Album Notes

Not everyone has a chance to revisit their lives to seek a new verdict on how they lived – but in this show, Grigori Rasputin and his assassin, Prince Felix Youssoupov do. The results replay history with ironic and unexpected twists. Loosely framed in a parody of contemporary “Reality TV” – an energetically comic emcee/magician (“Felix”) struts out examine the life of Grigori Rasputin, who is brought out from the audience, a figure of unassuming stature, much like the historical Rasputin. It is immediately clear that he and Felix share something unusual between them.

The musical, which is based on extensive research around the life of Rasputin from various points of view (and there are quite a few here) explores the factors surrounding how history, itself, is created through media, narrative, rumor and superstition. Flamboyant Youssoupov, once the wealthiest man in Russia, a cabaret performer and cross dresser whose hero was Oscar Wilde, tries to orchestrate once again the life narrative of the man he killed nearly 100 years before. In parallel, the musical examines the troubling contradictions of Rasputin himself, a man who, had he been intellectually and morally stronger, might have conceivably been a powerful force for good. In a style that combines farce and tragedy (in accordance with actual historical events), “Rasputin the Magic Reality Show,” becomes in the end an affirming statement of what human beings can achieve, just as it warns of stereotypes, prejudice and convenience in response to the astonishing complexity and contradictions within us.