179
10 hit, “Burning Down the House”),
they also helped us reimagine what a
rock concert could be.
The same year that Byrne founded
the Talking Heads, he showed up at
what is now the August Wilson The-
ater for a work by experimental play-
wright Robert Wilson titled A Letter
to Queen Victoria. Being a Robert
Wilson piece—using language less
like dialogue and more like concrete
poetry—it wasn’t your typical Broad-
way production. The shows sometimes
began with patrons walking through
basement rooms where actors were,
say, hanging from a swing. “I saw that
and my mind was blown,” says Byrne,
still amazed. “I had just moved to New
York, and I’d never seen anything like
it.” In the ’90s, Byrne visited a handful
of old theaters as they were being
renovated, and his sense of the history
and importance of those places in
the American cultural conversation
more fully took root. “In a certain
way, it’s people coming for entertain-
ment, but in other ways it’s America
speaking to itself,” he says.
Byrne and Parson began working
together in 2008, when Byrne was
touring with Brian Eno for their 2008
musical collaboration, Everything
That Happens Will Happen Today.
Parsons was one of three choreogra-
phers on the tour, but she and Byrne
clicked. In 2012, they again worked
together on the Love This Giant tour,
supporting an album Byrne had
recorded with St. Vincent, and then
in 2013 on Here Lies Love, the story
(sort of) of Imelda Marcos, cowritten
with the English DJ and producer
Fatboy Slim. It played at the Public
Theater—and, yes, they’d like to see
that production make it to Broadway
too. “We were working on that,” Byrne
says, “and I thought, Why are these
musicals always the same?”
“And from a dance perspective
they’re always the same,” says Parson.
“I guess that’s the idea. It’s like com-
fort food.”
Parson and Byrne set out to turn
this idea on its head. But rather than
experiment with technology—see
Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark or the
new King Kong—their work has a
humanistic bent. “I thought, People!
People onstage!” he recalls. “I can
push that further and not try to com-
pete in the area of projections, flash
pots, and amazing sets that drop from
the ceiling. I had a sense that, as
human beings, when we go to a show,
that’s what we’re interested in—that
it’s the people that really move us.”
True to this spirit, Byrne has
allowed the work of others to influ-
ence the direction of American Utopia.
One song, “Everybody’s Coming to
My House,” had initially been a work
about anxiety: “It feels like I am say-
ing, ‘Oh, my God, all these people are
at my house—when are they ever
going to leave? Do I have to talk to all
of them?’ ” But now—thanks in large
part to a moving cover performed by
the Detroit School of Arts Vocal Jazz
Ensemble—he sees it differently.
“When the students do it, it’s more of
a yes. Yes, everybody is coming to my
house; come on over, yes! It’s about
inclusion and welcoming people. They
haven’t changed a word, but they’ve
changed the meaning completely.”
Utopia is something of a dirty
word in the U.S., at least since the
Puritans couldn’t handle anything
but work and imperfection in this
life. But Byrne helps us feel its possi-
bility. “Here’s this musician who, for
the last 40 years, has been observing
American society,” says Timbers.
“And here he is in this moment of our
cultural crisis, and we’re able to look
at the world through his lens.” Not
to put a nose on the clown, but this
is a work that turns the theater into
a utopia, just for a bit. @
BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE
“In a certain way, it’s people coming for entertainment,” says
Byrne of Broadway, “but in other ways it’s America speaking to
itself.” In this story: hair, Thom Priano.
PRODUCED BY LOLA PRODUCTIONS; SET DESIGN, ANDREA STANLEY
