The Royko play is again. On the Chopin Theatre till Dec. 22. Having maintained a manful silence throughout its first run, the good factor for me to do can be to proceed holding my massive yap shut.
However being a newspaperman was by no means a very clever strategy to make a dwelling, by no means thoughts being a columnist who — I believe folks overlook — is supposed to stir the pot.
First the quick take. I noticed “Royko: The Hardest Man in Chicago” throughout its preliminary run in September — how might I not? — and loved the one-man present, in the primary. I really like the half when Royko compares writing for a newspaper to being a child taking part in exterior at nightfall, begging for just some extra minutes, one other flip at bat, earlier than he has to enter the home for a shower and homework and all of the uninteresting non-fun stuff children are compelled to do. This was within the context of the loss of life of the good Chicago Each day Information in 1978. Now we face the looming demise of your entire business. I’m going to overlook this.
And I’m no Royko; Royko was nice, the greased hub on which Chicago spun, and the play captures that properly. Studying a Royko column, I used to say, was like having a pc chip implanted in your mind, a brand new circuit about no matter topic he was addressing. His ideas turn out to be your ideas. He was that good. Not on a regular basis in fact — folks overlook that. Royko wrote his share of duds — 5 days per week, you needed to. However sufficient house runs to maintain followers cheering.
The place author/actor Mitchell Bisschop falls quick is that Royko was not the sum of his writing, however a human being, and a deeply flawed one at that. He could possibly be menacing and imply, there on the finish of the bar on the Billy Goat, sucking again his cocktails snarling on the world. The daring suburbanite or ahead younger journalist who approached him did so at his personal peril.
I by no means had a great encounter with him. Not one. He as soon as threatened to interrupt my legs, and never in some teasing, avuncular means, however in a lifeless critical “I’ll-break-your-f——g-legs” means.
A little bit of THAT Royko might need given the play extra chew. However then, I suppose Bisschop wouldn’t have gotten the cooperation of the household wanted to pad his play with massive blocks of Royko’s traditional columns.
Possibly this play will encourage somebody to write down an precise play about Royko, the person, and his period that doesn’t quote any columns. The fabric is actually accessible.
Proper right here, I’ve a letter from Royko framed in my workplace, displayed as a sort of trophy. To not me, however addressed to a lady he confronted in a bar and, when she didn’t acknowledge him, threatened with a damaged ketchup bottle.
“Please settle for my apologies for my disgusting, boorish, and inexcusable conduct,” Royko begins. “If I precipitated you any discomfort or inconvenience, I’m really sorry. Any anger you felt, and I in all probability gave you trigger to be outraged, can’t equal the self-disgust and anger I expertise after I ultimately realized what a sorry idiot I had manufactured from myself.”
The 1977 incident was vital sufficient that it made Richard Ciccone’s tremendous biography.
“I wrote her a letter of apology,” complained Royko, within the traditional bully feint, making himself the sufferer of the incident. “Christ, it’s a collector’s merchandise.”
Really, it’s not. Reluctant to take one thing of worth from a reader, I despatched a duplicate to each Leslie Hindman and Heritage public sale homes. Would they promote it for her?
“I’m afraid there isn’t a lot of a marketplace for Mike Royko’s autograph,” wrote Sandra Palomino, at Heritage.
“Whereas the content material is actually attention-grabbing, sadly we don’t really feel that we might have the strongest marketplace for the letter,” wrote Katie Horstman, at Hindman.
Time passes. For many of us. I bumped into Royko’s second spouse exterior the theater and tried to make dialog. She stated she’d seen the play 3 times, after which fled as if Royko had deputized her to be frosty to the competitors on his behalf from past the grave. Despite the fact that there isn’t any competitors. Nobody can compete with him, and solely a idiot would strive.
I’ve a tough sufficient time being me, somebody who might need loved the play extra had Royko’s widow loved it much less. You may’t please all people within the writing recreation, and in the event you attempt to please one specific particular person, you often find yourself letting down the remainder.
