The cast of David Bowies off-Broadway musical Lazarus, led by actor-singer Michael C. Hall, performed the plays haunting title-trackThursday on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. Hall adopted Bowies dramatic vibrato, emoting lines like Look up here, Im in heaven/ Ive got scars that cant be seen over an ethereal, jazzy atmosphere of saxophone, trombone and steel guitar.
Lazarus, staged at the New York Theatre Workshop through January 20th, is a sequel to Bowies 1976 movie The Man Who Fell To Earth and tells the surreal story of alcoholic millionaire alien Thomas Newton. Ivo van Hove (Scenes From a Marriage) directs the musical, which stars Hall alongside Cristin Milioti, Sophia Anne Caruso and Michael Esper.
Lazarus, the song, is Bowies latest single from upcoming album (pronounced Blackstar), out January 8th. The LP was recorded in secret in early 2015 New Yorks The Magic Shop Studio and produced by longtime Bowie collaborator Tony Visconti. We were listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar, the producer told Rolling Stone. We wound up with nothing like that, but we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and he didnt do a straight-up hip-hop record. He threw everything on there, and thats exactly what we wanted to do. The goal, in many, many ways, was to avoid rock & roll.