DANCE. No, it's cool; I'll look away while you ponder the whether or not of it. Dance. I know you want to. It's no big deal—it's just a completely elemental, ancient, simple, human form of expression. What you want, what you have, what you don't have—dance. Moving bodies, moving people, letting it all go—dance! See, I think I won about 1.5 of you over. Something like 30 years ago, a gentleman named Bob Fosse decided to write the book (with John Kander) and choreograph Chicago, a masterpiece commentary on a few little things like dance, fame, murder, adultery, murder, being a really hot chick in a skimpy costume, murder, fame, sex, dancing on a chair, liquor . . . did I mention murder? Basically, you know, everything.
Yeah, I got your attention at “fame.” Sure, it's the thing that turns ordinarily just extremely gorgeous people with nothing going on into extremely gorgeous people who have it GOING ON, but what else is it? It's media manipulation, it's power, it's the reinforcement of the capitalist (read “false”) notion that some people are born for adulation while others are the slow gazelles meant to be downed by leopards. Or, in Chicago's case, downed by really hot chicks in skimpy costumes.
The Orange County Performing Arts Center is hosting a special one-week-only engagement of Chicago, a production with a lot to say about fame. Ever-flagellant, Hollywood adapted it into an Academy Award-winning film five years ago, but there's no substitute for the live experience, during which you can glare at the boor you brought with you during “He Had it Comin',” the fiercest number on female revenge ever staged.
Chicago at the Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Dr., Costa Mesa, (714) 556-2787; www.ocpac.org . Thurs.-Fri., June 28-29, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., 2 N 7:30 p.m.; Sun., 1 N 6:30 p.m. $20-$70.
