![]() ![]() Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.The ancient Greek myth of the challenged romance between Psyche and Eros is the well from which sprang numerous Princess-themed fairytales: Cinderella, Beauty and the Beast - even echoes of the Pandora, Eurydice and Hercules myths can be detected in this early story of passion, jealousy, betrayal and redemption.Ī god becomes enamored with a beautiful mortal, much to the chagrin of his possessive mother who sets up various tests to thwart their romance.Ĭreator Cindy Shapiro has fashioned a vibrant and exciting rock-opera from this richly romantic source material, investing her book, music and lyrics with a magical blend of timeless antiquity combined with the contemporary. (323) 655-7679, .Īdvertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Brooks’ steampunk-accented costume design, and Ashley Ruth Jones as Psyche sounds pretty enough, belting her way through Shapiro’s double-album’s worth of somewhat monotonous power ballads and ethereal, hymnlike rockers (under Jack Wall’s expert musical direction).īut not even director Michael Matthews’ sumptuously animated, Baroque staging (on Stephen Gifford’s architectural capriccio set, with Tim Swiss’ chiaroscuro-sculpted lights) can finally forgive Shapiro’s seemingly endless 34-song score and her over-ambitious but under-adapted book. Michael Starr as Eros looks sexy enough in E.B. ![]() For Western culture, the story of Psyche and Eros exists as a kind of mytho-religio-literary singularity, a foundational narrative of heroic romantic and erotic love whose DNA is shot through our folklore (“Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Rumpelstiltskin,” “Beauty and the Beast”) as well as our psychoanalytic theory.īut if its poetic resonances run deep, its epic jumble of capricious gods, fantastic labors, virtuous heroine and her iniquitous sisters, along with a host of anthropomorphized supporting players, proves a cumbersome and tedious tale to represent in toto even on the musical stage, at least if this premiere of composer-librettist Cindy Shapiro’s Psyche: A Modern Rock Opera is any measure. ![]()
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