Launching to a sold-out crowd of 20,000 “Little Monsters”, The Mayhem Ball was a celebration of Gaga’s two decades of hits. Debuting at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 200, marking Gaga’s seventh Consecutive No. 1 album, many critics consider Mayhem to be the singer’s best work since her 2008 dance-pop debut The Fame. The five-act narrative houses duality and chaos as Gaga explores the darker sides of fame, and the internal struggles she has faced dealing with who Stefani Germanotta is (her real name) and who Lady Gaga is.
Set amongst the gothic and operatic backdrop of the “Opera Haus”, Gaga enters in a crimson Proscenium curtain steel-cage gown, revealing her troupe of high energy monsters; resemblant of her “Gagachella” entrance earlier this summer. Transitioning through operatic renditions of “Judas” and “Scheiße”, the stage is transformed into the striking visual of a giant red and white chess board for “Poker Face”, in which Gaga is confronted by a doppelgänger dressed head to toe in white lace (a nod to her 2010 Brit Awards Outfit). Gaga’s triumph over her past self, declaring “off with her head”, symbolises her own separation of Gaga and Germanotta.
The “Perfect Celebrity” burial scene features Gaga emerging from a shallow grave laying beside the ghost of her past, illustrating the torture and immense pressure of stardom. Gaga then revives the iconic crutches and Joan of Arc armour from the “Paparazzi” music video, and drapes the stage in an angelic rainbow cloak to demonstrate the healing nature of music and the love of the queer community. The high-energy shift into Act III sees her Wednesday co-stars Emma Myers and Evie Templeton join her onstage for their zombie-like choreography of “The Dead Dance”.
She embraces the fractured ‘pieces’ of her personality
Even her Oscar-winning A Star Is Born ballad “Shallow” has a gothic twist, performed from a gondola in the river Styx, backed by an unsettling synth pulse. Act IV, “Every Chessboard Has Two Queens”, reflects Gaga’s acceptance of her duality in both her public persona and her private self as she embraces the fractured “pieces” of her personality. The finale culminates in the powerful defeat of the “Mistress of Mayhem” through a dramatic medical operation in which Gaga emerges triumphant and victorious over her past and inner chaos.