“Last night they loved you”
David Bowie took a bow on stage at the New York Theatre Workshop last night, following a triumphant first night’s performance of Lazarus.
We’ll be posting a few reviews throughout the day, kicking off with this one By BEN BRANTLEY from THE NEW YORK TIMES.
Here are a few quotations pulled from the piece...
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
Ice-cold bolts of ecstasy shoot like novas through the glamorous muddle and murk of “Lazarus”, the great-sounding, great-looking and mind-numbing new musical built around songs by David Bowie. These transfixing moments occur when Mr. Bowie feels most palpably present — that is, when one of the show’s carefully stylized performers delivers a distinctly Bowie number in a distinctly Bowie style.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
More than any of his peers or imitators, Mr. Bowie, an international star since the early 1970s, has always come across as his own spectral avatar, in a series of beguilingly designed alter egos who are both there and not there. Even in the midst of white-hot stage spectacle, his affect has been one of cool disassociation, matched by songs that are rhapsodies of alienation; cries of solitary pain turn into our collective pleasure, and we citizens of an anomic world swoon and think, “We are David Bowie.”
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
Whether the song is vintage Bowie (“Changes,” “Absolute Beginners,” “The Man Who Sold the World”) or one of the new pieces (loved the self-lacerating “Killing a Little Time”), you usually feel you’ve ascended to a special tier of heaven, one produced by MTV.
+ - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - + - +
Go here for the full thing.
(Picture by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times)
#Lazarus #LazarusNYTW #TJNewton #TMWFTE #NewYorkTimes