118 newyork| november25–december8, 2019
The new album Magdalene, by FKA
Twigs, invokes Mary of Magdala as a kind
of apostle of the overlooked. Twigs, as a
woman who landed in the paparazzi’s
sights in this decade not for her elegant,
eccentric work in dance and electronic
music but for her relationships with actors
Robert Pattinson and Shia LaBeouf, relates
to the plight of long-suffering women in
history. This is a breakup album, written
after her split with Pattinson, in a period of
upheaval limited not just to the artist’s
romantic life. Twigs’s health declined rap-
idly in 2017; tests revealed uterine fibroid
growths the size of apples that necessi-
tated emergency surgery, an experience
detailed in a deathly ramble in the new
album’s “Home With You”: “Apples, cher-
ries, pain / Breathe in, breathe out, pain.” It’s
a song about strength, though. Stern words
about leaving imbalanced relationships are
the key. “I’ve never seen a hero likeme in a
sci-fi,” Twigs sings in the pre-chorus.
Magdalene is an effortless braiding of
highbrow electronic art-pop, carnal soul
music, and lurid modern dance because
Twigs goes the extra mile in her work as
a singer, producer, and performer, mix-
ing and matching mediums to meet her
tastes. The album’s downcast closer,
“Cellophane”—in which the singer tries
to reconcile a craving for intimacy withPOP/ CRAIGJENKINSThePassionoftheTwigsOnherlatest, FKATwigsinvokesthesufferingofMaryMagdalene.marymagdaleneistheNewTestament’smost enigmaticfig-
ure.TheGospelAccordingtoLuke introducesherasa woman
who(afterbeingpossessedbysevendemons,thencured)helpedfinance
thedisciples’ministries.Matthewplacesherat theCrucifixion,andMark
has her in the party that discovers Christ’s open tomb three days after-
ward. John says she later encounters a newly risen Jesus, who sends her to
deliver word of his resurrection. That’s a crucial role, but little else is said
of it in the Bible, where women are encouraged to be cheerful assistants
and celebrated for their courage and faithfulness but always in the shad-
ow of a man. (Speculation about Mary’s life runs hot: Early Church brass
dismissed her as a prostitute, but perceptions later softened considerably.)self-containment, to vary his days, to force
him to care; it’s a big deal in the context
of the show (though some people prefer
the song it replaced, the more ambivalent
“Happily Ever After”). It’s a good ending
for Company, where it has been carefully
set up by Bobby’s two-plus-hour insistence
that marriage is hell and freedom takes
precedence over commitment. But having
complained about Baumbach’s penchant
for looking at things in their ugliest light,
I have to say that the opposite—a sud-
den, spurious harmony, a Sondheim ex
machina—is even less satisfying. Couldn’t
Baumbach have come up with his own
damn epiphany? ■HOLIDAY TRAIN SHOW®nybg.orgNovember 23 – January 26
NewYorkCity’sfavoriteholidaytraditionis back!LuEstherT. Mertz
CharitableTrustFoundingSponsors Sponsors
VICTORIAand
ROBERTZOELLNER