As mentioned earlier, we’ll be posting a few Lazarus reviews throughout the day.
Here are more quotations from another thumbs up by KORY GROW at ROLLING STONE...
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Lazarus, a beautifully nuanced production that will be staged at the 200-seat New York Theatre Workshop through January 17th, continually emphasizes the surreal over the explicit at nearly every turn. People splash through milk. Others pop dozens of balloons. Strange women sniff others' lingerie (frequently). Impromptu kabuki actors invade the stage. And through it all, Newton — played by golden-throated Michael C. Hall, who is best known for his roles on Dexter and Six Feet Under but whose theatrical credits include big roles in Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Cabaret and Chicago — mostly remains stoic, lonely, yearning. At its core, Lazarus is a two-hour meditation on grief and lost hope (with no intermission), but it takes so many wild, fantastical, eye-popping turns that it never drags.
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What makes Lazarus more than your run-of-the-mill drunk-alien-can't-die-so-he-teams-with-an-invisible-friend-to-build-a-rocket story is van Hove's (and likely also Bowie's) imaginative eye. The set is sparse: an open fridge filled with gin bottles, a record player and stacks of LPs (by the show's creator), a ruffled bed and windows that offer scenic views of the band. A giant TV screen mirrors the onstage action and, in a strange turn, offers an odd glimpse of a repentant Alan Cumming, and the set itself is often bathed in projections. But everything becomes so much more than ordinary, especially when the actors come alive.
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Lazarus may bear all the earmarks of a bad idea — a continuation of another story, a single-artist soundtrack, a television serial killer singing — but the plot is coherent, the songs are great and the performances are kinetic. Newton's unflappable loneliness is depressing, but it's also compelling. Maybe all the drinking was worth it after all.
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Go here for the full thing.
(Picture by Jan Versweyveld)
#Lazarus #LazarusNYTW #TJNewton #TMWFTE #RollingStone