Heaven and Hell

[magid]

The night before the trip to Jerusalem, I went to see a new 'rock opera,' Heaven and Hell (Jason Slavick, based on the album by Joe Jackson) at the Boston Conservatory. I didn't know what to expect, really, but I did think there would be more dialogue than the song lyrics. I suppose it would also have helped had I listened to the music in advance, but I hadn't. What it turned out to be was an impressive series of dance pieces working with the music to form tone pieces about the seven deadly sins.

The set was interesting, with two levels of walkways above the back of the stage that had stairs connecting them vertically as well. Plus all the more usual entrances and exits, of course. Given the acrobatic nature of some of the dancing along with this more vertical space made me think of the Cirque show this fall, things happening above and below (plus the angels in both of them).

There was a frame for the story, Mephistopheles bringing his new disciple J through the excesses of the world.

1. Gluttony had people processing and eating more and more meat (also other things, but it was most vivid with the half-cows being dragged across stage to be 'butchered').
   
2. Lust was fairly predictable, featuring "Whore, Whorettes, Manwhores, Souls in Torment" as well as the master and student, and the angel that tended to float into scenes, look ethereal and make ethereal noises, then float away when the student tried to reach her.
   
3. Greed was strange, featuring refugees, soldiers, and black market sales. I know they were constrained by the lyrics (which mentioned things like "a piece of bread"), but I've never thought of this kind of desperate need as greed, which speaks to me more of excess, of not letting anything go once acquired, wanting and wanting and never having enough.
   
4. Sloth had a huge guy (major rubber suit) carried out on a couch with his person-sized soda to watch his giant-screen TV. My favorite bit about this piece was the playful masked ones before the main part.
   
5. Anger was impressive, an escalation from schoolkids and playground fights to boozing and brawling men to soldiers torturing a prisoner (definitely done in ways to jolt people about what happens in Guantanamo and other places still active, to our national shame).
   
6. Envy felt like the weakest link, a woman in white singing complacently while a sad girl sat at the edge of the stage. It was too static, despite whatever dance went with it.
   
7. Pride was last, the student coming into his own, becoming godlike... until he falls, definitively, in front of representatives from all the other scenes. Really impressive.

Actually, all the dancing was excellent. All the performers were talented, and some quite nice to look at, too (Mephistopheles and his student J noticeably so :-). I'm still not sure I'd call it a rock opera, though; more of a dance performance, perhaps.

Comments

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Greed was strange, featuring refugees, soldiers, and black market sales. I know they were constrained by the lyrics (which mentioned things like "a piece of bread"), but I've never thought of this kind of desperate need as greed, which speaks to me more of excess, of not letting anything go once acquired, wanting and wanting and never having enough.

I think part of what was being got at was that Wars are the result of greed. But the result depicted was not the luxury hoped for by those perpetuating wars of greed, but the real, human results. And there's another kind of needy greed that then takes place among those victimized by war and the greed of those more powerful.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I can see wars as a result of greed. It's not what the piece made me think of, though perhaps I should have. I think the distraction of the faceless mob kept me from thinking as much about it; they gave me a creepy feeling, even knowing they were performers like the rest of them. And in this situation, is the power with the soldiers or the mob? Certainly not the individuals (other than the power to hide, I suppose).

[rethought.livejournal.com]

Envy is definitely weak. I can't quite work out how that is envy at all.

Is it the girl envying the singer her talent/the lime light?

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

I was trying to work something out regarding the fact that the program has the singer named "Galatea." I didn't do any real research, but checked my copy of Edith Hamilton's "Mythology." One Galatea is a sea nymph, the other is the more famous creation of Pygmalion. Neither one's story seems to have any real tie to envy though.

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Correction: there is an envy/jealousy situation with the sea nymph Galatea. It's just that that story doesn't really fit either the lyrics or the performance.