REVIEW: Green Day’s American Idiot

Jeannie Sandefer

Cast of American Idiot

On Sunday afternoon, I walked into the Mendelssohn Theatre ready to be dazzled by the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance’s performance of American Idiot. When I left, I’m not sure if dazzled is the right word for what I felt…it was closer to disappointment. Not quite disappointment, but pretty dang close.

I’ve been anticipating this show since the summer when it was announced, so perhaps my expectations were to blame for this feeling. But it was something more tangible than that. But let’s start with the good first.

From the moment I walked into the theatre, I knew this was yet again the work of masters of their craft. The set design was amazing – two television sets on the side, one burbling with static before the show began, a rickety looking staircase looking like it was lifted straight from a NYC fire escape, leading up to the walkway, with two doors cut into the massively graffitied wall. It was gorgeous, a perfectly fitting for the edgy American Idiot. The only complaint I had was that the action on stage turned insular. After seeing masterpieces such as Stupid Fucking Bird and Cabaret where the whole theatre and stage was used, I was surprised that all the main action happened on stage or on the walkway – the only time the TVs on the sides were used was the very beginning of the show. But overall, the set was amazing and perfectly set the mood for the show, the graffitied American flag large but covered by the drum kit.

The other highlight was definitely the actors. Of course they were amazing – this is an SMTD show we’re talking about. I really felt like I had been transported to early-2000s suburbia/city/America, not to mention the emotional intensity (or lack of, in some character’s cases), was perfect and real. I was also thoroughly impressed with the singing. The danger of doing a musical like American Idiot is how it twists genres. Sure, it’s a musical, but there’s nothing explicitly musical about the songs off of the critically acclaimed album. These are rock songs, and what’s more is that their famous rock songs – it’d be hard to find someone that’s never heard “Wake Me Up When September Ends.” Even though it’s been adapted to the stage brilliantly, with so many lovely harmonies, the songs still have the spine of a rock song – not an easy thing to sing, when you come from a musical theatre background.

The actors went above and beyond all my expectations, especially the lead, James Kilmeade playing Johnny. There were times when I could tell their training kicked in (especially any time St. Jimmy was on stage – fantastic, but not quite hitting the rock spectrum), but overall, I loved the music – it was all perfect.

What surprised me was the fact that I wasn’t a fan of a lot of the choreography. At times it was brilliant – “Give Me Novocaine” in particular, when Johnny and Whatshername do some floor work, so to speak. There was also a lot of creative use of staging along with the choreography – that stairway in particular got a lot of use around the stage. But a lot of it felt very normal and safe to me. Lots of headbanging – at one point I wondered if any of them were suffering the effects of it after four straight shows – lots of stomping, lots of angst.

What bothered me wasn’t the headbanging; I guess in my heart I expected it. But that’s exactly why I cringed a bit – it was exactly what I expected from a performance of American Idiot. In short? It was safe. I’ve seen SMTD shows that branch out, doing new, unexpected things, like their entire production of the quasi-experimental Stupid Fucking Bird. Headbanging around the stage didn’t feel new or creative or unique to me. Sure, it made sense, when you have high energy songs like “American Idiot” opening the musical, or crowd favorite “Holiday.” But with the large cast and the general formula of slow song-fast song-slow song, the headbanging got old really quickly. It also felt really out of place in a musical working against the cookie-cutter version of suburban America, calling for freedom. Where’s the freedom in being perfectly lined up to headbang in sync? I’m not saying choreography should be thrown out the door – the structure was perfect when Tunny went off to war in “Are We The Waiting” (which was another highlight of mine). But overall, the choreography constantly took me out of the action, reminding me that it was a musical and not just the lives of these three characters.

Even so, I still highly recommend seeing it. The music alone is enough, and it is a certain kind of spectacle. However, it definitely doesn’t top some of the other productions I’ve seen the school do. Also, don’t see it if you’re expecting a straight musical with an easily defined plot – there’s very little dialogue, and is written to be intensely symbolic. Think Across the Universe minus Jim Sturgess and with less dialogue.

American Idiot runs for one more weekend, Thursday at 7:30pm, Friday and Saturday at 8pm, and the last performance is the Sunday matinee at 2pm. You can buy tickets here or in person at the League Ticket Office.

REVIEW: All My Sons

Alexandria Strother

All My Sons by Arthur Miller was premiered in 1947 and became an overnight success after his previous show, The Man Who Had All the Luck failed after disastrous reviews and only four performances. All My Sons revolves around the successful Keller family and Kate Keller’s (Regan Moro) refusal to believe that her son Larry who went MIA in WWII is dead. Her husband, Joe (Benjamin David Reitemeier) and son Chris (Ryan Rosenheim) have accepted that Larry will never come home but have played along with her interpretation of reality in order to keep the peace. However, Chris has invited their former neighbor and Larry’s former girlfriend Annie (Madeline Rouverol) to the Keller family home in order to propose to his long time pen pal and friend. Yet, it is not just Annie and Larry’s past relationship that stands in his way, Annie’s father once was Joe’s business partner – a failed partnership which ended with defective parts being sent to US Army, 21 pilots dead, Annie’s father in jail and Joe surrounded by murderous suspicion.

As a special production for the 100th Birthday of Arthur Miller and 100th anniversary of the School of Theatre and Drama at the University of Michigan, this production was designed to impress alumni and the community at large – a feat which it easily accomplished. Since the Arthur Miller Theatre has a thrust stage, I have never seen a traditional curtain used in this venue causing the set to be immediately exposed the second you walk into the theater. This provides the audience with a tremendous amount of time to view the set and cast judgments about each piece present on the stage, presenting a huge amount of pressure on the Scenic Designer to create the “perfect” set. Caleb Levengood (’03) did a tremendous job with set. The stage was framed by white lattice woodwork which was filled with items that appeared to be from Larry’s childhood. While the actors never interacted with any of these objects or acknowledge their existence, they framed the story as a constant reminder that while Larry himself might not be present, his absence was always something to be noted. On the stage itself, a porch jetting out from the façade of an incomplete house subtly suggested  that there are parts missing from more than just the house.

The principle actors did a tremendous job with creating believable and complex characters on stage, while the featured actors fulfilled their purpose as plot devices but were otherwise not of note. Regan Moro as Kate Ketter was especially powerful in her presentation of a woman trapped in a world of delusion but desperately clinging to reality. The wringing of her hands was never overdone, she was not the stereotype of a woman who has lost or the false two dimensional character you too often see but rather a powerful, commanding presence determined to hide the disintegration of her world from those closest to her.

Arthur Miller’s All My Sons is not an uplifting piece but much like Death of a Salesmen Miller forces the audience to look at themselves before casting judgment on the choices of his characters. Here he questions the audience: how much would you compromise?

REVIEW: Greek Tragedies, Classical and Contemporary: Antigone and All My Sons

Jackson Tucker-Meyer

“The killer and the killed are all one family.” This line, spoken near the end of Sophocles’s Antigone, is hauntingly echoed in the title of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons. One play premiered in an ancient Athenian amphitheater, the other premiered about a millennium-and-a-half later in the Broadway theater that now houses The Book of Mormon. These plays come from two different cultures, but were written in the same theatrical tradition. Both plays are about “respectable” men and the pain they inflict on everyone around them through their pride and vanity. Both plays deal with the conflict between the needs of the state and the needs of the individual. Both plays take imposing political quandaries and scale them down until they feel intimate and immediate. The pain of one family becomes the pain of the world.

 

I realize I’m probably not making either of these shows sound like a fun night out. There’s an old theatrical story about a theatergoer who walked out of a production of Long Day’s Journey Into Night (or maybe it was Death of a Salesman, or Gypsy, or Hamlet), yelling “IF I WANNA WATCH A DYSFUNCTIONAL FAMILY, I’LL STAY HOME!” The story is probably as mythical as Antigone, but the point stands: A lot of people don’t want to pay good money to be emotionally purged with pity and terror. Works of art that deal with “difficult” subject matter are described and marketed with adjectives like “important” and “necessary,” which makes them sound more like medicine than entertainment. We tend to associate pleasure with joy and playfulness, not intensity and seriousness, but it’s a false binary—these plays are very serious, but just because they’re serious doesn’t mean they’re joyless. For one thing, both of these shows do have a sense of humor—Anne Carson’s new English translation for Antigone is leavened with dry wit, and Miller managed to work a few corny Capra wisecracks into All My Sons. Beyond that, there is a very specific kind of enjoyment to be found in both of these shows—the joy of watching talented actors take on towering roles.

 

The set for Antigone (by Jan Versweyveld, who also designed the lighting) is terse and dark, illuminated mainly by a disk of harsh light mounted in the middle of a sterile white backdrop. It’s very appropriate, if maybe a little on the nose, for a play that starts grim and only gets grimmer. At the outset of the play, we learn that the brothers Polyneikes and Eteokles (the sons of Oedipus—technically his brothers as well, but we don’t need to get into that) have killed each other in battle. A little mythological background: Eteokles was the ruler of the city-state of Thebes, and Polyneikes, driven out of Thebes by his brother, mounted a treasonous insurrection against Eteokles. Kreon (uncle of Eteokles and Polyneikes), the new ruler of Thebes, has ordered that Polyneikes’s body should be left unburied. This does not sit well with Antigone (sister of Eteokles and Polyneikes), who goes to bury her brother and is arrested and sentenced to death by Kreon. Got all that?

 

The big draw of the play is Juliette Binoche in the title role, but it is not a star turn in the conventional sense. She certainly puts herself through the wringer, playing Antigone as an outwardly brave woman who cannot betray her moral principles but still fears her fate. However, she is simply one member of a terrifically tight eight-actor ensemble, all of whom commit wholeheartedly to the emotional marathon that Sophocles puts his performers through. Under the direction of Ivo van Hove, every actor in the ensemble, including Binoche, takes on the role of the omniscient Chorus at one point or another. This is different from the usual convention—having the Chorus played by an indistinct blob of actors—but van Hove takes pains to remind the audience that this is a capital-C contemporary Antigone.

 

Instead of togas and tunics, the actors are costumed (by An d’Huys) in snappy suits and dresses; Kreon (played with sneering verve by Patrick O’Kane) lounges around on a black leather sofa. These modernistic design choices are easy on the eyes but remove any specific historical or political context from the play, placing its characters in a generic present day. There are also screen projections and pulsating music, which are distractingly omnipresent—this is especially apparent in the last scene, when all the actors leave the stage and the final moments of the play are dominated by a weird video sequence and an incongruous rock song (“Heroin,” by the Velvet Underground—“I just don’t know”). When I saw the play, I was sitting next to an audience member who kept shifting his legs back and forth for the entire show. It was super annoying, but I could understand why he felt so anxious—van Hove seems to equate seriousness with slowness, and at times the play can start to feel a little ponderous. All the urgency in this production comes from Sophocles’s story and the actors’ performances—not the pacing.

 

All My Sons, as directed by Wendy Goldberg, is a little brighter on the surface than Antigone—the set (by Caleb Levengood) looks like a picture postcard, with a slightly shabby Middle-American house framed by little Rockwellian tchotchkes decorating the proscenium. For the first few minutes of All My Sons, the dialogue is mostly composed of small-town small talk, but as the audience is introduced to the various members of the Keller family—the businessman father who built planes in World War II, the veteran son who’s engaged to be married, the dreamy mother who keeps hoping her other son will return home someday—the happy image slowly unravels and the Kellers are shown to be a family broken by the foolish mistake of one man.

 

Despite the fact that most of the student actors were playing roles several decades beyond their years, they all gave a variety of beautiful and subtle performances—from Benjamin Reitemeier’s lovable but deluded old patriarch, to Eric Myrick’s kindly old doctor, to Jordan Rich’s reluctant bearer of very bad news—but the standout was Regan Moro in the role of the mother, Kate Keller. On paper, the role of Kate can come across as a showy, theatrical crazy-lady role, but Moro played her as a decent woman, buckling under the strain of holding a family together with determined denial. Goldberg has staged the play in the round, which means that sometimes the character’s back is to the audience. Even then, I couldn’t take my eyes off Kate Keckler—more accurately, I couldn’t look away.

 

For all their thematic similarities, there are obvious differences between these two productions. All My Sons is a student production, while Antigone is performed by a professional company of older, more experienced actors. All My Sons is being staged, naturally, in the Arthur Miller Theatre, a cozy, intimate space. Antigone is performed in the cavernous Power Center. I was fortunate enough to be seated in the second row for Antigone, but somehow I never felt fully drawn into the drama. The Greek tragedies were originally performed for religious ceremonies—perhaps the ideal audience is an audience of gods, not mere mortals. I felt distanced from Antigone, like it was somehow beyond my grasp. On the other hand, Goldberg’s production of All My Sons felt down-to-earth, specific, and real. The play has the structure of Greek tragedy—a well-renowned man commits a grave offense and is forced to pay the price for his actions—but the Kellers are not lofty, kingly figures. They are ordinary people, and their ordinariness is what makes their tragedy so terrifying.

 

Still, there were moments in Antigone that I’ll never forget—like when Antigone silently buried her brother. Or when Antigone’s sister Ismene (played with shifting shades of tenderness and harshness by Kirsty Bushell), praying to Bacchus, shrieked the words “Grant us light!” Or when Binoche, as the Chorus, sat at the lip of the stage, simply telling the story to a handful of people in the front row. These moments could have been already forgotten by everybody else in the audience, but I’ll probably remember them for a very, very long time. Maybe that’s why we go to see these intense, serious shows—not to feel good, necessarily, but to walk away with a few unforgettable moments.

PREVIEW: All My Sons

Alexandria Strother

All My Sons by Arthur Miller will be presented by the University of Michigan’s Department of Theatre & Drama this weekend in the Arthur Miller Theatre on North Campus. Arthur Miller was a prominent figure in twentieth-century American Theatre writing numerous plays including Death of a Salesman, The Crucible and A View from the Bridge.

All My Sons was inspired by true events and follows the story of Joe Keller, a businessman who sold defective airplane parts to the government during World War Two. As a result of these defective parts, 21 American pilots lost their lives and Joe’s neighbor/business partner was sent to jail while Joe was exonerated for the crime. This scandal is a common topic of neighborhood gossip, but Chris, Joe’s youngest son, is determined to move on with his life by marrying Annie. Yet, Chris’ mother Kate cannot let go of the past – defiantly believing that her eldest son Larry, a solider MIA presumed dead  and Annie’s sweetheart before his disappearance, is alive.

Remaining Performances: October 16, 17 at 8pm, October 18 at 2pm

General Admission by Floor $28 • Students $12 with ID

REVIEW: A Very Starkid Reunion

Jeannie Sandefer

As I sat in the audience of the Power Center Thursday night, I heard high pitched chatter all around me, anticipation crawling up my spine. My last Starkid show had been in 2012, and this felt even more special for some reason. This time, Starkid was in their home turf. But then again – this time was different. I wasn’t just watching and enjoying this show. Notebook and pen in hand, I sat poised over my notebook.

My first two notes?

“The lights dim and I flinch.”

Why did I flinch?

“Screaming. All Screaming.”

The audience erupts into a dull roar as Darren Criss sits in the darkness, waiting for his cue to grace us with his beautiful voice.

This, my friends, is a Starkid show.

I’ve been a Starkid fan since at least 2009, my freshman year of high school. I thought I was clever making jokes about how that movie sucked royal hippogriff, and how when I went to college I’d be transferred to Pigfarts. I’m no ameteur. But even with all that preparation, I didn’t know what to expect for their reunion.

Of course, Darren opened with a much more polished rendition of “Goin’ Back to Hogwarts,” and I wondered vaguely how much rehearsal he really needed. Did he remember all of the words, or was relearning them like riding a bike; one shove and he was gone?

I continued wondering about the nostalgia, especially as the screams grew quieter during the second half of the concert. What did it feel like for Joe Walker and Brian Rosenthal to be bound together again in that damn turban? What was Jaime’s view from the stage, as she led the cast of Me and My Dick? Did Joey care that his vocals are being overpowered simply by the sheer will of screams?

Throughout the concert, performance, variety, whatever you may call it, I tuned out the screams and really tried to focus my critical eye on this phenomenon I loved. But there’s nothing to criticize. I could tell that these weren’t kids singing in the Walgreen Drama Center any more – all the vocals were polished, vowels open and consonants crisp. These were now seasoned professionals. I personally loved Brant Cox’s solo, when they performed “Beauty” from their 2011 musical Starship, and the subtle tweaks to writing, where Darren went off about there being another Spider Man and Meredith Stepien pointed out that Red Vines are disgusting (because they are), were nothing short of ingenious. No, the show wasn’t perfect, but since when has a Starkid show ever run smoothly?

Despite all the screaming and frustration at not picking my favorite songs (where was Granger Danger?!?!?), I remembered why I fell in love with Starkid. It wasn’t the jokes, it wasn’t the Harry Potter, it wasn’t even the perfection of Lauren Lopez. It was the honesty of all their performances, and how they made you feel like you could jump on stage and join them. And that’s how they took the stage at the Power Center, filled with joy, a bit of quirkiness, and hope.

It was clear Starkid wasn’t just reliving their old memories by recreating their favorite musical numbers from all their shows. Even through Brian Holden’s self-deprecating humor, it was clear Starkid was emphasizing that no, they hadn’t forgotten about where they came from. Even Darren in all his glory loved to come back hoMe.

“Michigan was our Hogwarts” they proclaimed, instantly making everyone in the audience who wasn’t a Wolverine immediately decide to apply to Michigan. I can’t lie, though, because despite its cheesiness, as a senior I felt their words ring true.

At the end of the night, I looked to the front of the audience, where Nick Lang, director, writer, actor, everyman sat watching his creation, pulled together in the span of mere days, a little over 12 hours rehearsal and prep put into making this show. He erupted in cheers, pulled onto stage by his castmates, his Starkids, his very best friends. As I watched, I thought I may feel just a tiny bit of what he felt: pride in what this group of quirky kids became, all because of one idea and the determination to see it through.

 

REVIEW: New York Philharmonic Concert 1

Tsukumo
Alan Gilbert’s new Michigan gear, set in front of the long-time conductor of the New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein. Photo courtesy of UMS.

All I can say is, wow. The New York Philharmonic gave life to all the repertoire they performed last night. An unbelievable amount of artistry filled up the full house of Hill Auditorium on Friday, October 9, the first concert of their five-year residency at the University Musical Society.

The New York Philharmonic makes orchestra playing sound easy. As a musician myself, I can assure you it’s not. Each phrasing was done naturally, each note was given different colors in appropriate timings, and each melody had so much life. Maestro Alan Gilbert handled the intricacies of Beethoven’s works with such grace, and the musicians responded with their virtuosic skills. In addition to that, Mr. Inon Barnatan, the soloist for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in C Major, Op. 15, glided through the keys to express the various characters in the piece with composure and meticulous technique. It was quite a show to see.

Another reason that made this night’s concert special was the surprise after the program. After receiving standing ovation from the entire audience, Maestro Alan Gilbert goes backstage, and comes back on stage with a Michigan hat. Although I was all the way up in the balcony, I could see the block M on his hat. Then, he takes the baton and conducts the special arrangement of “The Victors” as an encore. It was such a treat — there was even a section that made “The Victors” sound like another movement from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony that they had performed right before! Although I must say, it was weird leaving Hill Auditorium singing “The Victors” to myself instead of Beethoven 7; it was probably the least amount of maize and blue I saw in the audience while listening to this song, too.

Speaking of what people wore to the performance, many people were dressed fancily — the dresses, ties, and neatly ironed shirts were quite nice to see. However, I am happy with what I wore to the performance: a comfortable top with a scarf, skinny pants, and casual boots. I’d say it was somewhere between casual and business casual.

I did this on purpose. I wanted to really take on the words posted on the UMS website:

UMS has no formal dress code and we encourage you to wear whatever you feel comfortable in. Jeans and tennis shoes are perfectly acceptable, although some patrons prefer to dress more formally.

I’m a student. While I like dressing up, I can’t afford to dress up for every concert that I go to — and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I think the beauty of the performances at Ann Arbor is how younger and older audiences come to the same performances. Alongside the old couples with upscale clothing, I see students coming right out of class with backpacks and sneakers. Readers, take note — you do you, as long as you don’t distract others in the audience. Arts at Ann Arbor are more accessible than you may think.