photo: Gene Pittman
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A prequel to the events in the critically acclaimed operetta Accidental
Nostalgia, Must Don't Whip 'Um is the story of one Cameron Seymour (the
same Cameron Seymour whose identity was stolen by the narrator in
Accidental Nostalgia): an obscure and almost totally forgotten pop star from the 1970's whose financial, artistic, personal and political failures have brought her to the verge of a nervous breakdown, resulting in her desire to quit the entertainment industry and escape from the United States, in order to join a Sufi brotherhood in Morocco. Must Don't Whip 'Um uses as its main conceit Ms. Seymour's "farewell concert" - a celebratory, ecstatic ‘last waltz’ during which she mysteriously disappears - presented by Ms. Seymour's daughter, who is attempting to create a documentary about her mother’s disappearance.
"Must Don't Whip 'Um is a triumph of disciplined thinking, narrative fluidity and musical accomplishment." - The New York Times
"She blurs the edges of confession and performance, concert and play, memory and creation... Backed by her genre-spanning, elastic band Gloria Deluxe, Hopkins pulls off the impossible: She makes postmodernism danceable once again." - Time Out New York
"Must Don't Whip 'Um is a triumph of disciplined thinking, narrative fluidity and musical accomplishment." - The New York Times
"She blurs the edges of confession and performance, concert and play, memory and creation... Backed by her genre-spanning, elastic band Gloria Deluxe, Hopkins pulls off the impossible: She makes postmodernism danceable once again." - Time Out New York
