Category: Theatre

PREVIEW: Second City Comes to the Ark

Phillip Wachowiak
Second City Logo

The Second City is an improv comedy group founded in Chicago. It has been a beginning for comedians ranging from Tina Fey (Mean Girls, 30 Rock) to Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report). Need I say more about this group’s ability to make people laugh?

When: The Ark, Friday 9/26 and Saturday 9/27 at 8 pm

Cost: If you show student ID, tickets are only $20! (At MUTO or the Ark)

Why: Exams coming up next week? Take a break from studying. Car broke down on the highway? Walk to the Ark and buy tickets to Second City. Disheartened that Michigan may have a losing football season? Nurse your pain with comedy tickets.

Finally, a video preview here: https://www.youtube.com/user/secondcity

Preview: Feminist Activist Group ‘Pussy Riot’ Comes to Michigan Theater Thursday

watsonsauce

crime-and-punishment-pussy-riots

What: Pussy Riot/ Zona Prava – Part of Penny W. Stamp Speaker Series
Where: Michigan Theater, Ann Arbor
When: Thursday 18 September, 5:10pm
How Much: FREE!

Founded in 2011, Pussy Riot is a punk, feminist activist group from Russia who stage spontaneous performance based protests in public locations around Russia’s capitol cities. Their protests are filmed, edited into music videos and posted on the internet.

Their activism focuses on feminism, LGBT rights, opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the connection between Putin and The Russian Orthodox Church.

Nadya Tolokonnikova and Masha Alekhina, two of the founding members of the Pussy Riot collective made up of approximately eleven women, were arrested in autumn 2012 following a protest against President Putin staged in the Moscow Cathedral of Christ the Savior.

Tolokonnikova and Alekhina were charged with hooliganism and sentenced to two years in prison. The arrests and trials of Pussy Riot’s members drew international attention to the corruption and anti-gay legislation active in Russia at the time.

After their release from prison in December 2013 Tolokonnikova and Alekhina founded Zona Prava (Zone of Rights) and organization aimed at providing legal representation, information, safety monotoring, advocacy and oversight to those in Russian prisons who have been deprived of their liberty.

The event is supported by the UM Penny W. Stamps Speaker Series, Michigan Radio, WUOM 91.7 and Arts @ Michigan.

REVIEW: Marisol

kjtopor

The lights dimmed in the Arthur Miller Theatre, the audience hushed and I quietly grabbed for the bag of Twizzlers hidden in my purse. Just as I had ripped open the bag, the collage of light bulbs hovering above center stage began to flicker. I looked up to the top window of the rusty building set, only to see an angel. But this wasn’t the angel that I’d read about in my in my illustrated children’s Bible. This was a punk angel. Her hair was naturally curly and voluminous. Her nose ring glimmered under the spotlight as the sleeve of tattoos covering her arm was illuminated. She was dressed in a leather vest, looking absolutely ruffian. She watched silently as a young, Puerto Rican, woman named Marisol, tucked a knife under her pillow in her shady, Bronx apartment.     While the angel’s appearance was a shock, that wasn’t the only surprising part of the School of Music, Theatre & Dance’s production of Marisol by José Rivera.

I had the opportunity to view the final performance of Marisol on Sunday, April 13th at 2pm. This was the second weekend that the show had run, so the audience was small, but that didn’t stop the performers from giving every scene their all.

The show begins on a subway commute home from a long day at work. Marisol is exhausted, reading a newspaper, when a dirty man with a golf club approaches her. He mumbles about angels and crazily presents an “end of times” scheme. As Marisol is protected by her guardian angel, she is quickly snapped back into her small apartment in the Bronx. The dangers of her street arise as the sun sets over New York. Yelling, slamming doors, and gun threats echoed throughout the theatre as Marisol’s is banged on by a senseless woman with a gun. Marisol drops to her knees and prays, opening the door to find a pile of salt…

Marisol’s guardian angel, played magnificently by Melissa Golliday, reveals to Marisol that God is old and dying, too senile to take care of His creation. The guardian admits that she is leading the angel revolt against God, ready to uproot God’s rule and rejuvenate the failing earth. The angel leaves Marisol with an unsettling lack of protection and a choice. Will Marisol stand with God or fight with the angels?

Throughout the play we see how the earth disintegrates through lack of food (only salt), gender roles begin drastically reversed (pregnant men), and extreme violent tendencies, including setting others on fire. Marisol fights and struggles to understand where she is, where she belongs, and whose side she is on. I don’t want to give away all of the details of this play, because it is so fantastic, but in end, Marisol joins the angels in a victorious battle against God. Billions of angels lost their lives in this celestial war, as did the millions of earthly warriors, but the earth returns in triumphant light.

While I’ve grown up being a musical type of girl, this play might have me converted! This play was perfectly chilling; I felt my shoulders shake as Marisol’s guardian dropped her wings into Marisol’s hand and turned for the audience to see bloodied wing-bones emerging from her bulletproof vest. I could barely scribble notes as Marisol struggled with her identity and associations with the other characters. This play was absolutely enthralling. Everything, from the realistic set with garbage rumbling about the stage to the realistic costumes and props, was gripping.

I would highly recommend seeing Marisol if you ever have the chance! It was a strangely attractive play and I guarantee you would enjoy it! Great job to the cast and crew, especially the director- Linda Goodrich.

REVIEW: The Great God Pan

Jeffrey Sun

The Great God Pan is a fine display of the quality and professionalism that the RC Players can demonstrate. I had the benefit of being able to watch the director go over notes on Thursday before the rehearsal and see the care and craft that goes into a performance like this. I saw the kind of unpretentious attention to detail and critical analysis that leads — in any discipline: writing, theater, math, history, construction — to real quality in the final product. It’s easy to forget the importance of certain roles, such as lighting or stage management, which, when done well, as they were, go unnoticed. I’m glad I was there, and it was also very interesting to see notes being read about a performance that I hadn’t seen and didn’t know anything about, and then to see the show and connect the notes and suggestions to the play itself.

The play opens with an old primary school friend (who happens to be gay) of our protagonist talking with him for the first time since their childhood. They are presumed to be in their mid-ish-thirties now. He tells him that he was abused by his father when he was younger, and is mounting a lawsuit against him. He wants to know if our protagonist remembered his — the friend’s — father doing anything to him at the time.

It’s heavy subject matter, but the play deals with it tastefully. It does so by rarely dealing with it directly. We see him with his family and long-time girlfriend, with the idea of past abuse hanging over everything, adding depth and subtlety to each interaction. At no point is shock used to cheap effect. At no point is it preachy or proselytizing. No description of the event to audience gasps. No easy invocation of a head-shaking audience solidarity over the evils of molestation. Crying onstage is difficult to pull off, and it can easily break the spell, but in the one scene when the protagonist does, it felt — to me — earned.

The performances were all great, and a few stood out in particular. The actor playing the mother gave an incredibly believable performance while not sacrificing a sharp comic timing, and the character of the psychiatric client portrayed anxiety in a way that felt true.

In case I’ve given the wrong impression, the play was not about abuse. Nor is it about sexuality. More than anything else, it’s a meditation on memory and identity. The main character vehemently denies that anything that happened to him so long ago can’t possible affect who he is now. Home-video-style recordings used to represent memory are integrated into the show. The protagonist visits and old babysitter who has begun to forget. A side story involving a client of the girlfriend, who is a psychiatrist, was disconnected, but the strength of the performance and how interesting it was carried it.

I fully recommend seeing it, and luckily, if you live in Ann Arbor or you’ll be here over summer, there’s still a chance to if you haven’t yet. The Redbud Theater in Ann Arbor will be putting on a performance on May 29th, 30th, and 31st. The RC Players will be putting on a show called Picasso on April 10th, 11th, and 12th, which I can only expect will be very good.

REVIEW: Sea Legs: A Nautical New Musical

Natalie Minor

To say that Sea Legs: A Nautical New Musical blew it out of the water would be quite an understatement.  Set in the small New England town of Sweet Ann Harbor, this original musical introduces us to four orphaned adventurers fascinated with the sea beyond their small town.  After a time jump they find themselves reunited in adulthood in the midst of a search for the man who pulled the plug on Periscopia, an underwater utopia the friends dreamed of searching for as kids.  The residents of this underwater world, an eccentric bunch who eat bubbles and have an affinity for prom dresses and leather, make waves as they settle in Sweet Ann Harbor, intent on creating a new home for themselves.  Chaos ensues when it is revealed that one of our orphaned friends is more connected to the crime than he lets on, and we see the true meaning of friendship as he races to prevent one of his own from taking the fall.

At the heart of this seaside tale is an important message about the journey into adulthood and to finding identity.  The orphans we follow throughout the play see their lives develop in ways they hadn’t expected, and some have trouble coming to terms with how things have panned out. Yet by the end they have discovered where it is they are meant to be, whether it is sailing the seas or raising kids in a small port town.  It seems that this struggle is analogous to the futures faced by many of the cast and crew of the production, as well as many in the audience.  The play finishes with a number about how Sweet Ann Harbor will always be there for the characters to return to, and a tear was brought to the eyes of many seniors in attendance.  The song transcends the musical and serves as a message to the graduating class about the place many will think of as home as they start their journey beyond college.

As writer Tyler Dean finishes his theater career here and embarks on an adventure to bigger and better things, the song serves as a farewell to him as well, and also as a grounding connection to a home where he found great success.  In the same theater where he and partner-in-crime Mike Tooman have grown and sparked, we see their final original production fittingly cap off their time here.

Beyond the core message of the play was a highly enjoyable cast of characters and deviously catchy soundtrack – I pity the poor soul who thought he could make it out of that theater without at least one of those tunes banging around in his head.  From the retired sailor turned pigeon whisperer who sings about his ability to see the future in bird droppings to the fully choreographed pop zinger about the glamorous city of Periscopia, each piece takes on a life of its own. If you don’t trust me on this you can see for yourself in the coming months – Sea Legs: A Nautical New Musical is set to hit YouTube just as Dean and Tooman’s previous work Zombie Farm: A New Musical did, and a soundtrack is in the works.

REVIEW: Romeo and Juliet

csatter

In their new studio production, the Department of Musical Theatre presents William Shakespeare’s most well known tragedy Romeo and Juliet. Set in Verona, the play follows Romeo and Juliet, two young lovers from feuding families. Through a serious of rash actions and unfortunate misunderstandings, the lovers’ lives come to a tragic end, which ultimately reconciles the two families.

Performed in the intimate Arthur Miller Theatre with a minimal set, almost no props, and very basic costumes, this was an interesting production that seemed to want to focus on the raw emotion and drama in the play. The simplicity of the production worked well in that in allowed the audience to engage with the language of the play and the portrayals of the characters. However, it also caused some aspects of the performance to feel out of place, and sometimes a bit awkward, such as the use of physical swords in the final scenes since swords were not otherwise used in the production.

Another interesting aspect of the production was the casting choices. This production had actors playing roles of the opposite gender, with females playing the traditionally male roles of Mercutio, Benvolio, and the Friar, as well as a male playing the role of Juliet’s nurse. While this was sometimes confusing, especially at the beginning, it ultimately worked well, and brought out aspects of the characters that may not always be seen. In addition, the use of the cast within the production was also an interesting choice. While it is normal to have parts doubled, this production used the entire cast as the chorus. While it was nice that everyone was included, having all of the actors run on stage in the dark and crouch under a bright light while speaking in monotone unison was ultimately off-putting.

Although most of the cast performed well, one of the best aspects of the performance was Cameron Jones’ exuberant and sassy, but always caring, portrayal of Juliet’s nurse. Although not one of the lead roles, Jones shined in every scene he was in, captured the audience’s attention and affection, and brought humor and lightness to an otherwise emotionally tense and tragic play. As he strutted across the stage in his long black dress and apron wittily addressing other characters, he fully engaged the audience who laughed, smiled, and applauded all of his scenes.

Overall, this was a somewhat unusual production that had some great moments. While there was some awkwardness, the minimalistic set and costumes highlighted the emotions in the play and allowed the focus to be more on the actors and the scenes they were creating.