JOHN Waters returns to Mandurah to try to peel back the layers of the man behind the Glass Onion.
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Before taking the show to New York, later this year, Waters will take one last look at John Lennon in the intimate show, Looking Through a Glass Onion with co-star and friend Stewart D’Arrietta.
The show is not a cut-and-paste biography of Lennon or an emulation of the original recordings; it’s a biography with a difference.
“It’s not really just a collection of his songs,” Waters said.
“Rather than try to impersonate, I wanted to evoke his honesty, bittersweet humour, self-criticism and disdain for pretentiousness and pomposity.
“It’s an intimate and a theatrical show which mixes the song with spoken word.
“The music is consistent; it’s almost a seamless piece.
“The song Glass Onion was John Lennon’s postscript to The Beatles.
“It had such a strong image of crystal ball-gazing and peeling away the layers that it inspired the format for this show – a kaleidoscope collage of song, word, emotion and image.”
Waters aimed to create an emotional core to the performance and he said it was the reason people kept coming back.
That combined with the decryption of Lennon and his music, Looking Through a Glass Onion is a performance which people request to see again and again.
“It never ceases to amaze us how many people still request to see the show, even after our last lengthy tour,” Waters said.
“We’re constantly getting emails and messages asking when is the show coming back, so it’s great that the demand and interest is always there.”
Nowadays Waters is known for roles on shows such as Offspring but he hasn’t forgotten where he came from.
Originally the singer and bassist for The Riots, Waters said it was good to get back to his roots.
“I fell into acting and there came a time when I was doing more acting than singing,” he said.
“But music is what my background is in and I wanted to bring that back to the forefront.”
It’s been more than 20 years since Looking Through a Glass Onion first hit the stage and with Mandurah’s August 13 show part of a 28-date tour, Waters said he hoped this was going to be somewhat of a farewell to Australia.
“We’ll be in New York in September; it’s a dream which has become a reality,” he said.
“We gave the United Kingdom and the West End a try and that went well but I think New York is where it’s really going to take off.
“We’ve been trying to get there for years but we just needed to get the license for the show off of Yoko Ono [Lennon’s widow].
“Who knows, we may be in New York for two years.”
For more information go to manpac.com or call 9550 3900.
