Emilie Autumn at Irving Plaza

Dancer Victoria Varlow (left) and Emilie Autumn

Emilie Autumn Liddell, who performs under the name Emilie Autumn, is a survivor. Born in 1979 in Los Angeles, California, she grew up in nearby Malibu and learned to play the violin at age four. Autumn became a victim of abuse beginning at age six, and is a survivor of rape. Autumn was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, which caused her to experience drastic mood swings, insomnia, and auditory hallucinations, and for which she takes medication. As an adult, she attempted suicide, which led to her admission to the psychiatric ward at a Los Angeles hospital, where she was kept on suicide watch. After her release, she had her cell block number tattooed on her right arm as a way of remembering what happened to her and penned a novel, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, which was published in 2010. Autumn has recorded several vocal and instrumental albums, including 2012’s Fight like a Girl.

Autumn brought her novel to the concert stage at Irving Plaza tonight. The stage was set with odd structures and scaffolding, and Autumn appeared with two backup singers/dancers, all dressed in a combination of Victorian and burlesque wardrobe. Autumn began the performance with a highly choreographed “Fight like a Girl,” sung to prerecorded tracks, establishing that this would be a very theatrical show. All the music was prerecorded and at times it appeared that some of the vocals may have been as well. The first problem, however, was that Autumn’s lyrics were often difficult to distinguish. It seemed throughout her performance that a story was being told, but it was extremely difficult to follow the story line beyond the basic notion that it was about women in an asylum. No program was provided, and there was no narration between songs to clarify what was happening. For this listener, all the costumes, choreography and climbing on the scaffolds were meaningless and so became increasingly less enjoyable and more frustrating. Beyond that, the electronic industrial-style music and cabaret-style singing were cold and suffered from being left in a vacuum. Sorry, Emilie, I lost patience with your music and your show and found my way to the exit halfway through.

Visit Emilie Autumn at www.emilieautumn.com.