LESTAT on Broadway

Dear Friends & Loved Ones:

I'm still a big fan of Anne Rice and pleased that she's returning to the gothic genre with THE WOLF GIFT to be published soon. I read INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE in 1976 when it appeared and no one knew who this woman that wrote it was. Been hooked on her ever since.

It's not easy to believe it's already been six years since the brief run of the muscial LESTAT on Broadway, an amazing and promising show that involved a lot of mega-talent, yet was dreadfully mis-managed by Warner Brothers which funded it and apparently knew little about producing stage musicals. At a cost of many millions, it flopped big-time, fast, but not because it was a bad show.

Any of you who are Anne Rice fans may recall this. Elton John and Bernie Taupin wrote wonderful lyrics and gorgeous music. The handsome and gifted Hugh Panero played the lead, and the fabulous Carolee Carmello played his mother Gabrielle. Both are tremendous actors with great singing voices. Perhaps the show suffered creative problems and appeared prematurely, yet it deserved better than it got. It could have been great!

Though an Original Cast Recording was made, this OCR has never been released, to my sorrow. I seriously hoped to go to NYC to see the production, but it closed after only 39 performances. Fortunately I've got a rare pirate DVD shot from the audience, shaky and fuzzy and without great sound quality. Still, I recently re-discovered this DVD and I've transcribed a powerful and beautiful song "Make Me As You Are" in which Lestat's mother Gabrielle, makes a curiously Oedipal request of him to…

“Make Me As You Are” (Lyrics by Bernie Taupin & Music by Elton John)

(Lestat’s mother, Gabrielle, who is dying of tuberculosis, comes to visit him in Paris. She observes him closely, confronts him about his new nature and he confesses to her that the Gothic legend is true: he has died and yet he still lives, transformed…)

GABRIELLE:

And from that truth I feel no fear

Two kinds of death are present here

Mine’s the age-old act of dying

But yours is like the Phoenix rising

Your mother’s frail and feeble husk

Will soon be nothing more than dust

So let’s not dwell on wasted years

My time is short, my choice is clear

Make Me As You Are

Tear the hands off clocks

that tick away my final hours

I want to rage against the light

And leave the Sun behind

I want to feel the power

Of everlasting youth inside

Take me, give me new life

And we’ll live beneath the Stars

Together and forever

I beg you, Make Me As You Are

LESTAT:

This cursed gift with which I live

I know not if it’s mine to give

I’m still a fledgling in this frame

I’ve only killed when hunger reigned

GABRIELLE:

The risk is mine, and if we fail

I’ll shake the Devil by his tail

Oh blessed thoughts of sweet release

From nagging nurse, and hovering priest

Make Me As You Are

Tear the wings off angels

That would lift me from your heart

I want to dance beneath the Moon

And slip into the dark

I want to feel the night

Awaken when I leave my mark

Take me, give me new life

And we’ll live beneath the Stars

Together and forever

I beg you, Make Me As You Are

Make Me, Make Me, Make Me As You Are

BOTH:

Tear the hands off clocks

That tick away my final hours

We’ll rage against the light

And leave the Sun behind

I want to feel the power

Of everlasting youth inside

GABRIELLE:

Take me, give me new life

BOTH:

And we’ll live beneath the Stars

Together and forever

GABRIELLE:

I beg you, Make Me As You Are

(He does so…!)

Peace,

Bruce