The beatification of Andy Warhol protégée Edie Sedgwick began in the 1980s with the Stein-Plimpton biography, Edie, and took off with songs such as Adult Net’s “Edie” and films like the posthumously released Ciao! Manhattan. David J, formerly of the bands Bauhaus and Love and Rockets, attempts to sketch the terrible arc of Sedgwick’s Icaran flight and fall without resorting to the narrative slogging that typifies pop hagiography. He mostly succeeds, by writing and directing what is essentially a one-woman show starring Monique Jenkinson, whose manic, writhing Sedgwick crystallizes moments from her tormented childhood and a later fashion-frenzied life fueled by drugs and vodka. There’s no “I did this, then went there, and the next day I met Paul America.” Instead, it’s 75 minutes of choreography, live music, expressionistic silhouettes and lots of stage fog. Steven Oliver Price plays the show’s other character, Norich — a horse-headed invalid who rolls across the stage in a wheelchair to somber effect, representing Sedgwick’s dreamy adoration of horses. David J’s vocals lead a tight band whose songs tell a story that is funny and affecting without begging for sympathy for their subject. But did he really have to have Sedgwick say, “The biggest scars are the ones inside … the kind you can’t see”? Lloyd Reece’s crepuscular light plot and Ego Plum’s clear sound design are especially effective.
March 6-9, 8 p.m.; March 13-16, 8 p.m., 2008

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