This co-created piece by The Royal Exchange’s Sarah Frankcom and actress Maxine Peake is more an experimental experience than a biographical play, giving an impressionistic, stream-of-consciousness monologue splicing the minds of Peake & Nico herself.
Christa Päffgen, later rebranding herself as Nico, the German fashion model, actress & iconic singer, ended her days suddenly and tragically at age 49 from a brain haemorrhage and heart attack, impoverished and on a Methadone programme. This work is an attempt to reclaim some of the autonomy and soul of an artiste who is best known as a muse to Cohen and Dylan and for her collaboration with the Velvet Underground, and to consider the challenge of being a female in a male-dominated creative industry
Peake strides around the stage in Nico’s trademark voluminous trench coat, smoking and musing in her native Bolton accent, initially worrying about the singer but gradually becoming possessed by the spirit of Nico, sporadically breaking into a husky German accent until Nico possess her completely. Peake zip-wires through a range of emotions from fear, self-doubt, confusion and regret – laced with some sardonic humour. She soul searches about breaking down the barrier between audience and performer and is able to even weave in ad-libs, as when a woman in the second row suffers a sustained coughing fit (“You alright?”)
Newly arranged songs from Nico’s album The Marble Index are twisted through the piece, providing ballast to what is an elusive, shape-shifting script. The work of the Hitler Youth-uniformed female musicians from the Royal Northern College of Music is gorgeous, rich and sinewy – and their choreography (they are crisply manipulated by Imogen Knight) is both pristine and disturbing.
My biggest issue with the piece is that it lacks a clear narrative arc: if you know Nico’s life and work, you’re on safe ground, but if you’ve only listened to some of her songs, you could easily get lost in the blurring scenes. There is so much to Nico’s life that could be drawn upon for meat and emotional pay-back, but instead there is only the oblique touching upon, for example, her drug use and the sexual abuse she suffered. There is always though the mesmerising and passionate performance of Peake, a chameleon who powerhouses this production, demonically bashing away on the harmonium and staring out into the audience, alternately challenging and vulnerable.
It is a project rather than a play, so expect instead a series of punchy, sensual impressionistic scenes in a high concept piece with a committed, compelling outpouring of emotion from Peake - albeit with an all-too abrupt end. For an artiste still overshadowed by the men in her life, this is a good place to start investigating Nico and to be intrigued. It’ll also send you back to the purity of her music. Nico would have approved.
Reviewer - Tracy Ryan
on - 12/7/19
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