Gothic Nightmare or Surreal Dream?

[dotinthesky]

I went to see The Black Rider - The Casting of the 12 Magic Bullets with Kevin, Joel and two of Joel's friends last night. The only thing I knew about this play was that the music had been composed by Tom Waits, the words came from William Burroughs and the direction from Robert Wilson. And I knew Marianne Faithful was in it.

I did not know that the play was a musical, a surrealistic goth-romp with characters straight out of a demented Charlie Chaplin piece, the music composed by demons who travel the country with their demented carnivals, the costumes made out of something resembling paper, or a futuristic synthetic fibre. The orchestra sat in a pit below the stage, playing the oddest types of instruments. One of the instruments consisted of bowls of glass wet with water, perfurated, which produced an eeiry sound as a man rubbed his fingers on it. Death with a megaphone introduced the play. His megaphone projected light onto his face. Then a giant black box slowly slid to the centre of the stage, opened up, spewed dry-ice, and let Marianne Faithful come to us. I never knew how much I liked the smell of dry-ice.

All the symbols used in the musical had a manic child-like power to them. Scary tree-trunks in a forest became cushions to jump on. A murdering rifle shot birds in the sky that resembled a game in the cheapest funfair. Weddings were performed by zombies. Lovers floated in the sky as they sang about strangling a rose. Madness, Madness, Beautiful Madness.

If you live in London, or near London, you have no excuse to avoid this. The play/musical is on until the middle of June and I highly recommend this to everyone. The cheapest ticket, which I got, is 18 pounds. The great thing is that there really isn't a bad seat - The Barbican is set up in a manner which everyone gets a good view of the stage.

The writer Will Self was sitting near me. I wonder if he was reviewing it for The Independent.

Comments

[purplethings.livejournal.com]

Oh! It sounds wonderfully dreamy! I must make an effort to see this. Thank you for raising my awareness of cool things :D

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

You will love it!! It's mind-bending... a real experience. People in the theatre kept saying "this is mad, this is crazy..."

[psyfi.livejournal.com]

I wonder if they would do something like a tour to Kuala Lumpur as well. It sounds like something most of us have to see.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Apparently, this is the first time it's being performed in English. It was done before in Germany, eventhough it was originally written in English! It has never even been played in America.

[icymorning.livejournal.com]

whoa, seems like a third of my friends list went to see this play yesterday.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Really?? Who else?

[icymorning.livejournal.com]

i couldn't tell you who exactly, but i guess all the english people. seems it was some kind of LJ convention. i remember nobodyyouknow, among all the others

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I hope they liked it too.

[dilvalicious.livejournal.com]

that doesn't sound like something I would be able to watch with a straight face...

as for Will Self, I only ever read great Apes, and it sucked so bad...it was a struggle to even finish such cack!

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

He has a really big head in real life - horsey looking.

The play is hilarious!! It's very funny.

[dilvalicious.livejournal.com]

are they making fun of the goth culture, do you think? If Tom Waits wrote it, it seems that would be more the case

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

not at all... it uses goth make up and very extreme looking facial expressions, but it's more surreal then Sisters of Mercyish.

[dilvalicious.livejournal.com]

ahhhh

[5500.livejournal.com]

Will Self wants to marry you.
Or was it me?
Or was it Martin Amis?

I forget now.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

He tried to marry his old angry self, but nobody showed up at the church.

[5500.livejournal.com]

heh. he's mellowed, our will.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

He looks quite impressive in person. He's a big man.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I know... if they were playing for longer, I'd get us some tickets for when you come...

[saint-narcissus.livejournal.com]

this is an old post of yours, just had to comment though...
i loved this play! i saw it 3times in san francisco, the production came here after the london run you speak of in this post... it was help over in san francisco 4 or 5 weeks. i am lucky i have friends in the box office, it was so incredible! another reason i love living in this city. (oh, i am bored at work this afternoon and decided to read some of your older entries, learn a bit about you etc,,,, hope you are Great today! peace, -david

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I loved it too... I had some friends in America who wanted to see this production (and they lived in California) so it's a shame I didn't know at the time that the production went to San Fran.

I also love going through people's old posts, trying to find out more about them. But hey, I don't have to do that with you since I've been with your journal from day 1! :-)