Make Me Alive—By PJ

Beacon Bono (watercolor) by Kelly Eddington, 2022. Based on a screenshot from Bono’s appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

Make Me Alive

Bono’s Stories of Surrender Tour, The Beacon Theater, November 2, 2022

PJ DeGenaro

I was and still am the youngest child of a loud, left-leaning, working class family. Our old house was full of books, shelved indiscriminately in various bedrooms. The complete works of Shakespeare rubbed shoulders with Norman Mailer, Belva Plain and 25-cent sci-fi paperbacks held together with tape. 

We were great defenders of the arts and humanities! Unless someone in the family wanted to be an artist. Because while art is vital to any society, it is ultimately self-indulgent. It’s fine for other people, but we are realists. We become special education teachers, social workers, civil servants. 

And yet my father took wonderful photographs that he developed himself, in a darkroom he built in the basement. And he loved opera.

A few years ago, a close relative who is in fact a psychiatric social worker got into the habit of labeling any public figure who dared to talk, write or sing about themselves a narcissist. (Imagine hearing the word narcissist five times a day in a New York accent.) Around this time, I was working toward a masters degree in creative writing. 

“But what could I possibly write,” I asked my relative, “that wasn’t, at heart, my feeling about something? Or my opinion about something? Or something I imagined in my own head? It’s not like I can assemble a team of volunteers to help me write a poem just so you won’t think I’m a narcissist.” 

I tell you these things because I want to make sure I can deflect any criticism our Bono might receive for daring to believe his own story is big enough to escape my relative’s epithet—an epithet which is unfortunately wedged into my psyche as well.

Without giving too much away, Bono’s book tour is not really a book tour at all. It’s not a concert, either. It’s a theater piece. It’s a collection of short, one-act plays performed by a single actor. It’s a standup routine. It’s a podcast for the eyes. It is one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. 

On a set painted to match the black-and-yellow motif of his book Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story, Bono transforms himself convincingly into a southern-drawling surgeon, a royal princess, a renowned Italian tenor, and his own father. He moves pieces of scenery (well, a few chairs) around by himself. He doesn’t read from his book. He has memorized his lines.

The consensus from most reviewers seems to be that Ali (“me missus”) is the breath and spirit of Surrender. I’m not sure. Feel free to come at me with your pitchforks, but I myself live with a person who is like an unassailable fortress, and who wishes to remain a mystery, and I never write about him because it’s fucking impossible. Bono did dedicate Surrender to Ali, but I feel he wrote it in large part for his father. 

There is no segment of the show as funny, as touching, as devastating as when Bono retreats to the snug of a pub, under a sign that says “The Sorrento,” and trades barbs and one-liners with his Da. Who is of course, himself. I can’t help thinking that oul’ Bob Hewson is the central mystery of Bono’s life, more so even than Iris. By presenting Bob to us through the medium of himself, Bono almost seems to be asking, “Does it seem like he loved me? Do you guys think he loved me?”

I don’t think there is another performer on earth who is as sincerely hungry for love as Bono, or whose fan base so sincerely loves him back. But does he know we do? Even after four decades of adulation, I’m not sure he does. 

Yes, there is music in the show—songs familiar to any U2 fan, but arranged for cello, drum(beats) and harp. And beautifully done, though after four years I do miss the band. But Bono’s voice is what matters, and it is just drop-dead gorgeous. That voice was made to fill a small, ornate theater like the Beacon. In fact, maybe Bono himself is a small, ornate theater. That’s a new one for me. I have been known to call him a wee pixie and a human cupcake. And a sex symbol. I don’t think I’m the only one who feels this way.

So when he closed the show by singing an Italian aria—no, wait a minute. You know how Bono says sometimes that the songs sing him? We saw what he meant on Wednesday night at the Beacon. The song, “Torna a Surriento” (“Come Back to Sorrento”) seemed to possess his body, as if it had been lurking in the wings, waiting for a chance to be given shape and form, waiting to be heard. It took him over: knees, chest, neck and fingers.

Ma nun me lassà.

Nun darme stu turmiento.

Torna a Surriento.

Famme campà.

But do not leave me.

Do not torment me.

Come back to Sorrento.

Make me alive.

Ah, Sweetheart. 

 We didn’t want to leave you, Bono. We never do.

Thanks to u2songs.com for figuring out “Return to Sorrento,” and for all the facts about the show that I have ignored here. :)