‘There’s blood on my Burberry!’ – American Psycho causes a splash on Broadway
Name: American Psycho.
Age: 25.
Appearance: American. Psychotic.
Good heavens, are the adventures of murderous-or-possibly-just-delusional investment banker Patrick Bateman by then enfant terrible Bret Easton Ellis a quarter of a century old already? They are indeed.
I feel old. Although I don’t look it, thanks to my assiduous application of honey almond body scrub, water-activated gel cleanser and herb mint facial masks. That’s from the film, but kudos.
Is the book being republished on this unlikely anniversary? No. It is being marked by something altogether more splendid, albeit accidentally.
Explain. I shall. A musical version, first staged in the UK at the Almeida, is previewing on Broadway.
Replete with sex, murders and executions, cannibalism, necrophilia, narcissism, exfoliation, business cards and torture, I hope and trust? Of course. And blood. Lots and lots of fake blood. Some of which has aroused complaints.
Ah, people objecting to the violence? Can they still not see that the whole thing is a millefeuille of meta-jokery and viciously brilliant satirical commentary on the worst elements of late western consumer capitalism? That the violence is self-consciously cartoonish, not naturalistic? It’s not that.
Oh. What is it then? The fake blood has been splashing members of the front rows. One woman approached the manager of the Gerald Schoenfeld theatre in tears, to show him her stained sweater, Burberry cashmere scarf and Louis Vuitton bag.
That’s too good. That’s too good. Are you sure she wasn’t a plant by Bret EE? Apparently not. That’s just where we are now. Through the looking glass, round the bend and up shit creek without a pastiche paddle or hope in hell of salvation, soon to be beached for ever on Post-Post-Post Modern Island, population: a handful of fragments of whatever customarily masquerades as “You”.
Did the manager put them all in to soak for her? No, but he told her they would pay the cleaning bill.
They should have worn plastic ponchos like Bateman does for hacking up prostitutes and that. Stella MacCartney should get in quick and start pumping out designer pac-a-macs. I am sure that someone, somewhere, is already on that.
Do say: “What an inadvertently acute critique of the mess we’re in.”
Don’t say: “I prefer Singin’ in the Rain.”