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Thursday, March 21, 2024
‘Dead Outlaw,’ a Mummy Musical, Is So Strange It Can Only Be True
The New York Times: When the composer David Yazbek approached his “Band’s Visit” collaborator David Cromer in 2019 about directing “Dead Outlaw,” a high-energy song cycle that he was developing into a musical, Cromer wasn’t sure he was the right fit.
1 comment:
Sarah Pearce
said...
I was so thrilled to see an article about the show after meeting the lighting designer recently. Although I personally find the plot of the show a bit disturbing, it’s mostly disturbing because it’s based on a true story as a huge fan of “The Band’s Visit” it’s interesting to hear about how different of a show this is, given that the composer is the same. Not only does this show continue to bring about the story of Ehlers’s body, and the horrors of what it endured after his death, but it also be we treat peoples bodies when they no longer have control over them. It makes the question of when a human body goes from a person to a prop. Especially in a stage production, where the terminology literally is prop. What comes to mind when thinking about these questions is the practices surrounding when a person donates their body to science. Often times people decide to donate their bodies after their death thinking they will be contributing to medical science, however, it has been discovered that that is not always true. Without going into detail, as it can be disturbing, it is not uncommon for peoples bodies to be used in what could be considered humiliating ways in front of an audience, or perhaps put into displays for people to gawk at.
1 comment:
I was so thrilled to see an article about the show after meeting the lighting designer recently. Although I personally find the plot of the show a bit disturbing, it’s mostly disturbing because it’s based on a true story as a huge fan of “The Band’s Visit” it’s interesting to hear about how different of a show this is, given that the composer is the same.
Not only does this show continue to bring about the story of Ehlers’s body, and the horrors of what it endured after his death, but it also be we treat peoples bodies when they no longer have control over them. It makes the question of when a human body goes from a person to a prop. Especially in a stage production, where the terminology literally is prop.
What comes to mind when thinking about these questions is the practices surrounding when a person donates their body to science. Often times people decide to donate their bodies after their death thinking they will be contributing to medical science, however, it has been discovered that that is not always true. Without going into detail, as it can be disturbing, it is not uncommon for peoples bodies to be used in what could be considered humiliating ways in front of an audience, or perhaps put into displays for people to gawk at.
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