Reviewer’s Note: The majority of this review was written last week, as Bowie released Blackstar, his 25th album, on his 69th birthday. It was only this morning I learned of his passing, and that he had quietly been battling cancer for 18 months. Of course, having spent some 25 hours in total immersing myself in Bowie research—so much so that it seemed I became Bowie – as ‘making us Bowie’ has always been his strength—I was devastated. It was like part of me died, which indeed it had. As a result, the tone, as well as the reception of this review, will likely change for anyone reading these words today.

Ever since David Bowie emerged on the scene, as a quasi-alien rock star with the rock ‘n’ roll game-changing album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and Spiders from Mars, in 1972, blurring the lines between man and woman, most everything that he has touched—if not in reality, certainly in perceived memory—has turned to gold. xxxxx

You might attribute this to his chameleon-like ability to successfully ride the ever-changing waves of time. No performer, not even Madonna, once the Queen of Reinvention, has gone through as many iterations, so many alter egos. And each has influenced a multitude of artists, while allowing him to remain a top–drawer talent.

Though Bowie has been keeping a low public profile ever since he experienced pains in his arm and shoulder while performing at a festival in Pressel, Germany in 2004—the result of a clogged artery and an emergency angioplasty—his reputation, unlike that of many artists whose absence is barely noticed, seems only to have grown in stature.

While his touring schedule was virtually nonexistent during the next decade, he wasn’t exactly comatose. Bowie continued to write songs and sporadically perform, mostly in New York City, where he lives with his wife, Iman. He took to the stage in Central Park with Arcade Fire (2005), played Radio City Music Hall with Pink Floyd legend, Dave Gilmore (2006), and sang a three-song set at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom, his last public performance in that year.  Turning his attention to film and TV, he starred in the film Prestige (2006), a hit in London, and appeared in an episode of Extras, Ricky Gervais’ series on HBO the same year. Most surprisingly—not even his PR people were aware until they were asked to write a press announcement—he released a new single on his 66^th birthday in 2013, “Where Are We Now.”

Further burnishing his reputation, perhaps laying the ground work for a possible tour was, David Bowie Is, a traveling retrospective tracing his shifting style and sustained reinvention over five decades. Opening his own archives—a first for Bowie—the exhibition features handwritten lyrics, original costumes, fashions, photography, film, music videos, set designs and his own instruments. The exhibition has been pulling in record crowds ever since it opened in March, 2013, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London.

Below: Installation view, David Bowie Is, MCA Chicago, September 23, 2014 – January 4, 2015. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago.

So far, David Bowie Is,has traveled to London, Toronto, Berlin, and thanks to our own Chief Curator Michael Darling, who steered this exhibition to Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, it was their most popular exhibition ever (above). It will be travelling all this year and part of next, to San Paolo, Paris and the Netherlands.

Putting another notch in his belt, Blackstar, Bowie’s 25^th album has just been released, not coincidentally, on January 8 the date of his 69th birthday (and now we’ve learned, two days before his death.) The reviews, many ironically heralding the coming of a “new” Bowie, have been stellar. Rolling Stone’s David Fricke described the album as “a ricochet of textural eccentricity and pictorial-shrapnel writing.” Andy Gill of London’s The Independent regarded the record as “the most extreme album of his [Bowie’s] entire career,” stating that “Blackstar (promo image, right) is as far as he’s strayed from pop.”

Writing for Exclaim, Michael Rancic called Blackstar “a defining statement from someone who isn’t interested in living in the past, but rather, for the first time in a while, waiting for everyone else to catch up.” The New York Times, also weighing in, describes the album as “at once emotive and cryptic, structured and spontaneous and, above all, willful, refusing to cater to the expectations of radio stations or fans.” Last I looked, Blackstar was the number one selling album in London, and number two in the US.

If that is not enough to light up the sky, the musical Lazarus, a 13 song (some old some new) Bowie-driven musical, is based on a book by Irish playwright Enda Walsh. Best known for winning a Tony, in 2012, for his stage adaptation of the movie Once, Lazarus is currently running at the New York Theatre Workshop, in New York City, through January 20^th. For the record, Lazarus sold out in a matter of hours. Still, no doubt, if your pockets are bulging, scalper tickets can be found. Be sure to call your banker first.

Left: Michael C. Hall stars as Thomas Newton. 

Based on the 1976 Nicolas Roeg movie The Man Who Fell to Earth, which in turn was based on Walter Terris’ 1963 Sci-Fi novel of the same name, Lazarus stars Michael C. Hall, best known from the TV series “Dexter.” Hall plays alien Thomas Newton, the same character Bowie played in the movie. Also starring is Cristin Milloti (Grammy Award winner, and Tony nominee for Once), and Sophia Anne Caruso.

The plot for those newbie’s unfamiliar with The Man Who Fell to Earth, book or movie, is relatively simple. Newton, an extraterrestrial, comes to earth with the intention of getting water for his dying planet. He starts numerous companies, becomes wealthy, and builds a spaceship to return home. The government finding out he is an alien, holds him captive in a locked luxury apartment, where he spends his days alone drinking gin, watching TV, eating Twinkies, and pining for his outer space family and the return of Mary Lou, the earthling who loved and left him. This is how we find Newton—sprawled out on the floor of his apartment—when the play opens.

Isolated with his own thoughts, though often disconnected even there, Newton is given to hallucinatory visions. In the reality of the stage, he is at the center of an  swirling tsunami of people, coming and going, real and imagined, each with their own dramatically captivating story. Though the set is relatively bare, the only stationary furniture are one bed and refrigerator, mostly filled with gin. The characters are surrounded, and the audience bombarded with an electrifying series of sonic sounds and video projections, often echoing what is happening on stage. A seven-piece band is seated behind a scrim, and ten compellingly quirky characters are all beautifully realized.

Elly (in a wonderfully intense performance by Cristin Milioti), below, left, is recent hired by Newton to be his personal assistant. She eventually falls in love with him, much to her husband Zach’s (Bobby Moreno) dismay. At one point Elly, describes Newton perfectly: He is “sorta sad, sorta unknowable in the way that you imagine rich, reclusive, eccentric men to be.” Eventually, hoping to become his lover, she attempts to transform herself into Mary Lou—Newton’s lost love, by donning a blue wig.

Also, appearing, disappearing, and appearing again and again, is the ethereal, and beautifully voiced, Sophia Anne Caruso, who is billed in the program as, Girl. Appearing to know all about Newton, her mission is to help him return to his intergalactic world. It is a double-bind, as Newton’s mission is to help free the Girl (who might just be an apparition) from her limbo state. Bowie’s lyrics in Life on Mars, “now she walks through her sunken dream to the sear with the clearest view and she’s hooked to the silver screen,” captures the essence ofher character with perfection.

The men in the play, cast in somewhat subsidiary roles, also repeatedly come and go, come and go. Michael Esper (last see on Broadway in The Last Ship)—he always seems to show up unannounced at people’s apartments—plays Valentine, a sinister, knife-wielding character who eventually gets to bury his knife in human flesh. Appearing to be Newton’s only friend from their business days, is Michael (Charlie Pollock), last seen on Broadway in Violet). Michael appears to be the only truly sane character.

Right: (l to r) Brynn Williams, Michael Esper, Krista Pioppi.

Adding spice to the proceedings – they just might be working for the government—are Krystina Alabado, Krista Pioppi, and Brynn Williams, billed as Teenage Girls 1, 2 and 3. Resembling the musical group. the Supremes, sans a Diana Ross-like character, they are ostensibly government agents. Also making an appearance with a particularly harrowing departure, are Lynn Craig and Nicholas Christopher. They appear in a series of lurid embraces, seeming just short of copulation.

The play, if not for the star-turns of actors Michael C. Hall, Cristin Milloti, and Sophia Caruso, who do most of the singing and acting, is as close to being an ensemble piece as possible. Yes, all of the acting and singing is letter-perfectly good. But it is Hall, on stage for all two hours, channeling what appears to be the heart and soul of Bowie himself, and holding us captive. No doubt, his short stint on Broadway in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, another totally demanding role, has served him well here.

In addition to the wonderful performances, the brilliance of Lazarus resides in the hands of visionary director, Ivo van Hove (his production of A View From the Bridge is currently represented on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre). The play’s technical staff: Jan Versweyveld (Scenic and Lighting Designer); Tai Yarden (Video Design); Brian Ronan (Sound Design); Henry Hey (Music Director); An D’Huys (Costume Design); and Anne-B Parsons, also excel. It is rare when production values come together so astonishingly well, conjuring up a sense of wonder—one that takes us to another world.

In retrospect, most chilling are the lyrics of Lazarus, in one of the last songs Bowie ever wrote. Here, he seems to telling us, in no uncertain terms that he will be leaving the planet. The lyrics, sung by Michael C. Hall, include “Look up here/ I’m in heaven/ I’ve got scars that can’t be seen…”This way or no way.” You know, I’ll be free” Bowie sings these same lyrics in his video Lazarus (see link below). Appearing distraught, Bowie is seen shaking and writhing among the tousled sheets of his bed. He levitates briefly after a disembodied hand creeps toward him from beneath the bed frame. The video ends with Bowie closing the doors of his life, as he enters a coffin-like closet.

RIP, David Bowie (1947-2016)

By Edward Rubin, Contributing Editor

“Lazarus”

By David Bowie and Enda Walsh

Directed: Ivo van Hove

Scenic and Lighting Design: Jan Versweyveld

Costume Design: An D’Huys

Video Design: Tal Yarden

Sound Design: Brian Ronan

Music Director: Henry Hey

Choreography: Annie-B Parson

 

New York Theatre Workshop

79 East 4th Street

New York, New York 10003

Closing: Wednesday, January 20, 2015

Tickets: Sold Out.