Stop the Virgens!

A few nights ago, I experienced Karen O's Stop the Virgens!, an opera that saw eight performances in two weeks at St. Ann's Warehouse in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

My Stop the Virgens! program. I know. It's awesome.

I really love the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who performed in the opera, and a friend of mine helped work on this production, so I was excited to both see a wonderful, unique performance and support my friend. The play is termed a "psycho opera," and psycho, it was. I mean, I was kinda scrrred. I fairly crapped my pants a couple of times before and during.

I sometimes go out in New York to see concerts, plays or the ballet with my high school friends, Kelli and Joel. This night, it was just Kelli and myself, because Joel had an internship commitment that he couldn't ditch (though he really wanted to). Kelli was pretty excited about the play and we were both spazzing out over the Cokes we consumed in the foyer. We had no idea what we were about to walk in and stand to.

Before the show, one of the two characters known as 'sentinels' threw these flyers out into the crowd. I caught this one and an audience member actually tried to grab it out of my hand. Another variant of the flyer was thrown out, which I didn't manage to catch. As you can see the image is printed on almost translucent, plastic-like paper (was it rice paper? Shit, I don't know.) Very, very nice. All Stop the Virgens! illustrations by Sonny Gerasimowicz.

The play featured nine beauuutiful/awesome songs. If you're familiar with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, then you know the heavenliness of which I speak. Karen O's vocals melt my pantaloons. She has, like, the slightest touch of death lining her voice. Seriously, I can't wait for the album. Forty virgens donned the stage and flanked the left and right sides of the theater as the (outstanding) supporting choir. All of them sported short, blonde shocks of hair and died gruesome, bloody deaths at various points during the play. 

The graphics were stunning. There was even a choral conductor standing in the center of the sold-out crowd just totally workin' it. I mean, she hunkered down and conducted the shit out of that opera. 

And did I mention Lili Taylor was in it?! Big fan of hers. If you don't know who she is, chances are you've seen her in something, admired her work, and just didn't know it. What's funny is, I'd read she was in Stop the Virgens! before I saw it, then I forgot and remembered again when I saw her onstage. 

The play was gorgeous, the whole thing. Look for more on Stop the Virgens! in the future, because a mere eight performances can't be all there is.

 "Maps," the Yeah Yeah Yeahs most iconic song, I think.

If you've never heard it, please listen;

it will probably change your life.