Madonna's Madame X Show Blew Me Away

Oftentimes musical artists perform concerts, where it's just them performing music.  More rarely, an artist will add some visual effects, just a little complementary eye candy.  Even more rarely, shows are a song and dance, adding choreography, costumes and some lighting effects.  Yet more rarely than that, a unified story arc is presented from beginning to end.  And, then, there is the one-of-a-kind show that Madonna has put together entitled Madame X.  It is simply like no other.  For this atheist, it was as close to a spiritual experience as I've ever had, getting me clapping in the air excitedly and singing to songs I didn't previously think I'd sing along to.  Make no mistake, the album Madame X is not even my favorite Madonna album; but the Madame X theater show is the single greatest show I've ever had the fortune to see, hands down, bar none, head and shoulders above everything else.

Madonna had many reasons for doing a theater show, the intimacy of such a setting being prime.  Whatever her reasons, I think the theater plays to her particular artistic talents best.  She was a pioneer of the music video, elevating them to the status of short film almost immediately, a practice she perfected to work symbiotically with her music, the success of each feeding the other.  This sense of drama and visual stimulus combined with her music made for a truly spectacular show all by itself.

Photo of Wiltern Madame X promo poster
(taken from background of a photo for copyright reasons, apologies for quality)

What truly set this apart from anything else I've seen was the overall arc of the show.  From the very beginning, Madame X is a character, out to help the world and free the oppressed, her dogged pursuit always encountering resistance from those who would see her fail.  Madonna weaves in her own life to this arc in a way only she can.  Who else has over 35 years of continuous hits to draw from?  Who else can say they've had just about every religion on Earth oppose her art?  Who else has inspired entire African villages and even adopted some as her own?  Who else is fighting patriarchy harder than this soccer mom normalizing female sexuality, whether it be expressed in men or women?  There may be some others, but they couldn't pull off this show, the physical demands of which would wilt most.  From there, the drama both intensified and eased off, giving us times to just be with Madonna, her telling her personal stories and even chatting with friends in the audience.  By the end, however, it had built up again to fever pitch, with an ending and encore that was just perfect.

Madonna is, of course, a singular talent, not just able to sing and dance, but to truly envision a world and an experience from her audience's point of view.  Nonetheless, she pulled together an amazing array of supporting talent.  Putting together any theater show requires hair, makeup, costumes, stage design and construction, lighting, music, choreography and probably more than a few things I don't even know about.  Every element was executed to perfection.  I was especially struck (quite literally) by the thundering, bass-heavy versions of every song.  While the body-thumping audio system was probably tailored for sound effects, it was masterfully integrated into the music as well.

The true standouts were the dancers.  Watching any one of them individually would have been worthy of a master class, but seeing such an ensemble perform together to realize Madonna's vision was a true delight.  The sheer athleticism, artistry and skill of each performer was simply stunning.  I'm normally not much for interpretive, modern dance, but the production of her song Frozen and its prelude in this show took me from "Not another one of these" while a single dancer flailed about in a way I couldn't quite understand to "WOW this so fits in with the theme of this show" when at first two and then an entire stage line of dancers joined in and then took me further yet to a slack-jawed "OMFG, this is absolute brilliance!!" when a projection of some more interpretive dance was centered around Madonna, who could be seen through the sheer projection screen.

All I can say is anyone who is even slightly a Madonna fan needs to see this show.  It took her from never been my favorite musician to Greatest Artist of All Time.