Evensong @ The 2018 NZ Fringe Festival

How would Tudor singer/songwriter, John Dowland's greatest hits have sounded if he had composed them this year? After all, echoes of his melancholy mastery reverberate again and again through the charts of today - whether channeled by Ed Sheeren, Lorde, or a hundred other contemporary singer/songwriters. Ex-pat Kiwi, Glenn McKenzie explores this question when he presents an eclectic and evocative 70 minute romp through English music and theatre's most boisterous and daring days in his solo chamber work Evensong at St Christopher's, Seatoun, March 23rd, 24th, & 25th.

Painting a playful fictional portrait of Mr W.H. (the mysterious dedicatee of Shakespeare's sonnets), Evensong offers a fresh and contemporary interpretation of Dowland's finest songs and Henry Purcell's celebrated arias, framed by a selection of Shakespeare's most revealing scenes and sonnets. Lamenting the tyranny of Time, celebrating the persistence of Love, Mr W.H. flamboyantly recalls the roles he played as boy and man; the songs that he sang on stage and at court; the sonnets that Will wrote for him in celebration of their relationship.

Created for the 2015 Sydney Mardi Gras Festival, when McKenzie was living rough on the streets, Evensong combines his experience on the cusp of society with a kaleidoscope of brilliant fragments from 17th century depictions of love, loss, and lunacy. However, the work is not all darkness and despondency, and far from didactic.

“It’s an entertainment." McKenzie says, "I get to sing and dance (though twerking is limited to an officially designated mad-scene) and, best of all, get to portray more than a dozen of Shakespeare’s most famous male and female characters in unique and playful combination.”

McKenzie is an accomplished Counter-tenor, and has been a Lay-Vicar Choral and soloist in England and Australia, with a repertoire focused on Bach, Handel, and art songs by Schubert, Grieg, Elgar, et al. However in Evensong McKenzie takes the music of Dowland and Purcell, and creates new versions using Urban, Punk, Jazz, and EDM grooves.

“Their songs were the pop hits of their day. I thought it would be fun to bring a fresh experience of them to modern listeners, by translating them into the contemporary sonic world.” Included are Dowland’s raunchy “Come Again” in the style of new-wave rockers The Cars, his romantic “Times Stands Still” in a Hip Hop setting, the melancholic “None But Me” over Drum ‘n Bass grooves, and Purcell’s comic mad-aria “I’ll Sail Upon The Dogstar” as might be conceived by pop-punk thrashers Blink 182.

"Though I couldn't resist singing Purcell’s ground-bass masterpieces “Dido’s Lament” and “Evening Prayer” in their exquisite original forms."

Evensong will be presented as part of the 2018 NZ Fringe Festival at St Christopher's Church in Seatoun, March 23rd & 24th @ 7.30, and Sunday 25th @ 6.00. This will be the first time that a professional production will use this attractive neo-Romanesque space (built in 1932) since it was saved for the community by Fran Walsh and Sir Peter Jackson in 2015.

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Evensong
The Tyranny of Time - The Persistence of Love
Presented by Glenn McKenzie - 2018 NZ Fringe Festival
St Christopher's Church 22 Forres Street, Seatoun, Wellington 6022
Friday, March 23rd @ 7.30 Saturday, March 24th @ 7.30 Sunday, March 25th @ 6.00
Bookings via FringeTIX: available directly through www.fringe.co.nz

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