Mellencamp: 'Ghost Brothers' not your usual musicalJohn Monaghan
"I don't play well with the other kids. Never have, nor do I have any desire to," says John Mellencamp, the unapologetically ornery singer-songwriter behind '80s radio anthems like "Pink Houses" and "Jack & Diane."
That's why no one was more surprised than Mellencamp when he began collaborating with horror novelist Stephen King on a musical theater project. The resulting "Ghost Brothers of Darkland County," set in a haunted Southern cabin, stops at the Fisher Theatre on Wednesday.
Since its 2012 debut in Atlanta, the show has been touring the country in single-night performances. Mellencamp, whose tunes are performed by cast members and a four-person band (he isn't in the show), describes it as less a traditional musical and "more like a rock show where we're here for one night and then we move on."
Talking by phone, the 63-year-old singer-songwriter says the project was in the works for more than a decade and grew out of the mutual admiration he and King have for each other.
"He had liked a couple of my records, and I had a couple of signed copies of his books, but we really didn't meet until much later in our careers," he says.
Drawing on the haunted history of a cabin he owned in Indiana, Mellencamp sent King his ideas for the "Ghost Brothers" story. "But that was just the germ of the idea," the musician says. "After the story I told Steve, the synopsis I got back was probably as far away as it could get. That's because he brought so much of himself into it."
Now set in the Mississippi backwoods, the show links some of King's familiar horror themes and also draws some inspiration from playwright Tennessee Williams. "How did he (Williams) create these memorable characters like Stanley Kowalski and Stella DuBois? That's what our conversations were about," Mellencamp says.
"Ghost Brothers of Darkland County," which debuted at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre in April 2012, centers on two young brothers who find their animosity trumped by the spirits of ghostly ancestors who fought bitterly over a girl 40 years earlier. Throughout the production, an evil spirit called the Shape circles the stage, serving as a narrator of sorts while singing about heaven and hell.
The show opened more than two years ago to mixed reviews, with many critics zeroing in on King's story for being rambling. There was more consistent praise for Mellencamp's moody blues-roots musical score, which includes nearly 20 new songs produced by music biz legend T Bone Burnett.
Mellencamp doesn't mince words in describing his feelings about the Atlanta production. "It ran for, like, four weeks, and we couldn't hardly wait for it to get over," he says. "It was done like a Broadway musical with dancing, and we decided we needed to step back and adjust this thing so that it's not a musical. It's a play with music, which is quite different."
"We thought: 'How do you tell Steve's story without a lot of sets and lights and stuff getting in the way?' And we didn't need to present my songs in this Broadway fashion. So right off the bat, we're going against the grain. We really wanted to create a new experience for the viewer."
"Ghost Brothers" has been barnstorming the country since last year, and there are hopes it will eventually land on Broadway. Among the familiar names in the cast are Gina Gershon ("Killer Joe," "The Insider") and Billy Burke (who played Kristen Stewart's father in the "Twilight" movies).
Mellencamp believes the current stripped-down version of the show requires more imagination on the part of the audience and performers. "If you could imagine a radio play from the 1930s or '40s, how would you do that today?" he muses.
"Even the actors get confused. They say: 'How am I supposed to do this when I don't have a prop? I don't really have a gun.' Really, it's about creating memorable characters and an entertaining story without 10,000 props. And the audience has to be involved. This is not something you want to bring a book to."
http://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/music/2014/11/23/john-mellencamp-ghost-brothers-darkland-county/70029156/
