Friday
April 7, 2006
arts. michigandaily. com
artspage@michigandaily. com

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5


Show exudes
musical wit
By Catherine Smyka
For the Daily
FINE A RTS PR EVIEW
The words "The Mikado" shimmer across the blood-
red curtain of the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater. Hypnot-
ic violins set a somber mood. The s
curtain rises, and you find a man
condemned to death for flirting. The Mikado
"Well, that's Gilbert and Sul- Tonight at 8 p.m.,
livan for you," whispers a violin- Saturday at 2 p.m.
ist to an oboist, referring to the and 8 p.m. and
University's Gilbert and Sullivan Sunday at 2 p.m.
Society's production of the famed $15-20
opera, which opened last night Students $7-9 with ID
and will run tonight through Sun- Atthe Lydia
day. Mendelssohn Theater
Set in 19th-century Japan, the
opera's backstory involves Nanki-Poo, the son of the
Emperor, who escapes to the town of Titipu to avoid
an unwanted marriage and falls in love with beauti-
ful Yum-Yum. After realizing that she is engaged to
unworthy Ko-Ko, Nanki-Poo flees.
"The Mikado" opens with rumors of Ko-Ko's
death, renewing Nanki-Poo's love for Yum-Yum. Yet
he finds Ko-Ko not only alive, but now Lord High
Executioner.
Director Daniel Floripa third-year law student at Ave
Maria School of Law, has served as makeup designer
for UMGASS six times. "The Mikado" is his directo-
rial debut, and Florip has high hopes for the show.
"This .production is played for the laughs," Florip
said. "Many ad-libs creep through, and there's a lot of
movement and dancing. This isn't a static show."

Lorca play tells tale
of drama and tragedy

By Abigail B. Colodner
Daily Arts Writer

A sun-drenched village in Spain is rot-
ting from within, circa 1930. Diagnosis:

the emotions and
ambitions that have
plagued mankind's
attempts to live civ-
illy. Prolific 20th-
century playwright
and poet Federico
Garcia Lorca
frames this time-
less problem in an
exotic setting with
heightened speech
in his play "Blood
Wedding," opening
tonight at the 7:30

Blood
Wedding
Tonight through
Sunday at 8 p.m.
Next Friday
through Sunday
at 7 p.m.
Free
At East Quadrangle
Auditorium and
Matthei Botanical
Garden next week

The cast of "The Mikado" rehearses on Wednesday for opening night.

Second-time choreographer and School of Music
senior Emily Keeping deftly incorporates fans into each
number. A beautiful courtyard serves as the set, and
silk kimonos round out the scenes.
But all this grandeur has nothing on the fact that
"The Mikado" is actually a very funny comedy.
Pooh-Bah, Ko-Ko's assistant, draws laughs with his
dry sarcasm, and the chorus is hysterical - jumping,
twirling and snapping their colorful Japanese fans.
Ko-Ko himself elicits laughter with his musical rant
targeting "the guy at Comcast who raises the prices
... and athletes who earn millions are barely scraping
by: They never would be missed" in the number "As
Someday it May Happen."
But wait: Comcast in 19th-century Japan?
Each time "The Mikado" is performed, "As Someday
it May Happen" is re-written for current trends. This
time, Andrews and Florip provide the adapted lyrics.

"It will be hard to keep from laughing onstage," said
School of Music and LSA sophomore Erica Ruff.
"The Mikado" marks another success for the almost-
60-year-old UMGASS, one of campus's oldest groups.
For most, this hasn't been a first-time experience.
"We have a cast of seasoned performers onstage
(along) with those new to the works, and all have found
their collective niche in the show," said Clinton Smith,
third-time music director for the show. Smith leads a
group of talented musicians, who provide accompani-
ment throughout the performance.
Despite common misconceptions about Gilbert and
Sullivan, Florip still expects to draw large audiences.
"People often think that these shows consist of one
guy singing and the rest of the chorus following, but
that's really not the case. It's opera but it's not opera,"
Florip said. "There are no morals and no rules about life.
The show is just there to make the audience laugh."

Student percussion group gets into the Groove

By Caroline Hartmann
Daily Arts Writer

A handful of friends line a hallway
cracking jokes, some of them enjoying a
snack and one beat-
ing a catchy rhythm Scrapmetal
on the nearest desk. Shenanigans
But this isn't a
typical study break Saturday at
- it's the members 7:30 p.m.
of Groove relaxing $6
before a rehearsal At the Michigan Theater
of "Scrapmetal She-
nanigans," which they will perform at the
Michigan Theater tomorrow at 7:30 p.m.
Groove uses everyday objects to com-
bine elements of "Stomp" and Blue Man
Group, blending music, dance and comedy

into a dynamic performance.
LSA sophomore and Groove music
director Brandon Krieg described the
group's style as "high-energy percussion
fused with every kind of music you can
think of."
Groove broke ground three years ago
when University alum Lev Gartman
brought a small group of friends together
to create an unconventional, student-based
music ensemble. Groove has nearly tripled
its crew since then, boasting a rotating cast
of about 30 performers.
"Scrapmetal Shenanigans" opens with
two unassuming players tapping a back-
and-forth beat on two kitchen pans, but
the initially modest arrangement is just
warmup for what's to come. Prepare for a
roaring climax when performers flood the
stage with rows of trash cans and buckets
to thunder an infectious rhythm.

Using what some consider worthless
junk, Groove transforms what might oth-
erwise be an array of discordant noise into
striking renditions of original and bor-
rowed melodies, making for an unforget-
table concert. Snaps, clapping and stomps,
effectively woven into beats on itens like
parking cones and tubing, establish the
group's symphonic savvy.
One particular number uses only the
bodies and voices of those on stage, slowly
building a musical mosaic with intertwin-
ing beats and comic undertones. Groove
also adds sounds from trumpets, trom-
bones, guitars and traditional drum sets to
provide bursts of music that complement
the group's offbeat edge.
If the music isn't enough to knock your
socks off, Groove's breathtaking set -
fondly dubbed the "Wall of Doom" - will
definitely impress.

Rather than conform to a set of preor-
dained stage roles like other groups of its
kind, the quirks of each player's personal-
ity dictate the show's comedic slant.
Though Groove draws on "extrane-
ous" influences - such as electronica-
group Safri Duo and the Melvins and
Double Cheeseburger - Krieg said the
"biggest influences come from our own
crazy heads."
Groove members range from long-
time musicians to rhythmically inclined
students looking for a creative outlet.
The group's camaraderie and genuine
dedication becomes immediately apparent
despite their musical diversity.
With catchy phrases like "Save a Trash-
can, Bang a Drummer" and loudly exuber-
ant music, Groove is sure to please. Expect
nothing less than an ear-popping percus-
sion jam of the biggest kind.

p.m. at the East Quadrangle auditorium,
running through Sunday. For added
atmosphere, the production moves to the
Matthei Botanical Garden Conservatory
next weekend.
A sordid tale in the local news caught
Lorca's eye and inspired him to write
"Blood Wedding," in which a young
peasant woman abandons her fiance
for her cousin's betrothed. Her action
unleashes a storm of violent passion and
tribal bloodlust that overtakes her village
and climaxes in murder.
"Lorca plays with the particulars of
the historical event to highlight grudges,
feuds, how people can't let go of their
hatred and hostility'" said RC lecturer
Kate Mendeloff, who directed the play.
"That's part of his philosophy; people
don't have happy relationships. His
plays are very much about unfulfilled
desire," she said.
Lorca's play occupies several middle
grounds: between speech and song, sto-
rytelling and social commentary and,
most notably, realism and surrealism.
The show is suffused with surreal ele-
ments such as heightened, imagistic
language and symbolic characters such
as Death and the Moon that add drama
to the play. It manages both to recall the
classics of antiquity in its emotional scale
and, in its combination of performance
styles, to pave new expressive ground.
This production is not a typical the-
ater project. It's the culmination of the
Residental College theater production
seminar RC Humanities 481, designed to
give RC theater majors experience in all

aspects of production. It results from the
semester-long study and effort of Men-
deloff's students, all of whom are cast
- some even double cast - in the play.
"This is as close to classical train-
ing as the RC gets," RC senior Luke
Randall said.
But the class involves students with
numerous interests.
"There are people who are actors,
people who like acting, people who
like Lorca, people who like Spanish,"
Randall said.
The first half of the semester was
spent reading several of Lorca's plays
and delving into the context of his writ-
ing. His plays are deeply rooted in the
Andalusian region of southern Spain,
known for the rich peasantry and gypsy
subculture that animate Lorca's works.
The colorful local culture is the frame-
work within which the characters of
"Blood Wedding" struggle.
"Despite the fact that his tragedies
are happening in this particular world,
they're getting at deeply felt human
needs," Mendeloff said.
The students milled around the audito-
rium before rehearsal Wednesday. Some
- most noticeably those belting out
Barbara Streisand tunes as they gathered
their costumes - are seasoned actors,
but for others, "Blood Wedding" will be
their first stage-acting experience.
This is the case for RC senior Will
Gressman. Besides making his acting
debut as a star in the play, he also wrote
the music, drawing from the few bars
penned by Lorca himself, who wrote the
songs - which will be performed in their
original Spanish - sprinkled through-
out the show. "They're not really singers.
It was an interesting task teaching them.
Now they're doing amazing," Gressman
said, gesturing to his classmates onstage.
The live music and dance that Lorca
wrote into the play "aren't crucial to the
plot, but they help - they help the envi-
ronment of the play, they help to move
it forward," Randall said. The conflicted
passions that drive the characters are
aptly represented by flamenco, a dance
style that can be simultaneously highly
disciplined and intensely visceral.
Mendeloff discussed the tensions in
"Blood Wedding" that the dance reflects.
"His plays look at social constraints, par-
ticularly (those) on women. He's not an
overtly political playwright, but he cer-
tainly looks at the relationship between
individuals and society," she said.

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