4B - Thursday, November 2, 2006
{the b-side)
The Michigan Dailv mihgnalco
4 ca i, - y g y.
Perfect
storm:
Stewart in
'Tempest'
By CAROLINE HARTMANN
Daily Arts Writer
The Royal Shakespeare Company, predict-
ably brilliant but unexpectedly modern, gave a
captivatingd debut performance of "The Tem-
pest" last night at the Power Center.
The stage opened with an overblown image of
a transistor radio projected across the curtain,
the round speaker cut out to become the win-
dow of a storm-blown ship. A booming British
voice issues a warning signal overhead before
the 20th-century-looking crew starts spouting
Shakespearian verse, all in front of a large-scale
video of the roaring sea.
Needless to say, this was no amateur produc-
tion.
"The Tempest" revolves around Prospero,
played by the legendaryPatrick Stewart. Prospe-
ro was once a noble Duke, but has lived seques-
tered on an island for 12 years after his throne
was usurped by his brother Antonio, aided by
the King of Naples and the king's brother. Pros-
pero's only company is his daughter Miranda,
the spirit Ariel he freed from a witch's spell and
Caliban, an island savage he keeps asa slave.
With the help of Ariel, Prospero conjures a
tempest to throw his brother's ship off course,
hoping to finally take revenge on the traitor. But
when the crew is washed ashore - safe but sep-
arated - confusion ensues on the island.
The king's son, Ferdinand, encounters Pros-
pero and his daughter Miranda, with whom he's
instantly enamored. Thought to be a lone idiot,
the prince is enslaved by Prospero who doubts
Photographer Isabelle Carbonell with her work in the Michigan Union Art Lounge.
F A E
Cross ingborders,
I
RSC crew members prepare for the company's production of "The Tempest."
his honest intentions. Antonio attempts to
betray the king while he's asleep, mourning the
presumed death of his son. And Stephano and
The RSC's take on 'The
Tempest' is not for the
faint of heart.
Trinculo - a drunk butler and chef respectively
- attempt to tame the raucous Caliban.
Ariel is the omniscient overseer in all this,
while anxiously watching an hourglass count
down the hours to his promised freedom. Ari-
el's presence is impossible to ignore as ghoulish
music seeps through the speakers and his three
accompanying spirits linger in the shadows.
And just when you think you're getting used to
him lurking in the background, Ariel bursts out
of a seal carcass dressed in rib bones and spew-
ing blood across the stage. So much for under-
statement.
But an audience can only handle Ariel's hair-
raising demeanor for so long. Enter comedic duo
Stephano and Trinculo.
Trinculo seeks shelter from a snow storm
under a makeshift hut, only to find himself in
a more-than-slightly compromising situation.
When Stephano confuses Trinculo's backside
for Caliban's second mouth, the audience can't
help but erupt in laughter, half-wondering at
how crude a Shakespearian joke can get.
Even though the cast as a whole delivered a
nearly flawless performance, Patrick Stewart
remains the show's true gem. After nearly 50
years on stage, Stewart is still going strong (and
is still ripped like he's 20). Moving effortlessly
between Star Trek's Captain Jean Luc Picard
and Shakespearian heroes, Stewart is a theater
rarity. His intergalactic authority might inspire
admiration in ever-awkward Trekkies, but
Stewart's compelling monologues trump any-
thing he could attempt on screen.
Prospero eventually rises above the instinc-
tual drive to seek vengeance on his brother and
forfeits his magical powers. He then becomes
the voice of reason as the disjointed crew piec-
es together the history of their island exploits.
Stewart's commanding stage presence echoed
through the theater as he uttered the play's most
famous lines in his closing monologue:
"As you from crimes would pardon'd be, Let
your indulgence set me free."
one photo at a time
Stars out in full force: Best of Sierra Leone
By ABIGAIL B. COLODNER
DailyArts Writer
JustacrossthehallfromtheQuiet
Study Room in the Michigan Union
is a space that
is often qui- /
eter still - the Crossing
Art Lounge. Borders into
Functioning as Vietnam
both an exhibi- Today
tion space and Atthe Art Lounge,
a study room, the Michigan
the Art Lounge Union
allows for Free
appreciation of
student art as well as "appreciation"
of your Orgo textbook.
Most recently, the walls were
hung with Isabelle Carbonell's
"Crossing Borders into Vietnam."
The photographs come out of the
LSA senior's volunteer work for a
development project on malnutri-
tion through the student-run NGO
Crossing Borders.
The Union Art Lounge is one of
several spaces on campus intended
for student exhibitions. Spaces in
the Union, the League and Pier-
pont Commons accept applications
to exhibit works of nearly any type
for month-long installments. Unlike
spaces that are juried by the School
of Art and Design, such as Work
on South State Street and the War-
ren Robbins Gallery in the Art and
Architecture building on North
Campus, the University Unions
accept applications from all Univer-
sity students.
Carbonell's unlabeled 11x14 pho-
tographs evoke a strong sense of
foreignness. In them, the innocuous
and everyday mingle with the his-
torically significant. Due to the near
lack of context given to the images,
it can be difficult to separate the
two, except in the most obvious
instances. As they are presented in
this exhibition, Carbonell's low-pro-
file images make no grand political
gestures, although she had access
and the ability to document many
of these scenes only through special
4
governmental permission.
In an e-mail, Carbonell said that
what she felt compelled to photo-
graph in Vietnam could show up
anywhere: "A composition of some-
thing that has extraordinary bal-
ance or imbalance ... a scene which
is aesthetically pleasing." The
exhibition's lack of fanfare helps
the viewer see scenes as Carbonell
might have, and according to the
artist, may "let images affect con-
sciousness without words."
The most politically sensitive
images show the effects of Agent
Orange, a debilitating herbicide
used by U.S. troops during the Viet-
nam War to eliminate the ground
cover that sheltered Vietnamese
fighters. Between bucolic scenes of
rolling hills in northern Vietnam
and clusters of children playing
under the eye of fellow villagers,
By DEVIKA DAGA
Daily Arts Writer
Tom Petty probably had no idea
what it was like to "live like a refu-
gee" when he
wrote those Sierra
famous lyr- Leone's
ics back in Refugee
1979. But then All Stars
again, most of
us don't. Here Tonight at 8 p.m.
to impart a AtThe Ark
little of their Free
wisdom and
experience - albeit in a grossly
understated fashion - is Sierra
Leone's Refugee All Stars, who
are performing live at The Ark
tonight at 8 p.m.
If you have ever doubted the
healing power of music, the All
Stars' compelling yet tragic debut
album Living Like a Refugee will
surely change your mind. As with
many bands, their live act is where
they shine.
Form
Guinea,
All Star
plights
N
ur
T
tence.Y
Koroma
lead tra
is not e,
lems, th
and thei
else."
"Som
to descr
While
country
ed in a refugee camp in what can only be described as
Sierra Leone's Refugee an "Afro-Caribbean" sound, the
s' music encompasses the periodi- infusions of rap in Sierra
of such a transient exis- Leonean Creole, French and Eng-
lish make that sound just as con-
temporary as the freestylers on a
)tes from the street corner.
An enduring blend of West
nderground: African vocal harmonies and reg-
gae-like beats is what audiences
'he music of should expect from their act. Spe-
cial attention should be given to
refugees. Koroma's lyrics, which update reg-
gae's traditional politics through
globalization. For example, in the
album's title track, he captures the
As group leader Reuben experience of refugees the world
explains in the album's over with lines such as, "You will
ck, "Living like a refugee be confronted by strange dialects
asy ... I took all the prob- / You will be fed unusual diets."
e suffering of the people Of note is "Weapon Conflict,"
n (made) it into something in which he describes collateral
damage through lucid parable.
ething else" only begins Because each track of Living
ribe the All Stars' music: Like a Refugee was written dur-
they incorporate their ing the group's years in exile,
's diverse culture into the All Stars' debut album can be
described as nothing less than
a musical odyssey. Their lyrical
reportage and buoyant rhythms
skillfully make sense of Sierra
Leone's tumultuous civil war that
spanned the '90s, and though you
would expect their music to have
a much harder edge because of it,
their redemption songs instead
radiate beauty and joy. Imbued
with raw spirit and human emo-
tion, the All Stars' tunes longingly
call for social justice with heard-
earned wisdom rather than brute
force and anger.
The All Stars have found a place
of refuge in their music. And with
sheer force of will, they're able to
pick up a guitar after losing their
homes, sing after witnessing the
murder of loved ones and make
music after encountering the
unimaginable tragedies. Though
the idea of music as a means of
coping may seem like a cliche, the
group's musical effort is undoubt-
edly an example of its potency.
One student
student's study of
Vietnam through
the lens.
Carbonell places a family portrait
that includes severe deformity.
Carbonell has predicted the
temptation on the part of the aver-
age viewer to attribute most details
of a culture to the main thing we, as
foreigners, know of its history: "It is
a country so misunderstood in our
national consciousness as frozen in 4
the context of war. But Vietnam is
not a time capsule - it has moved
beyond the war in a multitude of
fashions that are admirable."
Hersparingcurationis aresponse
to that impulse. While the exhibi-
tion does little to inform by way of
facts and story, it reminds viewers
that governmental restrictions and
red tape are not the only boundaries
to seeing the whole picture.
Author to speak on 'Middlesex'
By CAITLIN COWAN
Daily Arts Editor
The American novelist Thomas
Wolfe said "You have reached the
pinnacle of success as soon as you
become uninterested in money,
compliments, or publicity." Decades
after Wolfe's time, Ann Arbor will
host contemporary American nov-
elist who seems to embody those
words in his own way. Pulitzer-
prize winner Jeffrey Eugenides is
currently in residence here at the
University, and while he rarely gives
readings and typically avoids the
glare of public-
ity, Eugenides Jeffrey
will give a lec- E .i
ture tonight Eugenides
at Rackham O n
Amphitheater. ObstaCes
There is and Omens"
good reason Tonight at 5 p.m.
for the solitary At Rackham
writer's foray Amphitheater
into the public Free
eye: Michigan
is his home state. The Detroit-born
Eugenides was raised in Grosse
Pointe before attending Brown Uni-
versity in 1983. He went on to earn
his master's degree in creative writ-
ing from Stanford. Eugenides is the
A rare talk on
the writing of an
award-winning
work of local ilk.
author of "The Virgin Suicides,"
which was made into a film by Sofia
Coppola, and "Middlesex," an epic
whose hero(ine) is an intersexual
adolescent.
Eugenides will give his lecture,
"On Obstacles and Omens: The
Writing of Middlesex," tonight at 5
p.m. in the Rackham Amphitheater
on the fourth floor of the Rackham
Building. The event is free and open
to the public.
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