Tag: Comedy

PREVIEW: MOSCOW MOSCOW MOSCOW MOSCOW MOSCOW MOSCOW

Himaja Leave a comment

That’s a lot of “MOSCOW”s in the title! Let’s abbreviate, shall we?

WHAT: A performance of the play “MOSCOW x 6” by UM’s own Department of Theatre & Drama!
WHERE: the Arthur Miller Theater inside the Walgreen Drama Center (that pretty light green building down the road when you get off the bus at Pierpont!)
WHEN: See all showtimes here! I’ll be catching tomorrow night’s 8pm show. This show is on the October 1-15 Passport to the Arts — you can redeem a passport for a FREE ticket at the League Ticket Office!

Besides being intrigued by this play’s unusual title (it sounds like it’s shouting at me!), I was curious about the blurb that states: “It’s Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” for the Fleabag generation. A deftly comedic (and undisputedly raunchy) exploration of unchecked privilege.”

Who is Chekhov? What exactly is the Fleabag generation? I wondered. If you’re wondering too, don’t worry I’ll share my research.

“Three Sisters” is a 1901 play by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov that follows the lives of, you guessed it, three sisters. They feel trapped in their rural Russian town and long to move back to the big city of Moscow where they grew up.

“Fleabagging” is a dating phenomenon named after the hit dark comedy television series “Fleabag” created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It’s repeatedly dating the “wrong” person, careening from bad relationship to bad relationship, gravitating toward those who you know will never be “the one.”

Into this mix comes Halley Feiffer, a playwright who decided to reimagine “Three Sisters” for a contemporary audience. Add a splash of black comedy, a sprinkle of feminism, a slab of social critique and class commentary, and you get “MOSCOW x 6” — a play that seems startlingly relevant to our world today.

I am incredibly intrigued to see how our theater students will interpret this nuanced piece, especially given that the ongoing war in Ukraine has colored public perspectives of Russia and its crown jewel: Moscow. There will definitely be no shortage of interesting discussions after the show.

Note the following content warnings for this performance. Take care of yourself!
Contains suicidal ideation/mental illness; physical violence; homophobic language; depicted sexual content; foul language; misogyny; alcohol abuse

REVIEW: RCP Red Eye Winter 2022

Madison Krumins Leave a comment

Each semester, the RC Players hold their Red Eye Theatre, a spectacular event that is succinctly contained within the confines of a 24-hour period, starting on Friday evening and ending in a showcase performance on Saturday night. What happens in between?

Students audition to write, direct, and/or act in pieces that are concocted and created based on the group of performers present. The group comes together for the first time on Friday evening in East Quad, meeting each other briefly before teams split up to do their own work. While the actors sharpen their improv skills and bond with each other, the writers are banging out comedy skits for their assigned casts. 

Sometime in the early morning, the actors and directors finally receive their scripts, and from then on it’s a race against the clock to put it on the stage: fully blocked, set, costumed, memorized, and energized. This is all unseen to the audience, who roll in at about 8pm to witness the products of this bizarre sleep-deprivation process.

      

Before the Red Eye acts, there was a delightful performance by the Improfessionals—a UMich comedy improv group who set the stage for the wacky comedy ahead. 

The Red Eye acts did not disappoint. The first act took a “princess switch” approach to a prince who doesn’t want to get married (Kyle) and a lonely peasant who just wants a girlfriend (Mina). In a fantastic fairy tale ending, the prince follows his musical dreams and gives a concert for the kingdom, the queen falls in love with the Mina’s rock-eating mother, and Mina ends up with the princess Kyle was supposed to marry. The second act was a twisted play on Dora the Explorer: Boots is feeling like Dora doesn’t see him as an important part of the team anymore. As Backpack and Map are mysteriously murdered one after the other, it’s discovered that Boots will truly stop at nothing to get Dora’s attention. 

Broad summaries don’t do justice to the amount of comedic detail and timing put into the performances, a testament to the work put into these pieces over the span of just 24 hours. The actors brought full energy and action to the pieces, and it worked: even I, who had gotten a full 8 hours of sleep, found myself cackling at the delirious humor that had been created and performed as the result of a group collective all-nighter.

The next Red Eye won’t be until the Fall 2022 semester, but if you’re interested, keep an eye out for how to get involved. Or, if staying up all night isn’t your style, at least make sure to check it out next time it hits the stage.

REVIEW: Don’t Look Up

avameester Leave a comment

Filmmaker Adam Mckay ditches all subtlety in Don’t Look Up, weaponizing comedic satire to lunge straight for the throat of his target— which is, seemingly, almost everyone with media power. Don’t Look Up follows the story of two astronomers, played by Leonardo Dicaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, who discover a deadly comet speeding straight toward Earth and desperately attempt to convince the world of the event’s urgency. Facing the insurmountable obstacles of political corruption, corporate greed, and the happy-go-lucky culture of the celebrity world, the two struggle to make sense of the media’s ignorance as inevitable death approaches.

Don’t Look Up has an impressive range of talents under its belt, demanding the attention of anyone who previews it. Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet, Cate Blanchett, Jonah Hill, and Ariana Grande, to name just a few, bring to life an array of caricatures. Bubbly talk show hosts, self-absorbed celebrities, and money-hungry politicians take turns looking science in its fiery, unyielding eyes and denying it outright, engaging in nonstop arguments with the only two voices of reason— and somehow always coming out unscathed.

 

The film is fast-paced and blood-boiling, ensuring that you want to tear your hair out and scream at Meryl Streep’s uncharacteristically smug face for the entire 138-minute runtime. The dialogue teeters between over-the-top ludicrosity and sobering realism; it clearly points fingers at real-life media personalities and politicians that exhibit similar attitudes and refuses to water down their ignorance. Some scenes lean too much into the caricatures and come off as corny, but the premise remains intact and believable. The plausibility of the “comet” situation and media reaction mirrors the harrowing reality we live in; as an obvious allegory for the accelerating climate crisis, Don’t Look Up reminds us of exactly how and why the environment is heading towards total decay and which systemic problems are to blame.

 

Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rotten and pitying 55%. To be fair, Mckay’s Don’t Look Up lacks nuance and bold ideas, instead infusing what we already know with a sense of existential dread and powerful anger. The comedic route is also a less effective form of delivery than a more serious satire that could delve even deeper into its criticisms. However, my agreement with the critics’ ratings ends there; as designed for a mass audience, rather than an audience of knowledgeable film enthusiasts, Don’t Look Up is a perfectly accessible and entertaining vessel for an urgent message. Grim comedy and familiar faces make the plotline easier to digest, easing the anxiety of the catastrophe. Overall, Don’t Look Up is not intended to be an innovative cultural masterpiece, and that’s okay. At its best, it is a sobering and well-scripted analysis of the twisted hierarchy of power that we live in, given credibility by its parallels to reality and a star-studded cast. At its worst, its comedy detracts from its effectiveness and the film leaves us feeling hopeless.

 

Don’t Look Up pleads for the world to listen to its vindication of America as we know it, and I believe it should be listened to. Packed with enough cynical cleverness and lively dialogue to keep you on your toes for the whole two and a half hours, it’s undoubtedly a worthy watch. Grab some popcorn and a few friends and check it out exclusively on Netflix.

Review: Men on Boats

IseeUsee 1 Comment

Men on boats was a good event. The Arthur Miller theatre was very well set up. The ambiance of the play was very cozy and rustic. It fit the theme of an 1860s story.

The actors of the play were very enthusiastic and did their best to carry the story. But. The story was quite bland to put it frankly. The jokes were sparse and the funniest scenes were usually slapstick kind about boats breaking. Though I must say the slow-motion scenes of the boats breaking were very funny especially as they broke to background music of contemporary meme songs.

An interesting thing about Men on Boats was that even though it portrays only men, in this rendition, the cast was all female so it was supposed to be a “satirical, gender-flipped” story making fun of the explorers’ “cockiness and cluelessness.” But as I sat through the play I did not see much of this. Having an all-female cast did not really add much to making the play funnier or adding to the satire element of the play.

It was a little unsettling to watch because it deals with aspects of colonization: the men are “discovering” new parts of America and traversing through the Colorado River, being the first white settlers to do so. And though the play ends on a conflicting note where the explorers are not really satisfied with having “discovered” the places they saw and finishing the journey, it did not address some important issues in an important way. The main conflicts of the play were the explorers not having enough food or leaving because the waters were unkind to them. Seeing men dilly-dallying their way through the land natives have lived on for centuries before wasn’t that great. The play acknowledges that aspect but not in a serious way. The satire is not really aimed towards the colonization aspect of their work but rather their silly antics. I don’t think this was a good choice for a play to show in these times.

Regardless of that, the actors were phenomenal—their energy was contagious and some of the best scenes included them stampeding the floor and acting out the river travel. The character Mr. Hopkins was my favorite and had great comedic timing. The lighting details in the show were very impactful and one of my favorite parts of the event.

PREVIEW: The Holy Bones Festival

IseeUsee 1 Comment

To all Halloween enthusiasts,

I will be the brave one to address what’s on everyone’s mind: Fall break is just around the corner and you don’t know what to do! Halloween season is about to start! Your midterm couldn’t have been scheduled at a worse time! AT&T stock drops toward 11-year low, as dividend yield rises further above 8%!

Fear not I have an event for you that will cast away your worries and give you the perfect, ghoul fuelled start to your fall break.*

*applies to folks free between 3 pm EST and 10 pm EST on the 16th October 2021 only Terms and Conditions apply.

Skeletons partying like there’s no tomorrow

Thee (with the special e sound) Holy Bones Festival!

If you were looking for a sign then here is the official start to Halloween season for you. This spooktacular event is held right in your backyard: Ypsilanti. A quick (did I mention free?) bus ride away from CCTC. Forget taking the bus to your North Campus 8ams this is where the groovy kids take the bus to. 

The festival will have over FORTY local artisans and tarot readers, live music, drag shows, an art show, an auction (c’mon have you ever been to a freaking auction?),  and an improv show.

So put on your Jack Skellington T-shirts and be ready to have fun in the sun like the skeletons in the poster. Do you see how much fun they’re having?! 

Also, their early tickets are prices devilishly at $6.66 so don’t wait too long. Grab a friend and let’s go!

 

PREVIEW: ComCo Presents: Chest Hairs Roasting On An Open Fire

Emma Pinchak Leave a comment

When I saw the poster for this event and noted the strikingly distinct abdominal muscles of their Burt Reynolds drawing, I knew I had to go. Finals szn is truly upon us, and I for one am crawling out of my skin trying to pull my GPA out of the grave I’ve dug for its once-great body. We deserve a break to simply sizzle in nonsense for a while.

Join me in this holiday-scented adventure in improv comedy Friday, December 6th at 8pm in Angell Hall, Auditorium A. Admission is just $2 for a wild night of laughs. Bring your friends, your coworkers, your lovers, and (most importantly) your chest hair. If I can find some way to stick some of my split end trimmings on my chest, I promise to do it in the shape of a heart.