David Bowie´s Lazarus

David Bowie musical Lazarus has opened in Stockholm and as both my wife and I are fans of the late artist we went to Göta Lejon to catch the show.

Lazarus is inspired by Walter Tevis’ novel “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” filmed by Nicolas Roeg in 1976 and starring Bowie as Thomas Jerome Newton, an extraterrestrial seeking water for his drought-struck home planet. In the musical we find Newton exiled on Earth, marooned for the last 40 years. Unable to leave Earth and unable to age and die he spends his days drinking gin and watching television in a shabby, claustrophobic suburban apartment. Losing himself in delirious hallucinations and memories of a long lost love we as spectators soon find ourselves lost as well. A number of characters appear in his lonesome apartment, are both there and not there. What is imagination and what is reality?

The actors were phenomenal and it was great to hear the Bowie songs, but this is not like any other musical. I was deeply impressed by the bold work with screens and video cameras, a visual sophistication lending this sense of dislocation and dividedness and tone of ethereal mournfulness that is very much like what I try to convey in my photography.