Neha Srinivasan – Page 3

REVIEW: Constellations

February 4, 2018February 4, 2018 Neha Srinivasan Leave a comment

It is simply astounding that out of all the possible things that could happen, out of all the ways things could turn out, it is this one way that events align. How astronomically unlikely it is that two people would meet each other, at this time and at this place, and be suited enough to each other that they could form an attachment, remain woven into each other’s timeline; how much more possible that they never meet at all, never become the people they need to be to be suited to each other. In any romance, or even any story involving the meeting of people, or maybe even any accounting of an interaction between two objects, it is a given that the paths of those individuals did cross, and what matters is everything that follows. Constellations accounts for the possibility that nothing follows, that the spacetime continuum doesn’t allow for a story at all. In bringing to the foreground the laws of physics, it reminded me that everything that does happen is wondrous just because it happened, and not something else. Somehow Constellations maintains the inevitability of a single possible outcome and also confirms the existence of infinite potential outcomes.

Time is linear, and yet it must go in parallel lines because so many different end results occurred in the play. And it must be intuitive to understand this at some level because even with the same lines, and cuts forward and backward in time with no cue but lights and tone of voice, those vignettes assembled clearly into cohesive alternate timelines. There are so many ways to say the same words, all of which change the way the characters perceived their timelines if not the timelines themselves. Skillful is the least you need to be to switch from angry to loving, bouncy to pensive, in a split second, and these actors were worlds better than merely skillful. I didn’t expect each vignette to be so short—really just a few lines before it was repeated with a different interpretation—but those little snippets of story were enough to give the show the texture it needed.

It was very full-bodied for a show that was only an hour and ten minutes long. It felt much longer, not longer because it was boring but longer because it was mesmerizing enough that it felt as if there was too much story there to have unfolded in only an hour. I think several lifetimes happened over the course of the play, lifetimes that contained laughter, awkwardness, poignancy, anger, and love all at once.

I realize this isn’t a review so much as it is a reflection. Perhaps that defeats the purpose, but I mention this because any show that makes me think, the way Constellations did, is worth seeing. Had I been asked before tonight, I would have told you that if you had enough numbers, enough variables, and an equation, you could calculate the outcome of the universe. And perhaps I still would. But tonight, string theory seems closer and truer than it ever has before.

PREVIEW: Constellations

February 2, 2018February 2, 2018 Neha Srinivasan Leave a comment

“Who knew that higher physics could be so sexy, so accessible—and so emotionally devastating?”

The description of this play doesn’t give away many details, but once I saw this line from a New York Times review of the play, which had a run on Broadway starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Ruth Wilson, I was hooked. I love science and I love the arts, and it just gets better when they’re combined.

Constellations is about two people and the infinite pathways their relationship could follow. It’s not my usual type of show, but it sounds incredibly intriguing. I am really looking forward to seeing it.

The show is being performed by the Theatre Nova (410 W Huron Street). Tickets ($20) are on sale here. The show runs from January 26 through February 18. Showtimes are 8pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and 2pm on Sundays.

REVIEW: Murder on the Orient Express

December 25, 2017December 25, 2017 Neha Srinivasan Leave a comment

As an Agatha Christie fan, I have to discuss this film in two parts: as a standalone work and as an adaptation of the book.

As a standalone film, Murder on the Orient Express was really good. The cinematography was beautiful, crystal clear with lush colors, elegant and enhancing the 1930s feel of the movie. I always appreciate it when a movie is well-lit: while darkness may add to the effect, I do prefer to be able to see what is happening onscreen. The use of light here was impeccable.

The acting was also very good, which is no surprise considering the film boasted quite a lineup of famed names: Judi Dench, Michelle Pfeiffer, Johnny Depp, Leslie Odom Jr. were just a few names among the star-studded cast.

the plot of this film is dependent on each person in the cast making their character a strong one; although it is a mystery starring Poirot, he is not the main character. With Agatha Christie’s style of writing, he never is. What I’ve always liked about her books is that her plots are really not about the murder at all. She gets the murder out of the way at the beginning of the novel, and then spends the rest of her time studying the people who are involved in the murder, slowly unraveling each one of their characters so that really the end result is a deeper understanding of people. So with this film I didn’t really like the way it made Poirot a focal character. On one hand, he was the outsider to this situation, and to have a consistent thread in a plot it helps to have a narrator or protagonist, and so perhaps it couldn’t be helped. But I felt that the characterization of the other people in this movie was somewhat lacking.

I also didn’t care for Branagh’s portrayal of Poirot. It’s a hard character, as Poirot is comic sometimes, and deadly serious at others. My first question was, why couldn’t someone who is actually Belgian (or at least French, although Poirot himself would probably hate that) play the role? I don’t know of any adaptations where Poirot has been played by a native French speaker – even David Suchet, who is probably the most famous Hercule Poirot, is English. That aside, I am not sure Branagh quite decided whether Poirot was to be amusing or dramatic, leading to a result that was an odd mix of both. In dramatic scenes, I personally much prefer if the actors almost whisper their lines instead of shouting them, as I find that far more intimidating. In the books, Poirot, while he can get worked up and raise his voice, is not really the kind of person I would expect to yell about something really serious. I wish Branagh had done that – it would have made the scene seem less like Poirot was flying off the handle, and more like Poirot was just barely keeping his anger on a leash. I will say, though, that his mustache was excellent. If you’re not familiar with Christie’s character, this may not seem like very important a point, but one of Poirot’s identifying attributes is his huge mustache, which David Suchet never really had. Also, Branagh did manage to bring out Poirot’s fastidious nature, which is another essential aspect of his character.

All in all, the movie was a really good one, if you didn’t compare it to the book. For that reason, I was wary of seeing it, but the fact that Judi Dench was in it convinced me otherwise (she, incidentally, does a magnificent job of adding a softer side to her character, the Princess Dragomiroff, than I thought existed in Christie’s portrayal). And there were no really major details changed, as far as I remember, though it has been a while since I last read the book. But if you did compare it to the novel, I think the nuances of Christie’s characters are perhaps explored more fully in the book, though the actors – I’m thinking of Michelle Pfeiffer and Judi Dench here – did a fine job of bringing out those nuances in the limited time they were given to do so.

I think the most perfect part was the opening song in the end credits. Sung by Michelle Pfeiffer, who plays a pivotal role in the cast, was a beautiful fit, both by style and by lyrics – as such, it was almost haunting. Full of love, loss, and sorrow, it ended the movie on a fittingly melancholy note.

REVIEW: Princess Ida

December 19, 2017December 19, 2017 Neha Srinivasan Leave a comment

Having been involved with the UM Gilbert and Sullivan Society for seven shows now, I’ve had plenty of opportunity to see their shows and compare them to each other. Princess Ida, in my opinion, was one of the better ones they’ve done in the time I’ve worked with them.

The plot is as follows. Princess Ida has renounced men and is running a school for women. Her husband, Prince Hilarion, to whom she was married twenty years ago when they were both infants, comes looking for her with his two trusted friends, Florian and Cyril. To get into contact with her, they sneak into the castle dressed as female students.

Ida‘s libretto is in itself quite humorous (as it should be): the humor is on the subtle side, mostly deriving comic effect from wordplay, tongue-in-cheek comments, or absurd statements. For example, the lyrics of one song go, “Like most sons are we, Masculine in sex.” I, for one, was taken by surprise when first they delivered this line, expecting something less obvious. Or, while preparing for a battle, Princess Ida surveys her troops: “My fusiliers, advance! Why, you are armed with axes! Gilded toys! Where are your rifles, pray?” Chloe, the head of the fusiliers, replies: “Why, please you, ma’am, we left them in the armoury, for fear that in the heat and turmoil of the fight, they might go off!” With every show I watch, my respect for Gilbert’s writing abilities increases. If I could be as humorous a writer, I would be so happy.

However, as funny as Gilbert’s lines are, they stand very little chance of evoking laughter if the actors don’t take every effort to tease out the humor in them. In my opinion, comedy is all about the small things. This performance of Ida did a fantastic job of inserting small additions to their actions that enhanced the existing humor. Using the above example of the fusiliers, Chloe lowered her voice as she delivered that line, pausing before she said “go off”, making it seem like the rifles going off would be an unspeakable scandal. Another example: when Hilarion attempts to have a conversation with Ida, he is continuously interrupted by Cyril, who has managed to get drunk and keeps making comments that verge perilously close to revealing that they are not female students in disguise but men. In this show, Hilarion, in trying vainly to prevent this from happening, at one point bodily picked Cyril up and carried him across the stage. That entire scene, watching Cyril whirl around singing a kissing song while flirting with the students while in the background Florian tries to restrain Hilarion from tackling him, was made quite amusing solely because of what the actors were doing off script. It’s those details that make a performance stand out in my mind, and those details were abundant in this performance of Ida.

Then, on the other hand, there are the moments of genuine emotion that Gilbert and Sullivan manage to integrate into even the absurdity of their shows. For me this moment came when the students were preparing for battle and came onstage in their military uniforms, wielding weapons. That song, “Death to the invader,” is musically the most reminiscent to a tragic opera. It is chromatic and full of desperation. The girls don’t want to fight, but they are there for Princess Ida, and that knowledge added to the music makes it clear they are on a doomed last stand.

I think that emotion is part of what has made Gilbert and Sullivan’s work so enduring. Their operettas may be comic and quite ludicrous, full of legal technicalities that magically save the day, but their characters, for the most part, are genuine and believable. (And if you are worrying after reading the part about the doomed last stand, don’t, because there is no bloodshed in Princess Ida. Everyone lives safely and happily ever after.)

PREVIEW: Princess Ida

December 7, 2017December 7, 2017 Neha Srinivasan Leave a comment

The show that the University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan Society (UMGASS) is putting on this semester is Princess Ida. If you haven’t heard of Gilbert and Sullivan, they were a duo (a librettist and composer respectively) who wrote comic operas in the late 1800s. While the 1800s were a long time ago, the humor in the operas is as fresh now as it ever was. And it doesn’t hurt that UMGASS does a beautiful job of adding even more exuberance to that humor.

Gilbert and Sullivan operas are so absurd that it’s hard to know where to begin giving a synopsis. In the most general sense, Ida is about women’s education. But for more details, I recommend you come to the show.

Showtimes are Thursday 12/7 – Saturday 12/9 at 8pm, and Saturday 12/9 – Sunday 12/10 at 2pm. Tickets are available at umgass.brownpapertickets.com, at the door, or free with a Passport to the Arts.

REVIEW: Ragamala Dance Company, Written in Water

November 2, 2017November 2, 2017 Neha Srinivasan Leave a comment

I’ve seen a fair number of bharatanatyam performances over my time at college, but Written in Water was different. Firstly, it’s the only one that has used a live accompaniment. The performance was already astounding in itself, but the music added another layer of depth to it, and made it even more so. The music was written by Prema Ramamurthy and Amir ElSaffar, the latter of which performed himself through UMS only two days before Ragamala’s show. ElSaffar makes his music by blending styles, primarily Sufi music and jazz, and that emphasis on fusion really came through at the show, where traditional bharatanatyam accompaniment was blended with Sufi and jazz styles. An acquaintance of mine that also went to the concert mentioned that the jazz added a familiar element, something that she, as someone unfamiliar with bharatanatyam or Sufi music, could relate to. ElSaffar’s vocals added a sense of melancholy to the performance, which fit really well with the emotions that the dancers were portraying at the time.

The dancers themselves were beautiful. Bharatanatyam is most often a solo dance, but there were five dancers who performed in the show. I couldn’t believe how good their synchrony was. Every time they performed a movement together, not only was the timing perfect, but the details—like the angles of their hands—were perfect too. They all exhibited such grace on the stage. There are some movements in bharatanatyam that involve balancing on one foot, and everyone who performed such a movement during the show did so effortlessly. Watching it, it seemed as though they could easily go on standing like that for an eternity. That bespeaks a strength that only comes after years of devotion to that art. Emotion is also integral to the dance. Written in Water focuses on emotions, on human life, states of being, and the quest for the divine. The dancers were all superb at conveying the emotions present in their choreography not just through their movements but also with their facial expressions. Their costumes also were fairly simple compared to those in other performances I’ve seen in the past, which drew even more attention to their movements and their expressions.

The Ragamala performers dancing on the Snakes and Ladders gameboard, designed specifically for Written in Water by Keshav, to music played by the musicians on the left.

The last piece of this performance was the visual art they used as a backdrop. The Chennai-based visual artist Keshav created each piece of art they used, and his style melded perfectly with the other aspects of the performance. The paintings, which helped to further elucidate the concepts the dancers were illustrating, were absolutely beautiful. One of the paintings, possibly the most important to the piece, was of a Snakes and Ladders gameboard, which was one of the three concepts through which the show explored the previously mentioned themes. They danced right on top of the gameboard, showing triumph as they ascended the board or sinuous motions as they descended a snake (this was helpful for me, since from where I was sitting I couldn’t see the floor of the stage). I love the idea of interacting with the floor: I’ve always seen the ground as an essential element in bharatanatyam, because the dancers mark time by stamping the ground, and the gungurus they wear on their ankles accent those footfalls. So to see them use the floor as more than a surface was really wonderful. It is also interesting that even when they were not exploring the gameboard, they often used a projection of one of the other paintings that was part of the performance. I talked to Aparna Ramaswamy after the performance, and she mentioned how carefully they choreographed around the artwork, so that they would use it to its fullest extent but simultaneously refrain from stepping on important symbols or otherwise disrespecting the artwork and traditions it represented. It was amazing to see that level of attention to detail in this show, and that element was consistent in every aspect of this masterful performance.

Written in Water is the only bharatanatyam performance UMS has put on in the four years I’ve been here. I hope such a breathtakingly exquisite show as this encourages them to invite more bharatanatyam performers to Ann Arbor.