Island Fever

So I had my first “island fever.” And it’s not the good kind, like Saturday night fever. It was four days of feeling like I could sleep ‘til I died. I was overdue for some rest, though. During those days, I stayed in bed way past my usual wake-up hour, slept or lay staring at the ceiling rafters, thanking my lucky stars (Rigel and Saiph—yes I have actual stars—those are Orion’s feet) that I didn’t have Malaria or Dengue Fever.

From my bed, because it’s on the roof level, and the east side next to my bed is all windows, I can watch the celestial procession of stars across the night sky. It’s clear and beautiful almost every night, and I’ve made it a routine to sit on the flat ceramic-tiled roof every night to star gaze. The most prominent constellations are Orion and his crew (Sirius, Procyon, Castor & Pollux, Capella and Aldebaran), the big Dipper, Casseopia and the great square (Pegasus and Andromeda).

Ah! News! So I am definitely IN the show now. Someone dropped out, and we need more vocal support in the group songs, so I’ve been willingly drafted. I’ll be singing the entire Mack the Knife Ballad. Seven verses of the same tune. My job is to make it sound interesting, because after the third time you hear the same notes, you get it, yeah, this Macheath is a bad guy.

I choreographed the Tango between Mack and Jenny Diver yesterday. It’s short, sexy and very cool. Bethany, who plays Jenny in Threepenny, discovered that Jenny Diver was a real person. She was locked up in the Old Bailey in London on several occasions for her involvement in several pick-pocketing gangs. But for some reason, she always conned her way out of jail. When she was finally hanged, Scotland yard advertised and sold tickets, and she swung to a sold-out crowd.

That’s how I want to go. If not celebrated in life, celebrated in death. But of course Lotte Lenya, Brecht and Weill (married to Lenya when Threepenny debuted) made sure we never forgot her.