Hey Flaming Lips fans! Here’s a light-hearted musical romp through the greatest hits of the Lips’ catalog, with a special focus on 2002’s Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots OH MY GOD IT’S ABOUT WHAT????? I thought musicals were all supposed to be nauseating fever dreams with saccharine melodies and blondes who can lift their legs higher than humans frankly should be able to. Well, not this one, people. This one’s depressing! With the great Lips tunes — including tracks from The Soft Bulletin and At War with the Mystics, amongst others — that we all know and love! But come on, what else would you really expect from Wayne Coyne and his fearless freaks?
“There’s the real world and then there’s this fantastical world,” Coyne told Entertainment Weekly back in 2007. “This girl, the Yoshimi character, is dying of something. And these two guys are battling to come visit her in the hospital. And as one of the boyfriends envisions trying to save the girl, he enters this other dimension where Yoshimi is this Japanese warrior and the pink robots are an incarnation of her disease. It’s almost like the disease has to win in order for her soul to survive. Or something like that.” Yep, this musical will send you barreling down the tracks with a one-way ticket to Bummersville. Or Transcendenceville. Depending on how this thing works out.
Flavorpill is reporting that said musical, entitled Pink Robots, makes its world premiere this winter at California’s La Jolla Playhouse. Des McAnuff, whose credits include overseeing the current Broadway incarnation of both Jersey Boys and Jesus Christ Superstar, wrote and directed the whole robotic shebang. The Social Network genius Aaron Sorkin was attached to this thang back in 2007, but the LA Times has stated that his name is mysteeeeriously absent from the official press release.
• The Flaming Lips: http://www.flaminglips.com
• La Jolla Playhouse: http://www.lajollaplayhouse.org