Tag: campy

REVIEW: Orpheus in the Underworld

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

8:00pm • Saturday, Nov. 4, 2023 • Power Center

SMTD’s production of Orpheus in the Underworld (Orphée aux enfers) this past weekend was campy and aesthetically chaotic. The opera was originally written in 1858 by librettists Hector Crémieux and Ludovic Halévy and composer Jacques Offenbach, and is a humorous, irreverent take on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. In this rendition, directed by Mo Zhou, SMTD chose to extend the opera’s original political critique of capitalist power structures into the 1950s, on the cusp of the Kennedy presidential campaign. The result is a complex amalgam of messages and meanings which I will discuss below. 

The notes provided in the program for this performance were essential in interpreting the many points the creative directors wanted to get across. First, the “About the Authors” section conveyed the point that each of the authors drew inspiration from the politics of their time. Mo Zhou elaborated upon that point in her director’s note, drawing from Offenbach’s “turbulent relationship with personal finance” to develop the opera as a statement on the privileged elite and capitalism. Further, the dramaturgical team focuses on how including Public Opinion as an archetypal character frames and translates the plot for the audience. Finally, the dramaturgs suggest that Offenbach wrote feminist meanings into the opera and subverted power structures by making Public Opinion a female character and focusing on Eurydice’s romantic self-determination.

I would not necessarily have read all of these themes into the opera without the program to point them out. In terms of the political and labor meanings of the production, the set did much of the heavy lifting. Larger-than-life vintage advertisements framed the stage, literally presenting each scene through a lens of consumerism. In the scene where the gods revolt against Jupiter’s rule, they carry signs parodying the labor movement with slogans like “Give Me Generational Wealth or Give Me Debt.” 

Despite the dramaturgical efforts to read feminism and liberation into Orpheus in the Underworld, my perception of the gender relations in this story was more cynical. While the role of Public Opinion as a female character was meant to give “the voice of the collective Greek chorus … to someone who historically was not given a voice,” her comparatively minor role in the story didn’t allow a full development of that voice. Personally, Offenbach’s treatment of Public Opinion as a female character felt more mocking of women as arbiters of social control.

All of that said, this performance was a lot of fun to experience, with all of its wacky, unexpected pop-culture references (Elvis as Bacchus?). There was so much going on that I don’t know if my confusion is a critique or a sign of some complex theatrical genius on the side of the production’s creative team. The set and costumes were beautifully and thoughtfully designed, and the cast performed splendidly. Orpheus in the Underworld was both entertaining and intellectually stimulating, and I thoroughly enjoyed picking apart the creative choices which pulled this performance together.

REVIEW: Bonnets: How Ladies of Good Breeding are Induced to Murder

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

8:00pm • Friday, February 17, 2023 • Lydia Mendelssohn Theater

I had a fun evening attending Bonnets last Friday, although I was more impressed by the acting and production than the writing itself. My cast shout-outs go to God, played by Sophia Lane, Prudence, played by Kaylin Gines, and Valerie, played by Olivia Sinnott: partially because they were just my favorite characters, but also because the three actors filled their roles with particular verve. One thing I appreciated about the script was that each actor had their time to shine. Each character developed a type that, once placed in a scene with another, created surprising and entertaining dynamics, especially once the timelines became crossed.

The set, designed by Lance Vance (depicted in the image above), lent itself to the plot, with the overlapping frames above the three settings visualizing the colliding timelines. While unchanging, it remained dynamic by virtue of the way the actors interacted with it in many dimensions. The costumes, designed by Mallory Edgell, were similarly ingenious. Each character wore a period gown rendered in pale neutral fabric, save for a panel or two which were patterned in esoteric characters reflecting the playful sci-fi elements of the plot. I liked how the uniformity of the costumes, all of which used roughly the same fabric, unified the women’s narratives while the cut distinguished each character by period and class. The costume change in the end was also clever, evoking the punk movement of the 1990s and recentering the story in the present, where women continue to be “corseted” in contemporary ways.

This brings me to an element brought up in the panel discussion after the play which I found interesting. A question was posed to the panelists about how the play breaks barriers of representation, and two of the panelists answered frankly that they didn’t believe it did. I’m inclined to agree; the feminism of the play didn’t feel particularly radical. Perhaps the embrace of violence as a means of resistance was meant to be the element of surprise in the play, but it leaned a little too deeply into comedy for me to take it seriously. Overall, I wasn’t enamored with the particular brand of camp written into the script. I felt like, considering its themes, the play could have afforded to take itself a little more seriously, and ultimately the campiness came across more as a product of a rushed storyline.

Of course, none of this is to criticize the impressive cast and production staff who brought this performance together. Regardless of whatever issues I had with the script, I enjoyed the play immensely, congratulate the student actors who will be graduating shortly, and look forward to seeing the others again in future performances.

REVIEW: Little Shop of Horrors

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

2:00pm • Sunday, November 20, 2022 • Power Center

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to experience Little Shop of Horrors, presented at the Power Center this weekend by MUSKET. The performance began before the lights dimmed, as Chiffon (Arin Francis), Crystal (Maya Mcentyre), and Ronnette (Gilayah McIntosh) wandered the auditorium, interacting with the crowd. Eventually they disappeared backstage, only to reappear along with the rest of the cast, to open the performance with “Skid Row.” From that point onward I was continually impressed by the talent and personality of each actor. Forming the chorus, Francis, Mcentyre, and McIntosh were reliable throughout their performance both for their solid harmonies and for their affectionately eye-rolling reactions to Seymore and Audrey. In addition to his role as Orin Scrivello, Audrey’s abusive boyfriend, Caleb McArthur scrambled onstage in at least four other mini-roles, creating fresh personas for each. I appreciated the way that Michael Fabisch threw himself into the awkwardness required for the role of Seymore. And Mr. Mushnik, played by Dylan Bernstein, was a perfect drama queen.

My favorite human role was definitely Audrey, played by Mackenzie Mollison. In the beginning of the show, Audrey is trapped in an abusive relationship with a sadistic dentist, and while in “Somewhere that’s Green” she dreams of living a simple life in a suburban development, she doesn’t believe she deserves to be loved by someone kind. Mollison brought humor to the role with her excellent comedic timing without oversimplifying the show’s darker themes of abuse and self-hatred. Her powerful voice seemed subtly restrained throughout the performance to reflect Audrey’s situation: occasionally bursting out in full spirit but quickly stifled again.

The shameless Audrey II, however, voiced by Morgan Gomes, resisted all restraints. Gomes, while only appearing onstage in person for the final curtain call, defined the performance with her spectacular voice. The plant only begins speaking mid-way through the performance, but when Gomes’ voice finally echoed through the theater, I saw jaws drop.

Engineering the evil plant itself is notoriously difficult, and MUSKET pulled it off with humor and style. In its first form, the Audrey II was a single, tentacle-like shoot with a little flower at the tip that Seymore slung around the shop during “Grow for Me.” Upon the plant’s entrance, I figured this first edition was too small for the team to have bothered animating–but to my surprise, in response to the characters’ lines, it drooped, perked up, and even nodded, all without any visible assistance or puppeteering from onstage. As Audrey II continued to grow throughout the show, I never noticed the stage crew replacing it or making adjustments, which is doubly impressive for such a large and mobile prop. The choice to have Audrey II consume its prey by sucking them into its stem resulted in some entertaining visuals: because the shape of the plant was vaguely humanoid, we seemed to watch Orin, Mr. Mushnik, Audrey, and finally Seymore disappear between the plant-being’s “legs.”

Overall, a big congratulations to everyone involved in putting together this fun rendition of Little Shop of Horrors. I encourage everyone who missed the performance to consider buying tickets to MUSKET’s winter semester show, A Chorus Line. I can guarantee that I will be in the audience.

PREVIEW: Little Shop of Horrors

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

What: a comedy horror musical, brought to UM by the student theater company MUSKET

When: 

  • Friday, November 18, 8:00pm
  • Saturday, November 19, 8:00pm
  • Sunday, November 20, 2:00pm

Where: Power Center

Tickets: $7 for students, $13 for adults, available online, at the MUTO ticket office, by phone, or at the box office 1 hr before the performance. More details linked here.

Little Shop of Horrors is a Broadway musical in which Seymore, a nerdy plant shop assistant, pines hopelessly after his coworker, Audrey. The plot revolves around a strange plant, named Audrey II, which Seymore discovers will bring business and popularity to the failing shop–if only it is fed with flesh and blood! The show is produced by MUSKET, one of the university’s longest-running student theater companies. The organization produces two shows each year in the Power Center, and has tackled both classic and contemporary performances such as West Side Story, Oklahoma, Hairspray, and Rent. Scanning photos of past performances, I am blown away by their evident production value, and I can see how MUSKET represents a Michigan legacy of passionate, skilled students and their dedication to the arts. I look forward to getting a glimpse of this legacy during the Sunday performance tomorrow, and hope others will consider picking up tickets at MUTO for the darkly funny, campy experience that is Little Shop of Horrors.