1 December 3016
Lazarus
The King’s Cross Theatre
reviewed by Adam McCormack
It is always good to start with the positives. If you are a fan of David Bowie’s music, Lazarus offers a great deal. The play features some of his most recent work together with a collection of great songs from his back catalogue, many of which are obvious (Changes, Heroes, Sound and Vision), but others less so (Absolute Beginners), and all are delivered by very talented singers backed by an outstanding band. Secondly, if you are also a fan of the 1976 Nicholas Roeg film of Walter Tevis’s book, The Man Who Fell to Earth, this play gives the chance to explore what happened to the alien Thomas Newton. Finally, the staging of the play, with the use of video to add an element of voyeurism and illustrate Newton’s obsession with television, gives a high art feel that at times encompasses the whole stage. We start then with great music, a compelling back-story and innovative production, so why does this play finish leaving many of us so disappointed?
Ultimately this is an avant garde attempt to do something Mama-mia like with Bowie’s music and, without the humour of the Abba vehicle, we are left with a confused, and confusing, play that tries to shoe-horn it in in a mostly contrived or random manner. At the outset it is not clear that the original story merits extending, even in the hands of Enda Walsh and Bowie. That Newton is obsessed by a former love on earth and is left in despair at not being able to return home or even grow old, was established in the original story, and the attempts to lure him out of his preoccupation with TV and alcohol, whether for altruistic or financial reasons (Newton is a brilliant businessman) have limited mileage. Add to this a crazed killer, and a girl stuck in a strange limbo, and we are left with a dog’s dinner of a play.
The performers are very talented, with Michael C Hall as Newton,Bowie-esque in voice and movement, and the key women, Amy Lennox as Elly, Newton’s conflicted assistant, and Sophie Anne Caruso as Girl are beautiful singers. A number of the songs are given fresh interpretations but, while this works well when delivered by Hall, others sound more like show tunes when sung by the women, and this takes away a lot of their artistic edge.
A word is also needed about the theatre space. I have no issue with the concept of pile-it-high, sell-it-cheap, and like the idea of making good theatre available to as many as possible. However, the dimensions of the King’ s Cross theatre are akin to an inclined aircraft hanger, and those at the rear would have felt as if they were observing something in a child’s shoe-box theatre. This is a shame given the quality of the staging and the performances. Overall then, this is a production for die-hard Bowie fans and sci-fi aficionados – but even they may want to wait to see it somewhere else.
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