent headlines brings audiences to their feet when the national tour of Chicago makes it stop at the Oriental Theater of the Ford Center of Performing Arts.
If you’re a Broadway fan, you can probably recite the lyrics of the play from opening orchestral note to jam-packed finale, thus creative interpretation of Bob Fosse’s signature play is often discouraged. The touring company takes few liberties in their retelling, but enough to make it their own.
The big draw for the general public is the addition of veteran television actor John O’Hurley, of Seinfeld fame, in the role of self-serving lawyer Billy Flynn. O’Hurley’s depiction is strong, but doesn’t possess enough of the snake-charmer ways Flynn is known for.
The leads, Terra C. MacLeod as Velma Kelly and Charlotte D’Amboise as Roxie Hart, also don’t hold steadfast to the tried-and-true versions made famous in the long-running Broadway production and the U.S. theatrical release of 2002. MacLeod’s Velma Kelly definitely draws more from Bebe Neuwirth’s characterization of the merry murderess than Catherine Zeta-Jones’, bur also throws in a taste of Marlene Dietrich to the role and D’Amboise’s Roxie may be the frantic, desperate and naïve Roxie of recent note.
A lead cast that intense can’t make it without a strong supporting case, and strength is what Roz Ryan displays in her portrayal of Matron “Mama” Morton. Lindsay Roginski makes Amos Hart sympathetic instead of merely pathetic.
As always, the production is backed by a live orchestra, this time brilliantly displayed on the stage of the Oriental theater, taking on as much of a role as the impressive and often scene-stealing dancers.
For more information on Chicago, visit www. Broadwayinchicago.com

Chicago: The Musical

When: Through March 8

Where: Ford Center for the Performing Arts, Oriental Theatre, 24 W. Randolph St.

Price: $30 to $95

On Writing

I watch Prozac Nation and Elizabeth Wurtzel and I think: I could be her. 

All of it. Or at least I could have been. 

The prodigal, encouraged, youthful writerly ambitions. The book smarts. The utter disconnect from peers, feeling somehow deeper, darker, better than those around me in an elitist artistic rendering of half-truths and an excuse for isolation. 

Music critic for Rolling Stone? That should have been me. 

Mounting depression and multiple suicide attempts before the age of 23? Sometimes I wonder why I escaped that tenuous path. 

You feel crazy if you don't write. 

You feel crazy if you do. 

And then you don't feel crazy enough. 

Succumbing to the darkness is an initiation or validation of sorts. 

You're not an artist until the words bleed from you in some fashion. 

Until your room mate, lover, professor or mother finds you subsisting on cold, week-old coffee and days have passed in which sleep and showers have been cast off in exchange for finishing that last sentence.

Making it perfect, then scrapping the whole thing and starting over. 

There are no recovery groups for addictions to pen and paper. Ink and tree pulp. 

Scratched

This is where all the trouble starts
The depths of my own twisted desires
These words twist and grind
I had it perfect before
I know I can get it back

You haven’t slept for days
Each time the record stops you pick the needle up and place it back on that familiar groove.

And then what happens?
You don’t have to say anything
I’m falling
You’re falling

The noise drops out
The scene narrows in
The colors merge to one
You wake up exhausted
And instead of fearing death, you’re afraid you’re going to live

It had to take a turn here

The Things I Would Like To Do This Year: 

1. Submit/Get published for fiction in anthologies/quarterlies/journals, etc. 

2. Create/pubish a zine 

3. Move to Long Beach with Annie 

4. Have the most fulfilling time in Chicago 

5. Get a tattoo (victrola/gramophone, typewriter, lorem ipsum or my quill) 

6. Start my fashion and media blog 

7. Get glasses (fake or real... at this point I probably need them) 

8. Buy a nice camera (vid and still) 

9. Keep the friends I want, discard those I don't 

10. Continue to pay off my credit cards, don't use them. 

(dated aug. 03)

Screw your head on tight so it stays
When the aptly named straight jackets are put into place

Yes, Yes
In the church, on the bulletin, it never says your name

Come in closer
Move in closer
You’re not in the frame
How long you can hold that smile

The walls are so white
Even the shadows try to run away

(found in the buried files of this computer...) probably written sometime in 06 during a class?

A Good Writer, A Terrible Person

She ran her tongue over her chapped lips absentmindedly and noticed the candied taste of her lip gloss, which was no longer providing the desired moisturizing function it was designed for. Without looking up from her copy of The New York Times (the Living section, more specifically) she reached into her purse with her free arm and rummaged through the mass of pens, receipts, business cards and discarded take-out menus for some nice reliable chapstick. Eventually her fingers grasped the desired tube and applied it generously to her mouth.

As usual she was completely oblivious to the world around her. She was reading her newspaper, the setting was not important. At this precise moment, if she felt compelled to lower her eyes from the text on the page, she would be fully surprised by any setting that met her. She didn’t know if she was in a coffee shop, on a train or bus, in a park or in her own apartment. When she was reading or writing she rarely concerned herself with such trivialities as where she was, that of course wasn’t relevant to the story.

This mindset usually served her very well as a writer. She was more capable then almost anyone of transporting herself into different eras, simply because she never truly existed in her own. As a person, it wasn’t a sought after characteristic, and one critic even stated in their review of her last book: “Audrey Lennox: A good writer, but a terrible person.” But seeing as though she rarely read her own book reviews (she knew what words she chose, she knew the story she told better than anyone else, why did she need to know what they thought of it) she wasn’t aware that this was becoming a popular association with her name in the literary world.

Death On Every Page

Diagnosed in 1992, mere months after Freddie Mercury’s death, Bennett figured his own was right around the corner. For nine months afterward he wore only black and existed solely by candlelight. Italian operas provided the soundtrack to his solitude. His neighbors complained, but only to each other. They whispered that it would only be a matter of time before Puccini and Bizet would take their final bow.

He checked daily in the mirror for the trademark signs of death. Monitoring the circles under his eyes, composing a mental chart to compare the darkness to the day before. At first he turned his friends away, and after a few months, most gave up and stopped coming- there were others to tend to.

Dayton, his partner, shared his love of good wine and campy movies and unknowingly shared the virus. Dayton’s diagnosis came first and had shaken them both. They buried more friends than they liked to acknowledge, and the day of each funeral also brought a new batch of tests “just to be sure,” a sad little ceremony done to honor their departed friends and to reassure themselves of their health. 

And then, after three years, Dayton’s results came back positive. How was not important, and Dayton didn’t stay long enough to elaborate. Within a week he had purchased a plane ticket to Belize and left everything previously important to him behind. Bennett received a single post card six months later, a classic beach sunset on the front, and a shaky “Wish you were here” scrawled on the back. Not exactly famous last words.

So when Bennett received his own diagnosis shortly after Dayton’s departure, he already felt abandoned. He kept the curtains drawn and stopped answering the phone and waited for a common cold to become all-consuming and kill him. But simply waiting to die became boring, and also, exhausting. If he forgot about the invader in his bloodstream, his health was better than most. He slowly resumed his life pre-diagnosis, and when antiretroviral drugs were released a few months later, he added the cocktail to the multitude of vitamins he already took each morning with a glass of orange juice.

The side effects were sometimes debilitating, but he considered it a small exchange for a decade of memories and experiences he thought he would never live through. He knew he was lucky, that the drugs only prolonged the inevitable. He still went to funerals, but as he got older that number was less. He also attended weddings and graduations. These days, the celebrations outnumber the tragedies, and for Bennett, that’s enough.