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

[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.