I'm a Junior in LSA majoring in Italian and minoring in Art History. I love writing for art[seen] because it gives me the opportunity to show all of these amazing shows that the University brings to Ann Arbor. We get some world class performers and I would be really bummed if I missed out on anything that I'll never have to opportunity to see again. What you need to know about me? I'm not a writer, an art expert, and I didn't grow up around this much culture. I am a busy student at UofM, so if you are judging me for something, it's okay because I won't have time to respond. I'll just keep seeing shows and you can be jealous!
been invited to the multitude of events they are putting on, and have put on, all year long. This coming weekend is the biggest weekend of the year, full of events, shows, parties, alumni, food, football, and anything else you can think of to do here on campus. For those who don’t know, the Spectrum Center is the first ever office to deal with LGBT affairs on a college campus. It is now the oldest one and has inspired countless others in universities all over the United States. Founded by Jim Toy in 1971, the office helps students from all parts of campus to become active in the LGBTQA community, to become more comfortable with themselves, and educates the campus community about what it means to be LGBTQ or an ally.
That being said, let’s talk about this weekend! So many things are happening that I had to choose, so of course I went with the Gala full of Broadway celebs and David Burtka, American Actor and Chef, engaged to Neil Patrick Harris. The show includes performances from musical theater stars and also a tribute written specially for the Spectrum Center’s anniversary by Laura Anne Karpman, a UofM School of Music Graduate.
Cutest Dads EVER!
Feel encouraged to check out the Spectrum Center’s website for more info about other events happening this weekend and to explore a little bit more of their history and function.
The Pink Carpet Gala Event takes place at 8pm in Rackham Auditorium. Tickets are free, so I highly recommend coming to this event. How often do you get to see something so fabulous?
Sending you love and light (all that’s needed to make a rainbow),
This weekend I went to the Rude Mechanicals’ production of Hamlet at the Mendelssohn Theater. I love seeing Shakespeare performed live. It gets so much funnier and more emotional. Reading his plays, I always get lost. All the names are similar and there are no faces to match them to. But on stage! Everything comes to life. Every character has wit and style. Even the words seem clearer. I just love it. Last year I saw the Shakespeare Globe Theater here at UofM and couldn’t stop smiling through the whole thing.
Another thing I like about seeing Shakespeare is seeing what the director added. In this version of Hamlet, there was supposed to be a Mad Men theme, and there was, sort of. I feel like it only went into the costumes. Different themes and settings are often added to these plays. For example (though I use it only because it is more accessible than live shows), the Leo DiCaprio version of Romeo and Juliet uses Shakespeare’s words, but in a modern day setting and adding countless technologies to the plot. A long sword becomes a gun (with the brand name Long Sword), a carriage becomes a car, and many lines in the play correspond to the theme. In this aspect, this play didn’t utilize the theme. There was really only one example of it, besides the costumes, which was the use of a condom for a joke. But that’s really all beside the point anyway.
The play was well acted and produced. I think the casting choice for Hamlet was perfect. He was, firstly a great actor and speaker, and secondly he understood what to do with the character. How to make him mad with grief in just the right way. I was a little disappointed in the overall play though. The plot of Hamlet is well known, so I won’t explain it, but we all know it is a tragedy. And though Shakespeare does add a lot of comedy to his tragedies, he does it tastefully and sparingly. This show took comedy to a whole new level. Although it was funny, it took a lot away from the character development and the depth of the play. When Hamlet bests Laertes and accidently kills him, he should not victoriously get on top of him and starting beating him with fists. It’s very comedic, and since it is the most tragic scene in the play… it was strange.
Overall though, I really enjoyed it. I would definitely recommend seeing it. It’s great to see these students working so hard to put together something like this. And it gives them a great opportunity, one that I truly miss, of being on stage. I know that these actors absolutely loved the drama that the play allowed them to create. There is one more show, and it is today at 2pm. So Sunday, 06 November 2011 at 2pm. Only $3 for students!
Sending you love and light (and luck for the piles of homework we all have),
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is coming to the University of Michigan. Put on by the Rude Mechanicals, a student theater group here on campus. They’re giving a new setting to the classic tragedy; the costume and set design being themed on the AMC show Mad Men. It should be a really exciting and innovative show. Tickets for students are only $3 and the show plays Friday 8pm, Saturday 8pm, and Sunday 2pm. I’m going for the Friday show, but I encourage everyone to find the time to go and see it!
This Saturday night I went to the Gate Theater of Dublin production of Beckett’s two plays, Watt and Endgame, at the Power Center. Now anyone who reads my posts (you are there, aren’t you?) knows how crazy I am about the Power Center. I absolutely love it and every
show that goes on inside of it. Right away I knew the show would be a good one. I also went to The Cripple of Inishmaan last year, another play from Ireland, so I hoped this one would be similarly funny, strange, and existential. It totally was.
Watt
Watt tells the story of a drifter of sorts and his brief stay and work at a house. That sounds really general, but that is really all I can say. That’s really what it was about. This one-man show was funny and very well acted. Barry McGovern is a wonderful performer who can pull off incredibly funny and very serious simultaneously. Of course you have to remember that the humor here is very dry and you have to have a taste for it to actually find it funny (think of British humor). The staging is very minimalist, and I felt that the lighting was more of a prop than the chair or hat-rack. The lights seemed to make the stage glow with a warm yellow light. I really enjoyed this reading, though I think it will take some time to understand some of these deeper concepts that Beckett writes about.
Upon returning to our seats, the lights went down once more. This is when I start hearing people whisper, all around me, “I’m so confused. That was so confusing.” It was kind of funny to hear hear everyone struggling. That’s sounds mean, but really they just needed to contemplate for a while and then they would understand. I had been confused too, but I wasn’t stressing over it. I knew I would get it later and that I had to shift focus to the next play.
Endgame
Endgame, complete with four characters, proved to be even funnier. Only one character was actually capable of moving around, as two were confined to large metal trashcans and the other to an armchair. Clove, the mobile servant, takes orders from the seated man, who becomes increasingly more violent and demanding of Clove. Their lives, if they can be called that, are fallen into routine, but a routine of nothing happening. Clove keeps going back to the windows to look at the world outside and to tell the seated man that nothing has changed. They come to the conclusion that there is only one thing left that can change, and that is dying. One at a time, they start dying off. Until Clove is getting ready to leave forever and the seated protagonist is giving his last monologue, his dying speech. He finishes the story he’s been making up and slowly lifts a veil back over his face. Breaking the fourth wall in the closing sequence of this show is very important. The actors are subtle in commenting on the fact that we are finding joy in their sorrows. It really brought us back to the seriousness and the extreme poverty shown on stage.
I really enjoyed Beckett’s style. It allowed us to watch without the continuous pauses for the audience to stop clapping. The only sound any of us made was when we couldn’t silence our laughter. He also created a world where only the scene on stage existed. Whenever a character would have an idea to change something, like meeting new people, Clove would say “There are no more people.” Nothing except their lives could possible exist on stage, not even as an idea.
It was wonderful, and I don’t want to talk your ear of trying to understand the deeper meanings of the plays, so here is where I get off. I fully endorse the decision to go and see plays from the British Isles. The humor is unique, the actors are brilliant, and the writing is intricate. It is a great experience, and one that we shouldn’t miss when we’re here on campus. Where else can we see stuff like this?
Sending you love and light,
Danny Fob
p.s. “Sending you love and light” is a quote from my favorite TV show. If you can figure it out, I’ll give you five points. Or buy you a coffee
The arts season has started here at the University of Michigan and I am so excited!!! There are so many great performances and events this semester that I’ve basically booked myself for at least one show a weekend. That being said, I’ve already gone to three amazing shows this semester; Mark Morris Dance Group, John Malkovich in The Infernal Comedy, and Yuja Wang. Mark Morris gave us an excellent show of both modern dance and creative use of historical narrative in his last act “Socrates” which
told us the physical and emotional story of the death of the beloved philosopher. John Malkovich, in his one-man show “Confessions of a Serial Killer,” performed for us once again why he is an acclaimed classic American actor, whose name everyone knows even though they cannot remember a single movie, except “Being John Malkovich,” that he’s been in (Just so you know he was also in Con Air and Good Night Gracie). He was absolutely fantastic in this strange postmodern production of the life of a serial killer. What I really want to get down to though, in this review, is Yuja Wang.
This young pianist in the looming Hill auditorium is a light that brings to the audience a sense of depth, excitement, and inner turmoil. It’s hard to distinguish the peace that she creates inside of us and the passion that she pushes into the piano with her delicate, yet powerful fingers. I’ve never been to a piano recital before, so I should probably start off by saying I know nothing about piano except for what I hear in movie soundtracks. I do know, however, that Ms. Wang is a wonderful and talented artist. She plays the piano with so much more than her fingers. Her entirety goes into the keys, into the strings and the hammers. It becomes both a lover and an enemy. The piano is her therapist, and she pours everything into it, onstage, for us.
That's passion
I’m not going to act like I know anything about composers or the pieces she plays, and if you do then awesome! So instead of listing the program, I’ll just give you the website. http://www.ums.umich.edu/s_current_season/artist.asp?pageid=656
If you clicked on that, it means that you saw the four, count them, FOUR encores that the fabulous Ms. Wang performed. This is why I say Diva. Yuja not only has one of the most dynamic and elegant bows I’ve ever seen, but she Diva’d her way into four amazing encores and she had a costume change! From one elegant red gown that she took the stage with to the little black dress with a slit up to here and a back down to there. Both were breathtaking and powerful. She belongs onstage. Thus, Diva! Even sitting at the back of the balcony, this woman made me feel the music and took me by complete surprise.
I also really appreciated the quick glimpse of my childhood in one of her encores. Dukas : “The Sorceror’s Apprentice” arranged by Yuja Wang. Also known as “Woh! It’s that song from Fantasia with Mickey Mouse!!!!” I think “The Sorceror’s Apprentice” sounds classier though.
Aside from Yuja, because I know we’re all busy and you can’t spend all day reading my random stream of consciousness, I wanted to let you know what to expect from me the rest of this semester. Some pretty awesome stuff. This weekend I’m seeing the Full Monty (yes because it’s naked guys on stage. You don’t have to speculate. That IS the reason I’m going) and the Cloud Gate Dance theater. I’ll also be going to the Gate Theater of London production, Diego El Cigala, and the Beijing Guitar Duo. These are only the UMS shows I’m going to however. I’m sure I’ll be going to other SMTD productions, and I know I’ll be at the opera. So keep reading me and I hope to tell you a little of what I think of these shows, because, realistically, you couldn’t ever live without my opinion and this isn’t just a great way to procrastinate…Did anyone believe that? Because I said it and even I saw through it. Whatever. I hope you enjoy reading my reviews, and if not, I really just want you to go see everything you can. So like I always say, get out there on campus and see some of the amazing things it has to offer.
Sending you love and light,
Danny Fob
p.s. “Sending you love and light” is a quote from my favorite TV show. If you can figure it out, I’ll give you five points. Or buy you a coffee
Yes folks, Little Women, the classic novel by Louisa May Alcott, has gone from book to play, musical, movie, and Opera. The Libretto was written by Mark Adamo and performed by UofM’s School of Music, Theater, and Dance at Mendelssohn Theatre in the League. I had
never read the novel, but since I love the operas presented here at the University, I went to see how it turned out. This past weekend the only day I had free was Thursday, so I went then and thouroughly enjoyed the show.
Like all the operas at the university, this one had subtitles projected above the stage so that we could all understand the libretto. Even though it was sung in English, it was still hard to hear exactly what they were saying through the vibrato and the many operatic accents that make classic operas what they are.
I loved the story of the show. Though I’ve never read the novel Little Women, I am now planning on reading it this summer. It’s the story of 4 sisters and their best friend and the process of change that cannot be stopped, no matter how hard you try in life. One sister gives up so much just so that her family won’t change, and in the end it just leads to her regretting and realizing her mistakes. It’s a harsh lesson, but an important one to learn and understand. Another theme the story touches on is that of art verses entertainment. Jo begins to sell out on her story writing because people will pay her for trashy stories. Her artistic talent is pushed to the wayside until a suitor made her question it and learn to embrace her originality and creativity.
The performers were wonderfully talented, providing us with just the right amount of humor and depth. We laughed often at the clever comedy and at the reenactments of childhood memories, and then cried as the changes of the characters’ lives emerged. I think that the School of Music, Theater, and Dance has found another magnificent production and by making it their own they’ve connected with audiences and families from all over Ann Arbor. This show receives an A+ from me.
As always,
This is Danny Fob: Artist and Art Reviewer
