There's a great moment in the movie Velvet Goldmine: a teenaged boy who's obsessed with glam rock is sitting in class, listening to his teacher read out of The Picture of Dorian Gray.
"He felt that he had known them all," the teacher says. "Those strange terrible figures that had passed across the stage of the world and made sin so marvelous and evil so full of subtlety. It seemed to him that in some mysterious way their lives had been his own."
In the context of the movie, the point that's being made is about the ways in which the lives of one's idols mesh and blend with one's own memories. It feels apt to quote it here, now, as well, because the problem I'm having in writing this article is finding enough of what I want to talk about that isn't actually about me, about my own story.
I've been trying to write something about the Lestat musical for a number of months, now - since March of this year. Obviously, until now I've failed completely at the task.
It's not that there's nothing to say. I could talk about the strong, good things about the production: the delicate and nightmarish short films created by artist Dave McKean and projected over the stage at pivotal moments; the stamping, shouting fury of Allison Fischer as Claudia; the lush costumes and clever tricks of staging.
Or I could talk about the unfortunate aspects of the short-lived musical: the oftentimes trite lyrics of the songs, the difficulties of condensing three thick novels into two hours on the stage, the production's inability to settle on one set of songs or story and stay with it from performance to performance.
There were bad reviews, adoring fans, an enthusiastic but unsuccessful campaign to see a cast recording released on CD. All of this would make for a great article. More than one article, even.
But I don't know how to write those articles, because when I try to collect my thoughts about the Lestat musical, I think of the moments in my own life when its story intersected with mine. I think about the bootleg recordings of shows I begged and bought off Broadway fans I met online, about the endless posts of nonsense which readers of my livejournal tolerated with good humour. I think about moments when I was happy, or sad, and the music was playing softly as a soundtrack in the background.
Back before I realised it was futile for me to try writing about the musical, I wrote to Anne Rice - author of The Vampire Chronicles, upon which the show was based - and told her I'd be doing an article for Sequential Tart about the show. (It wasn't a lie at the time! How was I to know that my ability to talk coherently about it is absolutely zero?)
"You can quote anything I ever said about the musical," Anne wrote back to me. "I hope and pray the musical of Lestat will be revived. I think a perfect place would be New Orleans. There audiences would probably respond to the musical forever and the beautiful song 'Welcome to the New World' would be deeply appreciated."
It made my heart happy that Anne singled that song, in particular, out for comment. It's my favourite of the show, and I have more bootleg versions of it than a healthy person should admit to. It's a song about beginning again, reconstructing dreams after heartbreaks. I first heard it during a time of family disaster, and every time I listened it gave me hope. It made me believe that something better might be just around the corner.
"New Orleans has a very active dramatic life, a vibrant history of little theater of far above average quality, and even of high school theater that is simply outstanding," Anne went on. "I hope that something does happen there. I myself found the musical to be beautiful, to have a sustained other-worldly quality, and to be something rich and wonderful that the readers would enjoy. And those that saw it did enjoy it."
Not just those that saw it. I'm half a world away from Broadway, and the closest I've come to seeing the show are blurry, poorly-framed audience videos, with patches of black as the cameras were hidden from ushers. Whether the musical's ever revived or not, it's doubtful I'll ever have the chance to sit and watch a performance in-person.
But - no matter the doubtful quality of some aspects of the show, or the short and tragic tale of its Broadway run, or my inability to write an article about it - the fact remains that the Lestat musical shaped some of my memories; wove itself into the fabric of my own life. And I remain glad of that.
