Dedicated to the memory of Paul Messina, Gertrudes Goncalves and Farookh Bulsara.
PAUL MESSINA says in the programme, "Freddie, you have been watching over us. Charles and I tried to do your life justice. I hope you approve. Mae, I miss you. Paul
Mr. Goncalves gives an outstanding performance as Freddie Mercury/Farookh
Bulsara. My interpretation of the play was this........
The boy Farookh and the man Freddie have an ongoing struggle with each other
even now at heavens door. Freddie reviews his life, his loves, his childhood,
his sexuality, his career and his regrets all with Freddie humor, charm and
sometimes anger as he tries to figure out what his maker wants of him. The
first time he finds a sore on his back he says "I knew it was the end"
What I took from this play was ......
With all that Freddie/Farookh had been through this was a man who embraced
life
and lived it to the fullest, a man who loved what he did and had a great time
doing it.
Yes, we all have regrets and make mistakes, but what good is life if you don't
have some fun living it!
Mercury: The Afterlife
and Times of a Rock God is TERRIFIC!! The writing is great, the actor
is great, I loved it and so did every other Queen fan who saw it as
far as I know. They didn't pull any punches but also neatly
sidestepped the irresolvable conflicts (like Jim vs. Mary). The
actor looks like Freddie, sounds like Freddie, moves like Freddie.
And-- well, here is a condensed version of the letter I sent them
after I'd seen the play once. My opinion didn't change with two more
viewings.
I loved the play. You
really found Freddie's voice, Charles. I didn't hear a false word
anywhere. And the humor is there! It's all Freddie. I can't think
of a higher complement. "Paul, you have created a superb physical
portrait of Freddie--his mannerisms, his facial expressions, his
softer body movements in private, the macho public stance. Often
when you spoke, tossed your head, flashed your eyes, the resemblance
was breathtaking. Freddie's accent is difficult--cultured, clipped,
yet not the nasal drone of the British upper class. You've found
just the right intonation--Freddie through and through. Your hands
are right, too--long, slim fingers, and never still. One of
Freddie's friends once told me that his hands were like little birds,
always fluttering about when he spoke. [At the beginning] "the
symbolism of washing off the KS lesions is very powerful--even
religious. The closing is equally powerful. Freddie has his say.
"The two of you have brilliantly illuminated Freddie's many
facets--his pride, his strength of will, his impulsiveness, his wit,
and above all, the mercurial changes. You've done it wonderfully.
My congratulations and my heartfelt thanks.
I went to see the play, "Mercury - The Afterlife and Times of a Rock God,"
tonight in New York. It was absolutely excellent.
Billy Squier opened with "I've Watched You Fly," a song he wrote as a
farewell to Freddie the day after he died. I was really touched, and I
very much enjoyed the performance. In an interview afterwards, he said
he's working on a new album.
The performer who played Freddie, Paul Goncalves, was incredible. I really
don't like impersonators very much. Especially in the case of Freddie
because I feel that no one can even come close to capturing the essence.
However, Paul Goncalves is a professional actor who was able to learn the
mannerisms so well, that at times you could almost forget he was just acting.
The author/director, Charles Messina, wrote with great sensitivity. The
play isn't about Freddie the performer but about Freddie's struggle with
being uprooted as a child and then with coming to terms with his sexual
identity. At least, that's my interpretation. In order to show the
struggle, the author had Freddie Mercury converse with Farookh Bulsara, and
vice versa. It sounds weird but it works.
The shocking part for me was the nudity. It's quite a bit different to see
nudity on the screen as opposed to right in front of you (I was in the
second row). The nudity was done naturally with Freddie taking off his
robe to take a bath. I just didn't expect it, especially when you're
really into the character being Freddie. Also, he changed his clothes a
few times on stage as the scene was basically supposed to be Freddie's
bedroom suite. I'm sure Freddie's real bedroom must have been quite a bit
more elaborate but we got the idea.
They got a lot of funny Freddieisms in, including my favorite, "I can't
cook..." So, the play had me laughing and crying. AND, at least for a few
days, I am the proud owner of an autographed banana - autographed by
Charles Messina, Paul Goncalves, and Billy Squier. Does anyone have any
idea how to preserve a banana???
Adelle
Thank You, Mr. Goncalves and Freddie.
Linda
Ann Christie
queen@monmouth.com
Homepage
MERCURY:The Afterlife and Times of a Rock God.
Written and directed by Charles Messina. With Paul Goncalves . At
the Sanford Meisiier Theatre, 164 llth Ave., Manhattan.
How dismaying, then, that what transpires in between is so curiously
tame and benumbing. "Mercury," whose genesis was inspired by the
remarkable resemblance of its star, Paul Goncalves, to the Zanzibar-born
rocker, serves up a fabulously unconventional celebrity in a drably
conventional one-man-show format.
Mercury frames his biography as a last-ditch confessional in which the
superstar attempts to redeem himself before a judgmental Maker. This is
the sort of solo affair in which the actor keeps dipping into a clothes
trunk to find just the right
outfit to comment on the next bit of'business. That Goncalves
provocatively executes his costume changes right in front of us, down to
his , birthdav suit, does not deter from the formulaic trotting out of
events.
Attempting to mine the humanity beneath the makeup, the playwright
sidesteps the more theatrical possibilities of the performer's life as
if they might somehow detract. Mercury's selfstyled makeover from
insecure adolescent, doubly persecuted at a British boarding school in
India for his foreignness and his ungainly overbite, to androgynous
superstarwould logically be a climactic high point of a stage treatment.
But we never really bear witness to that metamorphosis or understand
how he pulled it off. For all the rummaging through the trunk, we
barely get a glimpse of his famously outrageous stage costumes. Imagine
"The Elton John Story" without major eyeglasses.
Or music, for that matter. For better or worse, Messina has opted to
leave Queen's songs out. While Mercury never turned the world upside
down with his flashy, percussive rock (a fact admitted to by his stage
incarnation), the omission places an extra burden on the shoulders of
his impersonator to convey a suggestion of his stage electricity.
Gonealves effectively communicates the star's vulnerabilities but stints
on the charisma, a failing exacerbated by the stilted, pause-hungry
direction.
Never a big Queen fan in their hey day, Messina is able to be up front
about his subject's frailties, including a lifelong dishonesty
surrounding his sexuality. But the candor is undermined by the weight
of cliche and a paucity of real wit. If Mercury was a rock god, as the
title insists, we have to take the author at his word.
By Jan Stuart
STAFF WRITER
One of the bigger stunners to hit the rock world since Buddy Holly
died in a plane crash was Queen star Freddie Mercury's public
announcement on a November day in 1991 that he had AIDS.
He expired the
next day. For the majority of fans unaware that their flamboyant hero
was either ill or gay, it was an unparalleled instance of hit-and-run.
Given the nature of his passing and the grab you-by-the-collar theatrics
of his concerts, it would make perfect sense to spike a play about
Mercury with shock tactics. Suitably enough, Charles Messina begins and
ends his biographical monodrama with the theatrical equivalents of a
whip to the face.
If you have a revue of the play and would like to see it here, let me know.