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The trouble with Beatles impersonators (1st review
Jim Rutter
Get a life:
Beatles imitators and their audiences
JIM RUTTER
I was too young to see the Beatles perform live, and only eight years old when Mark David Chapman‘s bullet eliminated any possibility of the group’s reunion. So it’s only through recorded albums, films and video clips on YouTube and elsewhere (and seeing Paul McCartney perform in concert) that I can appreciate any degree of similarity on the part of Rain, the Beatles impersonators who appeared recently at the Academy of Music.
Two members of this imitation Fab Foursome—Joey Curatolo and Ralph Castelli—struck me as dead ringers for Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, respectively. And the group’s meticulous attention to detail—in the performance of the Beatles’ songs and music, their appearance, and the wigs and costumes—paid off favorably in comparison, especially when they shifted away from the Beatles’ early work, where Steve Landes faltered on some of John Lennon’s high notes (particularly during “Twist and Shout”), and Joe Bithorn looked too aged to still play a 25-year-old George Harrison. Still, when Bithorn’s full-throttled rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” trailed off into a fiercely improvised riff, I finally felt as if I were watching a rock concert— by the Beatles, Rain, whoever.
But most of the time I found myself thinking, “What’s wrong with these guys?” Though all four seem to be phenomenally talented musicians, they’ve each spent the better part of their working lives (more than 20 years each, according to their program bios) performing not as themselves but in impersonation of the Beatles. As is the case with Frank Marino, the Vegas performer who has undergone plastic surgery to appear more like Joan Rivers for his cabaret show, I have to wonder at what point the four members of Rain breach the thin border between performance art and psychosis.
Consider De Niro and Ralph Archbold
To be sure, a skilful impersonator deserves our admiration. Also, to be sure, performance by its very nature always involves some degree of real-life imitation. Robert De Niro put on about 50 pounds to play the middle-aged Jake La Motta in Raging Bull; Renée Zellweger seems to change her hair color whenever she changes movie parts; and Philadelphia’s Ralph Archbold has impersonated Ben Franklin in so many venues for so many years that it’s hard to know what to call him when you meet him on the street. But unlike the cast members of Rain, very few actors transform the arc of their entire lives and attempt to maintain the appearance of another in order to pass themselves off as an actual existing person on stage for decades on end.
I don’t know which is worse: the psychosis of these four men, or their audience, which tries to recreate for themselves what a generation of young Americans must have felt upon first seeing the Beatles perform. The crowd response at the Academy of Music on Wednesday night ranged from an unmitigated longing that accepted every nuance as genuine to a sort of spellbound hypnosis that cheered or screamed every time Curatolo’s “McCartney” voice announced how glad he was to “be back in Philadelphia.”
Henry V— with the real Henry?
It’s one thing for a theater audience to suspend disbelief in order to enjoy or feel moved by a play. But even when a playwright bases his work on a living person—as in Shakespeare’s Henry V—theatergoers can feel elevated by the “Band of Brothers” speech without deluding themselves that they’re watching the actual British king.
By contrast, any enjoyment of “Rain: The Beatles Experience” derives from the verisimilitude of the group’s performances, and any hint of inaccuracy breaks the evening’s spell and ruins the production’s impact.
Plato banished art from his ideal Republic because it involved praise of deceptive imitation. I understand that people long to connect with The Beatles’ music in live performance. But two of the Beatles (John Lennon and George Harrison) are gone, and a third (Ringo) is no longer touring. If the only alternative requires a massive self-deception bordering on delusion, perhaps it’s time for everyone involved to simply let it be.
To read another review by Steve Cohen, click here.
To read a response, click here.
Beatles imitators and their audiences
JIM RUTTER
I was too young to see the Beatles perform live, and only eight years old when Mark David Chapman‘s bullet eliminated any possibility of the group’s reunion. So it’s only through recorded albums, films and video clips on YouTube and elsewhere (and seeing Paul McCartney perform in concert) that I can appreciate any degree of similarity on the part of Rain, the Beatles impersonators who appeared recently at the Academy of Music.
Two members of this imitation Fab Foursome—Joey Curatolo and Ralph Castelli—struck me as dead ringers for Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, respectively. And the group’s meticulous attention to detail—in the performance of the Beatles’ songs and music, their appearance, and the wigs and costumes—paid off favorably in comparison, especially when they shifted away from the Beatles’ early work, where Steve Landes faltered on some of John Lennon’s high notes (particularly during “Twist and Shout”), and Joe Bithorn looked too aged to still play a 25-year-old George Harrison. Still, when Bithorn’s full-throttled rendition of “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” trailed off into a fiercely improvised riff, I finally felt as if I were watching a rock concert— by the Beatles, Rain, whoever.
But most of the time I found myself thinking, “What’s wrong with these guys?” Though all four seem to be phenomenally talented musicians, they’ve each spent the better part of their working lives (more than 20 years each, according to their program bios) performing not as themselves but in impersonation of the Beatles. As is the case with Frank Marino, the Vegas performer who has undergone plastic surgery to appear more like Joan Rivers for his cabaret show, I have to wonder at what point the four members of Rain breach the thin border between performance art and psychosis.
Consider De Niro and Ralph Archbold
To be sure, a skilful impersonator deserves our admiration. Also, to be sure, performance by its very nature always involves some degree of real-life imitation. Robert De Niro put on about 50 pounds to play the middle-aged Jake La Motta in Raging Bull; Renée Zellweger seems to change her hair color whenever she changes movie parts; and Philadelphia’s Ralph Archbold has impersonated Ben Franklin in so many venues for so many years that it’s hard to know what to call him when you meet him on the street. But unlike the cast members of Rain, very few actors transform the arc of their entire lives and attempt to maintain the appearance of another in order to pass themselves off as an actual existing person on stage for decades on end.
I don’t know which is worse: the psychosis of these four men, or their audience, which tries to recreate for themselves what a generation of young Americans must have felt upon first seeing the Beatles perform. The crowd response at the Academy of Music on Wednesday night ranged from an unmitigated longing that accepted every nuance as genuine to a sort of spellbound hypnosis that cheered or screamed every time Curatolo’s “McCartney” voice announced how glad he was to “be back in Philadelphia.”
Henry V— with the real Henry?
It’s one thing for a theater audience to suspend disbelief in order to enjoy or feel moved by a play. But even when a playwright bases his work on a living person—as in Shakespeare’s Henry V—theatergoers can feel elevated by the “Band of Brothers” speech without deluding themselves that they’re watching the actual British king.
By contrast, any enjoyment of “Rain: The Beatles Experience” derives from the verisimilitude of the group’s performances, and any hint of inaccuracy breaks the evening’s spell and ruins the production’s impact.
Plato banished art from his ideal Republic because it involved praise of deceptive imitation. I understand that people long to connect with The Beatles’ music in live performance. But two of the Beatles (John Lennon and George Harrison) are gone, and a third (Ringo) is no longer touring. If the only alternative requires a massive self-deception bordering on delusion, perhaps it’s time for everyone involved to simply let it be.
To read another review by Steve Cohen, click here.
To read a response, click here.
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