The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.coma
Friday, October 23, 2009 - 5A
A conceptual 'World'
By SASHA RESENDE
Daily Arts Writer
Musician John Darnielle
probably didn't expect to make
his TV debut on the set of a satir-
ical Comedy
Central show. ***
But then again,
what kind of The
artist wouldn't Mountain
want to ben-
efit from the Goats
famed "Colbert The Life of the
bump"? World to Come
Darnielle,
the creative 4AD
force and
the only constant behind The
Mountain Goats, was recently a
guest on Stephen Colbert's late
night comedy show, revealing
the host to be a huge and border-
line nerdy fan of the indie-folk
outfit. Despite recent main-
stream appearances, the band
has maintained a relatively low
profile throughout its career,
releasing a series of albums
with little recognition outside
a small music community. With
the band's 17th (yes, you read
that correctly) release The Life
of the World to Come, the band
explores its poppier roots while
solidifying its rustic sound. The
result is The Mountain Goats'
most accessible album yet.
Darnielle has made a career
on exploring the darker compo-
nents of human emotion, devot-
ing whole albums to an array
of themes ranging from failed
relationships to methamphet-
amine addiction. His band has
perfected the art of the concept
album and its latest release is no
exception. Each of the album's
12 tracks is titled after a differ-
ent biblical verse, providing the
framework for the record's over-
arching religious theme.
The album opens placidly
with a slow-strummed acous-
tic downer that pontificates
on self-help tapes ("1 Samuel
15:23") before progressing into a
mix of pop-rock guitar anthems
and keyboard-based hymns.
"Samuel" is an odd choice for an
opening track, but it succeeds in
orientinglistenersto therecord's
introspective core.
While many of the album's
songs maintain a more upbeat
progression, they preserve the
opener's somber ruminations,
continuing the band's tradition
of exploring melancholy subject
matters. By rotating between
raucous screaming ("Genesis
3:23," "Romans 10:9") and cal-
culated crooning ("1 John 4:16,"
"Genesis 30:3"), the album pro-
vides measured diversity with-
in the confines of its theme and
Darnielle's self-conscious lyr-
ics. Ultimately, The Life of the
World to Come is a varied jour-
ney through Darnielle's self-
discovery, relying on religious
symbols to help its author tell
his story.
"Philippians 3:20-21" strad-
dles both the band's boister-
ous and subdued aesthetics
with a quirky but fairly low-key
drum beat pulling together the
song's light acoustic strings and
dreamy keyboard flourishes.
Darnielle hums the track's typi-
cally caustic lyrics in a voice
barely above a whisper; profess-
ing "Well the path to the palace
of wisdom that the mystics walk
/ is lined with neuroleptics and
electric shocks."
Although there are positive
qualities to both sides of the
group's sound, The Mountain
Goats truly shine when heavy
words are contrasted with
uplifting guitar progressions,
all accompanied by Darnielle's
passionate vocals. To that end,
the charged "Psalms 40:2"
shines as the album's strongest
track and a testament to the
Darnielle's ability to incorpo-
rate intricate storytelling with
powerful instrumentals. Heavy
guitar strings and a persis-
tently strong drum beat frame
its heavy-handed words before
exploding into a tantrum of
Diverse yet
confined.
musical soundscapes, illustrat-
ing the emotions transmitted
by. Darnielle's screaming. It's
a classic Mountain Goats ode,
and after 17-plus recording ses-
sions with the project, it's what
Darnielle does best.
When The Mountain Goats
performed "Psalms 40:2" on
Stephen Colbert's broadcast last
week, the band gelled in front of
a national audience for the first
time. With the group's latest tri-
umph on The Life of the World to
Come, Darnielle's inspired song-
writing should certainly win
over folk enthusiasts.
"Richard II" plays three times this weekend at the Duderstadt Video Center.
' Richard' lives
This campus production of the Shakespeare
classic lets audiences enjoy the fun up close
By Molly McGuire I Daily Arts Writer
There's something illuminating
and fun about the privilege of see-
ing actors rehearse. Before curtain,
the charming
chaos that's usu- The Rude
ally restrained to
the wings bursts McChanicals
forth and threat- present
ens to overcome " 11
the stage, only Ridiard
to be cunningly At the
tucked away again Duderstadt
as the lights go Video Center
down.
Wednesday's Todayat 7p.m,
dress rehearsal of p.m.oand 1p.m.
the Rude Mechan-
icals' "Richard $3 for students
II" had all of
the pre-performance bustle that
characterizes the week approach-
ing opening night: prop mishaps,
actors all around the auditorium
lunging with swords and practicing
death scenes. But from the open-
ing scene onward the student-run
Rude Mechanicals' adaptation of
Shakespeare's history play was
pure professionalism, and a pol-
ished, poignant, almost relentless
retelling of a British king's journey
from opulent robes to prison garb.
The audience is masterfully inte-
grated into the play, surrounding
the 'H'-shaped stage on all sides.
As a venue, the modern Duder-
stadt Video Center is a bit uncon-
ventional for a classical play, but
staging the production there sig-
pifies a commitment to audience
involvement. The seating configu-
ration nearly puts the audience in
Richard's place, receiving visitors
and settling onto his throne. You're
close enough to see the actor's sali-
va fly through the air during some
particularly impassioned speeches.
And the actors are not limited to
the stage - they wander the floor,
making eye contact with audience
members with such intimacy that
it's impossible to escape from the
action of the play.
"I want a play to hurtle into
an audience from all sides," LSA
senior and director James Mangan-
ello said. "It's not just in-the-round
for the actors, in that they're being
viewed from all sides - the play
also surrounds the audience."
Also surrounding the audience
are video screens bearing images
mainly collected from Russian
montage films. Black and white
scenes of industry and urban land-
scapes accompany the action on
stage.
"The projections were a way to
envelop the audience - to give them
a sense of a larger world outside the
play," Manganello said. "I love the
montage aesthetic, the way they
make you put two seemingly dis-
tinct things together. That's a bit
what I hope to do when I direct:
to be unconfined by 'realism' and
depict a deeper truth that pulls
upon the audience's own cognitive
maneuvers."
This idea of melding two dis-
parate things together resonates
throughout the play. The precise
time period is difficult to discern
(there are trench coats and bowler
hats, swords and guns), but the set-
ting references the Industrial Rev-
olution, which coincides with the
political revolution demonstrated
through Shakespeare's words and
characters.
"(There's) a shift from wealth
being demonstrated by luxury
goods from faraway, exotic places
to a more commodified economy,
in which quantity and profit deter-
mines value," Manganello said.
"Both (worlds) are always in nego-
tiation with each other."
The play examines this shift
while focusing on the more per-
sonal journey of a king becoming
simply a man (with Richard) and an
average man becoming a king (with
his successor, Henry Bolingbroke.)
The play opens with King Richard
in a majestic robe, holding an exot-
ic drink, a parasol draped over his
throne - a tableau unimaginable
at the end of the play. The downfall
of the young and poetic, yet smug
king is sympathetically portrayed
by LSA senior Alexandra Clement-
Jones, especially when he breaks
down, coining in contact with his
mortality in the famous speech
that ends "How can you say to me, I
am a king?" But the king who swag-
gers and smirks in the face of oth-
ers' emotional pleas (the moving
deathbed speech by Manganello's
John of Gaunt comes to mind) can-
not be too sympathetic, and Clem-
ent-Jones balances the two well as
Richard's childlike arrogance turns
to poignant self-awareness.
Like "Hamlet," "Richard II" has a
legacy of actresses playing the title
role, and Manganello maintains
Clement-Jones was simply the best
performer for the part.
"Alex said something to me very
early on in the process-that became
our touchstone for moving ahead,"
he explained. "She said we shouldn't
play Richard as a man or a woman,
but as a creature. That's what we've
done and I'm very, very proud of
her enormous achievement."
Perhaps the most remarkable
thing about the Rude Mechani-
cals' production of "Richard II" is
that it takes a play that could be so
easily dominated by one character
and turns it into an ensemble piece,
with standout performances by
even the actors with the smallest
roles. After all, "Richard II" is the
first in a tetralogy of history plays,
and the other characters must be
left able to carry on the torch. Set-
ting an inauspicious tone for Rich-
ard's successor, the production
both presages what's to come and
represents a self-contained world,
one that depicts Richard's rise and
fall in a fresh and intriguing way.
"It's artistic because the wax is melted."
Science's smartest
By ANT MITCHELL
DailyArts Writer
The Science Channel's first and only game show
"Head Games" is not simply guilt-free TV on an
"educational" network. And it's not just another
show to watch in lieu of doing homework with
only minimal self-reproach.
Instead, it manages to funnel ***
genuinely intriguing informa-
tion and humor into a short half- Head Games
hour slot.S
In "Head Games," contestants
compete to answer a variety of at9 p.m.
questions covering a range of sci- Science Channel
ence-related categories including
natural science, inventions and the sexual practic-
es of a specific type of octupus. The executive pro-
ducer is none other than Whoopi Goldberg, who
also produced "Hollywood Squares" (an old guilty
pleasure of a game show that lasted five seasons).
Greg Proops ("True Jackson, VP") hosts with
hair as spiked as ever, ready to access a collection
of innuendos for all occasions. And the show gives
him ample innuendo opportunity (probably inten-
tionally) with its content.
One of the greatest strengths of "Head Games"
is that it is not geared only to science lovers. Some
might find the show attractive purely out of the
nostalgia induced by the fourth-grade egg and
vinegar trick, and all can appreciate a look at a
genetic trait found in goats causing them to faint
as a survival mechanism.
Basically, "Head Games" manages to hold view-
ers' attention almost entirely because it builds
curiosity. The want to know the-answer to the
questions is more gripping than the competition
on the show. That's not to say that some of the con-
testants aren't quirky characters, though next to a
host like Greg Proops they seem less strange than
would in other settings.
In all honesty, Proops tends to alternate
between hesitantly lovable and somewhat obnox-
ious throughout, never quite slipping permanently
into either description. As a host he fills a central
role, and commentary from him is a given. Clearly
he wasn't chosen for his experience and interest
in scientific information - he holds onto his note
cards quite tightly. Rather, he was picked for his
background in game shows (which is extensive)
and for his wit. Those who don't find him amusing
even while he's in his "hesitantly lovable" phase
will almost certainly lose some patience with his
flamboyant banter and monologues.
Still, whether Proops makes a positive impres-
sion or not, the competition itself lends a certain
amount of low-key excitement to the whole affair,
albeit excitement without too much breath-hold-
ing. If "Head Games" filled an hour time slot like
"The Price Is Right" rather than the taking up its
Nostalgic, funny, brainy
and full of innuendo.
half hour more commonly seen in game shows like
"Jeopardy," the show would likely suffer, possibly
even degenerating into monotony. Luckily this
is not the case, and apart from a few momentary
lapses when the questions get a bit simple. The
show fits well into the time allotted to it.
Audiences will be able to watch "Head Games"
without feeling shame or embarrassment, even
when they're watching it out of sheer enjoyment
rather than for procrastination purposes. During
the show, semi-useless fun facts pop up almost con-
tinuously along the way, which is never a bad thing.
ARTS IN BRIEF
DID YOU JUST READ THE 'RICHARD II'
REVIEW? PRETTY SWEET, HUH?
WRITE FOR FINE ARTS.
E-mail battlebots@umich.edu
for an application
Film
Remaking garbage
"The Stepfather"
At Quality 16 and Showcase
Screen Gems
If there's one token rule
of filmmaking no filmmaker
should ever forget, it's that
sequels, remakes and rip-offs
of remakes are rarely viable as
theatrical material. Unfortu-
nately, the allure of easy money
has apparently induced amnesia
in certain members of the film
industry, and we are now con-
fronted with the unfortunate
consequences.
"The Stepfather" is many
things - generous parts "Dis-
turbia," "The Shining" and of
course, the original "Stepfa-
ther." All of these films contrib-
ute to the abhorrenthodgepodge
that is the sequel, but neither
"scary" nor even "mildly thrill-
ing" would describe the film.
The story begins when Michael
Harding (Penn Badgley, "Gos-
sip Girl") returns from military
school to reconnect with family
and friends.Upon arriving,he dis-
covers that his mother Susan (Sela
Ward,"HouseM.D.")hasfallenfor
a new lover named David Harris
(Dylan Walsh, "Nip/Tuck") and
has remarried. At first, Michael's
homecoming follows the status
quo until he begins to suspect that
his new stepfather may be hiding
sordid details of his past life.
Every aspect of the movie is
slow, boring, and trivial from
start to finish. Even the purport-
edly "shocking" sequences have
no marked effect other than
begging the question, "Haven't I
seen this before?" Unfortunate-
ly, that nauseating sensation of
ddj vu is perfectly justifiable.
TIMOTHY RABB