![]() ![]() ![]() It’s a shame that she disappears from the action as quickly as she arrives. She spends much of her time in a state of part-undress, as she climbs in and out of outfits with a raw, gawky physicality that cleverly shows Ellie’s torment. Lennox’s performance is raw and gutsy, singing Changes first as a chintzy shuffle, then as a domestic meltdown. Mary Lou’s emblematic presence leads to a haunting of sorts, as Newton’s ‘assistant’ Ellie (Amy Lennox), escaping a failing marriage, sheds her dowdy get-up and begins to dress as Mary Lou, replete with blue wig, in an attempt to seduce the tortured Newton. She’s cast here as a blue-haired manic pixie dream girl, looking uncannily like Ramona Flowers from ‘Scott Pilgrim vs The World’. She only ever appears on screen as a ghostly figure in his reveries. One of the running threads of ‘Lazarus’ is Newton’s pining for old flame Mary Lou, from the original story. One of them represents the past, one definitely represents death, and one is arguably an actual ghost. Three characters enter Newton’s life, in what could be seen as a twisted version of ‘A Christmas Carol’. Hall’s reverent to Bowie, but doesn’t ape him, singing in a powerful baritone that’s got a dash of the Dame, but is his own. Hall’s Newton is more mournful than Bowie’s, and very funny when it comes to it, but the lines drawn between them are obvious to see. He’s very physical, throwing himself around the set in a cartilage-punishing tour de force. He’s lying, prone on the floor as the audience files in, and he’s onstage for every minute of the show. Hall inhabits Newton completely, and never breaks character for a second. Bowie’s music (performed by the cast and a tight pit band) drives and adds to the narrative, even if it’s simply there to illustrate Newton’s hallucinations, like the surreal It’s No Game sequence. Staged by Director Ivo Van Hove on a single set, ‘Lazarus’ revolves around Newton’s New York apartment, where he shambles about, watching TV on a huge screen, subsisting on gin and twinkies – alive, but unable to die. It’s basically the story of a homesick alien going mad in his apartment. Bowie famously shared a body with Newton in ‘The Man Who Fell To Earth’. And isn’t it just like David Bowie to take the jukebox musical and twist it into something non-linear, oblique, and challenging? ‘Lazarus’ is a continuation of the story of his favourite alien, Thomas Jerome Newton. Hall, a few minutes into ‘Lazarus’, as he essays a dramatic rendition of the title track. “Ain’t that just like me?” sings Michael C. Perhaps the most honest is ‘Jersey Boys’, which is just as unashamedly showbiz as the real Four Seasons. ‘Sunny Afternoon’ allows Ray Davies to keep rewriting the Kinks story in his own image, and continue to annoy his brother Dave. The current authorised Motown story allows Berry Gordy to look more sympathetic, rather than the ruthless ringmaster that was screwing Diana Ross and didn’t want ‘What’s Goin’ On’ to come out. It’s usually designed to be a feelgood couple of hours, a Disneyfied version of a pop career with added jazz hands. The jukebox musical has a curious place in pop culture. ![]() Valter Malosti is behind the directing and the writing of this Italian version of the work, which sees Manuel Agnelli – the recent winner of a David di Donatello and Nastro d’Argento award – in the lead role of this rock opera, full of many historical songs by Bowie and others written especially for the occasion.❉ The immersive world of David Bowie and Enda Walsh’s ‘Lazarus’ comes to London – and it’s thrilling, writes Martin Ruddock. Still imprisoned on our planet, ever more isolated, enclosed in his apartment and plagued by depression, hallucinations and addiction, Newton received signals from the past via the TV, captures visions of the future generated by his mind, and blends reality and daydreams while various characters – ghosts? mental projections? – move through the claustrophobic space of his apartment. Newton, the unhappy interstellar migrant forced to remain on Earth, immortal and ageless – the protagonist of the novel by Walter Tevis The man who fell to Earth and the film of the same name in which Bowie gave his best acting performance –, is at the centre of this labyrinthine sequel. Staged for the first time in New York on 7 December 2015, in what remains the last public appearance of David Bowie before his death, it represents the creative testament of the musician. He sold more than one hundred million albums, was one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century and, according to Rolling Stone magazine, the greatest rock star of all time David Bowie, with his rock opera Lazarus, comes to the Piccolo. ![]()
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