Welcome to the press page of Neal Medlyn, one of New York's premier performers, seen twice within six months in the New York
Times with no shirt on. Here you can find the most recent press releases, press photos and a smattering of the kind things
members of the press have said about Mr. Medlyn in their fine publications. And please feel free to contact Neal at this email
address nealmedlyn@hotmail.com with any and all inquiries. Thanks!
Neal
Medlyn is a funny, earnest guy with a penchant for inhabiting the pop star personas of larger-than-life celebrities like Prince
and Beyoncé. This could easily turn into shtick; the dangers of such a comfortable and limited artistic trajectory have been
evident in his past shows.
But so has the suggestion of a wilder, grander grappling with American culture. And this,
happily, is the direction Mr. Medlyn went with ''... Her's a Queen'' last week at Dance Theater Workshop. His quarry here
is Britney Spears and his show, fittingly, is something of a train wreck.
Aggressive and unsteady, it uses Ms. Spears's
slick-surfaced songs and desperate vulnerability as the vehicles for an existential meditation on the confused longings and
spiritual emptiness lurking beneath so much of our dazzlingly vacuous public discourse.
Like any self-respecting false
idol, Mr. Medlyn has a false opening act: Dance Gang, a k a Kennis Hawkins and Will Rawls, in ''Dog Breaks,'' a marvelously
moody work that suggests this duo is also moving into stranger waters. Their (sometimes naked) bodies festooned with beautiful
ink drawings by Tony Orrico, Ms. Hawkins and Mr. Rawls, calling themselves the Lead Singers, radiated a sulky adolescent energy
as they sang pop songs, barked sound and lighting cues and offered tantalizing eruptions of striking, formalist choreography.
Chloë
Z. Brown's lighting and Jonathan Melville Pratt's sound design created a lush environment, as Ms. Hawkins and Mr. Rawls created
and then subverted a disorienting cult of self. Their efforts ended with recited self-improvement truisms, and the stage was
set for Mr. Medlyn.
And what a stage: flanked by four rows of chairs for intrepid audience members, it was a scruffy
temple of the id, featuring a red wrestling mat, sound equipment used by the mysteriously occupied Farris Craddock and a screen
showing surprisingly beautiful candids of Mr. Medlyn. Taken during the show by Carmine Covelli, the photographs captured him
in various states of disarray, as he and Mr. Covelli tussled verbally and physically. His identity continually shifting, Mr.
Covelli served as an enigmatic, sometimes bullying foil for Mr. Medlyn's helpless rages.
During and in between these
rages he belted out Spears songs, wailed about his desire for purity, enacted awkwardly ritualistic dances and presided over
a cuddle party. Glittery and bleak, he pressed on, a fallen innocent staked to the spotlight's unforgiving glare.
READ THE TIMES' REVIEW OF NEAL MEDLYN'S UNPRONOUNCEABLE SYMBOL, JULY 2008 AT PS122: CLICK HERE TO READ
FURTHER PRAISE FOR NEAL MEDLYN'S UNPRONOUNCEABLE SYMBOL, JULY 2008 AT PS122:
"Rimbaud famously said that all artistic illumination begins with 'sensory derangement'. Neal Medlyn's remix/mashups
of the lives and work of R.Kelly, Prince and the like suggest that sensory derangement can begin with sexual derangement."
--Ron Rosenbaum, cultural critic, <Slate>
"There's no denying it: Medlyn's commitment makes him hilarious, especially when he's tearing through a sexed-up song
like "U Got the Look" or acting out Jerry's unexpected trip to an afterlife filled with sex toys. [The] script is
just as funny, thwarting reality with a story that makes little sense but has plenty of great jokes."
click here to read the whole review!
"Neal Medlyn is one of downtown's most talented and flexible performance artists!"
Click here to read the whole interview!
"There's really no reason why the fantasia of an awkward, bespectacled, bi-sexual white boy from Texas should elicit
such frisson, but Medlyn is so brazenly committed to his own deeply eccentric vision that you can't help but cheer him on."
click here to read the whole review!
BOYS WILL BE BEYONCE "Medlyn deals in theatrical miracles. He transforms the stuff of our celebrity-obsessed,
media-saturated world into impossibly beautiful, absurdist happenings...He's amazing." -- "All Things Considered" NPR, April
4th, 2008
CLICK BELOW TO LISTEN!
PRESS FOR "NEAL MEDLYN'S COMING IN THE AIR TONIGHT"....
PRESS PRAISE FOR KENNY MELLMAN+NEAL MEDLYN=ROBERT KELLY:
"Hilarious!" -- Time Out New York
"It's hard to imagine anyone could be funnier than the 'sexasaurus' himself but Kenny Mellman (of Kiki & Herb fame) and Neal
Medlyn (of well-timed unicorn-blowjob joke fame) give Kelly a run for his money." -- the Onion
