Spacemen have long loomed large in the Bowie oeuvre. For his debut theater work and final staged project to concern his Man Who Fell To Earth (his 1976 film for Nic Roeg) and that character’s death-knell denouement—to say nothing of copious amounts of gin, milk and panty sniffing—says much about the dislocation its author felt from this lonely planet and how at ease Bowie was with a life on Mars.
A set of Bowie songs old and new were prepared for Lazarus’ off-Broadway run with an appropriately jagged band and actors such as Michael C. Hall (of Dexter fame) and Michael Esper doing their best hammy, yet still subtle Bowie imitations on “The Man Who Sold The World,” “Valentine’s Day” and others. That the song Hall took on (“Lazarus”) was both Bowie’s most recent tune and most oddly epic speaks volumes for tracks that are among the last that Bowie penned.
After the actors have their poignantly emotional say (the cast recorded Jan. 11, 2016—the morning after Bowie’s death), it’s Bowie’s own tremolo-rich, baritone voice and the noir-art-industrial-jazz band he employed on Blackstar that top off Lazarus stage-songs such as cattily self-obsessed “Killing A Little Time,” an angular “No Plan” and a slow-ginny “When I Met You.” Prepare for a tear or two.
—A.D. Amorosi
