Smashing the Glass Onion…

Created and performed by renowned Australian actor/musician John Waters and esteemed singer/pianist Stewart D’Arrietta, Lennon: Through a Glass Onion is back in Australia following their sensational 16-week season in New York.

The internationally acclaimed theatrical event celebrating the genius, music and phenomenon of John Lennon, which we know and loved as Looking Through A Glass Onion was re-produced and rebranded for its Off-Broadway debut at the Union Square Theatre.

How did you come to be performing Through A Glass Onion in New York?

The short answer is that Yoko Ono visited Sydney in late 2013 to do an art show at the Museum of Contemporary Art and we had just signed up with producer Harley Medcalf, who had a lot of experience and who had approached Yoko’s lawyers prior to coming to Sydney, and a lot of information went back and forth and in the end we came back with the full rights to the copyright for Lennon’s music and imagery for the territory of the US and it was something like a Willy Wonka golden ticket where we were successful because Yoko approved the show.

What were your feelings about it heading over there? Did you have any trepidation? What are the fears about Aussies doing a show about a Brit pop star in the US?

I think that when we were actually going to New York that we were visiting Lennon’s spiritual home, being New York, and it was his home by choice and New York loved him even more than Liverpool because he felt that they adopted him, so I had no fear and they have a love and interest in John and the treatment of the man and his music goes over very well – and luckily it did.

How was it received?

The New York audiences loved our show. They had been fed up with just simple cover acts and also the big glitzy Broadway style like they had Lennon a few years ago but it wasn’t particularly well received, whereas our low-key portrayal of Lennon in a highly theatrical way was a new thing for them and I am happy to say they took to it.

Did you have to change the show much when it was reproduced and rebranded?

No, not really. There’s a change to the title where it was Looking Through A Glass Onion and it became Lennon Through A Glass Onion because they wanted Lennon in the title and that’s understandable because they don’t know me but they know him and we have the rights, so we had a new branding and a new poster, which has an imaginative painting of Lennon, and we had that freedom to use Lennon so we stuck it in.

As far as the show goes we only made a few changes to some of the references that may have been outside of the New York frame of reference and so just changed the language a bit here and there.

What has the feedback been like from people such as Yoko Ono and those who knew Lennon?

Well for a start we dealt with Yoko because she really did give our show a seal of approval in terms of permissions we got, and there’s been a lot of people we’ve met – like with John’s lawyers who fought his immigration battle – and they said, ‘You’ve captured the man exactly,’ to quote the son of the lawyer who got John his green card and so it is very gratifying when people say that.

Why do you think it’s important to tell the story of someone like John Lennon?

I believe that he had a very clear voice in terms of where the human race ought to be going from here on in and if we could change the world to be a peaceful place, now is the time to start.

Right now it stands repeating again and again and he was a great musician as well so his works were on a different level; whether it be political or a love song, he took the basic rock and roll format and changed it in to something else.

What should we expect for your return show to Ballina RSL?

An experience perhaps akin to being in a dream with John Lennon about his life and going over key elements of his life face to face of his assassin, and we go inside his head, which I don’t know any other show has been able to capture, and perhaps that’s the magic of ours.

The show heads to Ballina RSL on 10 June.