Wednesday, December 30, 2015

I've got drama, can't be stolen.


Well hello! It's good to be back. It has been too long. I've been keeping busy with another music-based blogging project which I shall not say anything more about because it doesn't belong here. 

Anyone who is following David Bowie news lately knows that we shall be having a new album from him in the new year, which is exciting, to say the least! And you are also probably aware of the New York Theatre Workshop's production of Lazarus, for which Bowie is largely responsible.


Well, I don't want to brag but... yeah, I went to see it! I feel absolutely lucky that I was able to get tickets for what was originally supposed to be the last day of the show, before the extension was announced. And while any reason is a good reason to visit New York City, I have to say, that this show made it probably my most favourite trip to NYC ever.

Now, December 27 from 2-4pm is quickly fading away into the past, so I need to write about this while it is still fresh in my mind. 

Written by Bowie and Enda Walsh, the production incorporates songs from Bowie's established musical catalogue as well as new songs written for the play that shall appear on his forthcoming album (Blackstar). The songs are used in Lazarus in a similar fashion to the film Across the Universe, in which Beatles' songs are sung by the characters to convey the story.

The story is a future continuation of the life of Thomas Jerome Newton, from The Man Who Fell to Earth. You may remember my write-up about that film, which basically has one of the saddest endings ever, leaving Newton trapped on Earth, alone and suffering from alcohol and TV addiction whilst his family perishes in a drought on his home planet.
So it was good to see him get a new, less depressing ending. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

***SPOILER ALERT***

The story focuses on Newton in his drunken stupor, unaging and unable to die, as he pines for his long lost love MaryLou while simultaneously wishing he could just go home to the stars. A parade of characters punctuate his existence... some with the intention of helping him, while others intend to help destroy him. Not all of them are of the physical world.

The show begins with Mr. Newton (played by the lovely and talented Michael C. Hall of Dexter and Hedwig fame) passed out on the floor of his apartment, a bottle of gin within arm's reach. (On a theatrical production sidenote, he's already laying there when you enter the theatre, so the show sort of begins from the moment you walk in, before you even find your seat. It makes me wonder what random bits of conversation Michael C. Hall has heard while laying there waiting for the house to fill and the lights to go down).

Newton is helped up by a young woman who is his newly hired personal assistant, Elly (Christin Milioti). Elly is immensely dissatisfied with her unexciting, directionless life, and finds herself attracted to Newton, to her husband's dismay. When she discovers that Newton keeps a box of women's clothing under his bed, she becomes obsessed with becoming the woman who once wore them, MaryLou. Singing Changes, she dons MaryLou's clothes, makes herself up in MaryLou's image, and insists she be called by MaryLou's name. 

She is consumed by madness, addicted to the titillating joy of being someone else, while knowing in the back of her mind that her behaviour is dangerous and destructive. Her husband fights to keep her, while Newton recoils from her advances.

While Elly is transforming into MaryLou, a new person suddenly appears in Newton's life. She's a nameless angelic girl on the verge of womanhood, and it turns out that only he can see her. A vivid version of The Man Who Sold the World sung by Newton hints that she's not the first person to appear in his mind. She soon learns that while she doesn't know who she is, her purpose is to help Newton, to save him, somehow.

The girl and Newton become close -- she resembles his long dead daughter, and the girl becomes a daughter-figure for him as she tries to figure out how she is going to fulfill her destiny to save him. One day it comes to her: she shall build him a spaceship and send him back to the stars.

The girl is the embodiment of hope. She gives Newton something to look forward to, even if he's not entirely sure she is capable of building a rocket ship that will send him home. After all, he tried that once himself. The hope that she brings is palpable, but we soon learn that once her mission is complete, that she will disappear from his life, and the thought of that brings Newton despair. It's inevitable, because she is actually a dead girl, caught between two worlds, taken before her time. Her name is Marley, and she too must find her way home.

And because all things exist in relativity, the hope that Marley provides is battled by the hope-stealing force that is the character of Valentine. Valentine is a charismatic psychopath, a man who charms everyone he meets into letting him in, so that he can take whatever joy, whatever hope, whatever love, whatever happiness they have. He feeds on it, like a dementor. Valentine is an interesting character in that he seems to exist in more than one dimension. He's here on earth as much as he is in Newton's head. He is the only other person who can see Marley. And his goal is burst Newton's bubble as violently and as diabolically as he can.

Eventually, Elly realizes the damage she is doing by taking on the persona of MaryLou, and while the thought of going back to her normal, joyless life pains her, she changes back into her t-shirt and jeans, and goes home to her husband.

Marley, meanwhile, begins building Newton's ship. She constructs the vessel out of white tape on the floor of his apartment, just large enough to contain his corporeal being. I have to say, this was my favourite moment of the play, the moment where it all fell into place. It took everything I had to not cry out. I do believe I sighed aloud.

Enter Valentine to take it all away. The stage is flooded with a sea of black balloons which are violently stabbed to death by the chorus, leaving behind a mass grave of lifeless black balloon corpses on the stage. Valentine reveals that it's time for Marley to go, and to do that, Newton must kill her. Since Marley is already physically dead, he must kill her in his mind so that she can move on to her final resting place, wherever that may be.

Newton fights this, of course. How could he possibly kill the girl who has given him hope, who has become like a daughter to him? Marley tells him it's okay, it's what he must do for both of their sakes. A fight between Newton and a knife-wielding Valentine ensues, and eventually, Newton succumbs to Valentine's strength, and the knife pierces Marley's body. A pool of white blood floods the stage from beneath her body. Newton is overcome with grief as she bleeds out in front of him. But she wakes out of her deathly slumber long enough for the two of them to exchange a good-bye song together ("Heroes").

The ensuing interlude is a playful dad-and-daughter moment, the two of them slip 'n' sliding across the floor through the white liquid, swimming like dolphins, as it were. If Marley building the rocket ship is my favourite moment, this is a close second. With that, Marley's mission is complete and she vanishes from Newton's mind, and he is now able to crawl into his spaceship, bound for his home in the stars.

*****
Lazarus exceeded all of my expectations. Of course I expected it to sound great. That was never in question. Using Bowie's music to tell the story of a character he once played himself? Just brilliant. But that music didn't just appear out of nowhere from offstage speakers, no. It was played live by a band that was situated on the back part of the stage, behind windows that allowed us to watch the music being played. Top that off with epically beautiful performances of the songs sung by the cast. I knew Michael C. Hall could sing... but Sophia Anne Caruso in the role of Marley? That girl is going to go places. I want to hear her sing ALL THE TIME.

But that wasn't all. It was also visually stunning. The entire stage area was used as a projector screen, displaying a collage of imagery on and off throughout the show. A large vertically oriented flat screen TV in the middle of the stage acts as another character, kind of. It's where we get glimpses of MaryLou. It shows the state of Newton's TV-addled mind. It provides an entry and exit point for disembodied characters. It interacts with the corporeal characters on the stage in the most brilliant way.

If I was worried about any aspect of the show, it was the story. A live-action, theatrical sequel to a cult sci-fi film already adapted from a novel... that's a challenging endeavour, and not necessarily a recipe for success. And while it was definitely not a narrative in the traditional sense, I was relieved to find that the characters were created with care and dimension. 

The story is abstract, definitely, but it is told with wit, humour, and tenderness.  Any fan of surrealist and abstract expressionist art will appreciate the symbolic elements of the production. Often ambiguous and totally surreal, the story is counter-balanced by some endearingly on-the-nose moments. What does any of it mean? Like any piece of art, that's sort of on you to decide.

And while the temptation to explain Newton's voyage back to space as suicide is strong, that remains a sensitive subject for me and an ending I don't want to accept. And so I have decided to go with a literal interpretation of that moment... for this play was a kind of weirdly beautiful magic, and there is nothing more magical than travelling to the stars in a spaceship constructed of white tape by an ephemeral angel.

Here is a list of the songs performed, excluding the new songs written specifically for the play:

·         It's No Game (Part 1) - from Scary Monsters and Super Creeps
·         This is Not America - from the soundtrack to the movie The Falcon and the Snowman
·         The Man Who Sold the World - from The Man Who Sold the World
·         Love is Lost - from The Next Day
·         Changes - from Hunky Dory
·         Where Are We Now? - from The Next Day
·         Absolute Beginners - from the soundtrack to the movie Absolute Beginners
·         Dirty Boys - from The Next Day
·         Life on Mars? - from Hunky Dory
·         All the Young Dudes - recorded by Mott the Hoople
·         Sound and Vision - from Low
·         Always Crashing in the Same Car - from Low
·         Valentine's Day - from The Next Day
·         "Heroes" - from "Heroes"

The song Lazarus, from the forthcoming album Blackstar was also performed, as well as a few other new ones. This list will be updated when I find out what they are called.

End transmission.

PS - Unbeknownst to me, my husband went and swiped some black balloon bits off the stage for me. Best husband ever!



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