How one took Marianne Faithfull's recent New York concert depends, I suppose, on how close one is willing to get to her inner child. There was a time, of course, when Marianne's inner child was turned out by Andrew Loog Oldham, and this child it seems has never recovered. It appears to be perpetually stoned like an embryo made alcoholic by an unheeding parent; that is, it is the child's very nature to be stoned. This is quite different from suggesting that Marianne the adult performing was stoned; of that I have no way of knowing. Timing, nevertheless, was her forte in youth and it failed the single woman of a certain age we saw the other night, which is unfortunate because divas can make time stand still. Little girls cannot, unless of course they're one's own little girl.
While in 1964-65, Marianne was definitely an improvement over the NEMS stable hands
like Gerry and Freddie, in retrospect she is one of the most bruised of female
guests to the world's most exclusive boys' club. Though she may have aroused the
voluptuary in Mick, Andrew's first impression of "an angel with tits"
is far less a physical compliment than a social and political comment.
Aesthetically she may have been the closest to an Audrey Hepburn or Grace Kelly Andrew was going to find among the shop girls and debs of his acquaintance.
But the unstated appeal of Marianne to both Mick and Andrew was that this young
girl, with more breeding than money, represented social security. Why was a
beauty of obvious intelligence married with a child so early in life and to a
husband Mick apparently saw as mere adultery practice?
Marianne's flaws were exploited in turning her out as a overnight "star" and trophy lover. Mick and Andrew, with little conscious collaboration but tremendous tacit understanding between them, together paved a garden path for their own personal Guinevere, as a pimp superficially soothes the psychological pangs of his newest friend while insuring that her more obvious assets can be turned into one, cash, and two, status among other players. This is only possible, of course, because Marianne had and still has more than her share of passive aggression which seems to be part of the character of all stars, wannabe and actual. For his part, Andrew is often aggressive and seldom passive, so whatever he might be, one would never call him a crack baby, like so many other great artists and unhappy people, who seem to absorb passive entitlement with their mother's milk.
When the going got tough, in 1967, it was every boy for himself, and the boys held all the cards. All Marianne could do was write a couple of classic songs about addiction and make like Ophelia. She was set up but she made it too easy and too much fun. So I don't really understand why she seems so concerned that we find her "nice" now.
Back at the Danny Kaye Theater,
of all places, Marianne showered us with an unexpected, and not altogether welcome,
sweet, warm familiarity. Now I personally expected
someone who could bring Sir Dirk Bogarde to heel and what we got
was Simone Signoret hiding out as the mistress of a Dublin whorehouse.
This did not seem to matter to the paying lesbians, aging fags,
and kept boys who made up her audience. Though they were not pretty,
how much richer the occasion might have been had almost anybody's
agenda been more readily detectable by their attire. Modern times,
in their glorification of the casual, puzzle me-I can only take
what I see in the streets to mean that one's clothing is now allowed
to be as sloppy as one's body, so I tend to avoid public places
where any hint of sexuality is on hand. I ride the subways, however,
and try to use my spell underground as a spiritual exercise.
Marianne did seem nice, after all, and it did seem to detract from the act. What a drag it is. . .