The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Friday, October 30, 2009 - 5 Basement Arts' new musical features Dick and a lot of Pussies. A boy and his penis 'Me and My Dick' explores the relationship between man and his real best friend By DAVID RIVA Daily FineArts Editor The stage has always been a place to pres- ent and magnify some of life's most difficult moments. A boy's struggle to understand his peculiar friendship with his private parts, however, is a topic not often tackled in theater. "Me and My Dick," a new musical presented by the Me and student-run theater organi- zation Basement Arts, tack- les the taboo subject of sex At Walgreen during the teenage years by Drama Center, seeing what it would be like if Studio 1 we could communicate with our reproductive organs. Tonightat p.m. Although this concept might tm rro1a p.m. appear to be a bit shallow, a humorous and heartfelt Free script along with solid casting and an intrigu- ing yet twisted plot (and a number of subplots) keep the potentially superficial idea afloat. "Me and My Dick" tells the story of classic nerd Joey Richter (played by Music, Theatre & Dance junior Joey Richter) and his best friend and notable body part Dick (played by Music, Theatre & Dance senior Joe Walker). Together, they desperately want to lose Joey's "V-card" with the most beautiful Jew in the entire school: Vanessa (played by Music, The- atre & Dance junior Ali Gordon). Referred to as "Weiner Wild" by his classmates, Joey is always popping them at the wrong time and has no chance with the woman of his (wet) dreams. Or does he? The play takes on a degree of complexity as we're introduced to each character's genita- lia. The plot ends up becoming more about the drama between reproductive organs than the relationships between the people. Each character is accompanied by his or her private part, with body and part being held to together by a retractable dog leash. The Dicks' costumes are flesh-colored sweatshirts and sweatpants with balloons near the ankles for testicles and a little pink stocking cap for ... well, you get the picture. Both men and women are cast as the Puss- ies, and they are adorned in a variety of pink apparel. One Pussy in particular, The Old Snatch (played by Music, Theatre & Dance junior Nick Joseph Strauss-Matathia), steals the show with her over-done accent, comnsically cynical outlook on love and show-saving plot to reunite Joey with his Dick after they are tragi- cally separated. So who came up with this ridiculous con- cept of people being followed around by their private parts? "One of the writers came up with the idea after he had an unsuccessful night with a girl," director and Music, Theatre & Dance junior Matt Lang explained. "She tried to have sex with him, and he tried to comply (though he felt a little weird about it) but he wasn't able to get an erection. It got him thinking about this part of himself that he didn't have conscious control of and was such a major influence in his life. If he could talk to his dick, what would he say? What would it say back? It seemed like a funny way to explore self-identity through sexuality." It may seem absurd to say that by getting to know your penis or vagina, you find out more about yourself, but within the context of the play, it works. But let's make something clear: "Me and My Dick," although towing the line of inappropri- ate and offensive, is not explicitly sexual or shocking at any point. "We have tried to keep the play very abstract," Lang said. "There isn't a lot of literal anatomy going on in the play. There's much more focus on the emotional lives of the char- acters." Although the script has its share of memo- rable one-liners like "We don't go to school for class, we go for ass" and "Foreskin, no skin, everyone's in," the production's motivations are mostly pure. "The play definitely is tackling a taboo sub- ject, but our goal in this play is not to shock or offend," Lang explained. "We want to explore the way sex plays into our lives in an honest and funny way. We hope that by the end of the play people no longer think about their genitals and the words we have for them as dirty." Crossing the line or not, "Me and My Dick" handles the issue of teens having sex better than most of those cheesy videos you watched in high school health class. Unfortunately, the play came a few years too late to help you through those turbulent adolescent times. Kerouac's perfect pair By MIKE KUNTZ tive. The true test for the success Daily Arts Writer of any singer-songwriter collabora- tion is in found in vocal harmony, Jack Kerouac was one of those and for the songs in which both rare writers who had his finger on vocalists are present ("Low Life the pulse of an Kingdom," "All in One" and the entire cultural *** title track are prime examples), movement as it Farrar and Gibbard pass with fly- was happening - Ben Gibbard ing colors. Gibbard lends a sweet- namely, the Beat and J Farrar ness that Farrar's voice has always movement of the lacked, and the same holds true for 1950s and early One Fast Move Farrar's grit against Gibbard's thin- 1960s. Butsudden or I'm Gone ness. Together, they round out each fame and years as F-Stop/Atlantic other's shortcomings well. a vagabond takes Apart from its songwriting, One its toll, as Ker- Fast Move's greatest qualities lie in ouac's 1962 novel "Big Sur" famous- its production, with acoustic guitars, ly chronicled in its account of the pedal steels and inspired vocal melo- author's personal deterioration in dies giving the album plenty of color. the wake of severe alcoholism. If anything, it's the presentation The album companion to Jim of Kerouac's prose that falls short: Sampas's 2009 documentary of the same name, One Fast Move or I'm Gone pairs Ben Gibbard (Death Cab for Cutie) with Jay Farrar (Son Volt) Conjuring a dead to put prose from "Big Sur" with writer to make a melody. Gibbard and Farrar found a mutual admiration for Kerouac's few n songs. work when asked to record a few new tracks for Sampas's documentary, and they set out to piece together a full album after finding chemistry Kerouac's writing has a much more in the studio. In similar fashion to frantic quality than either Farrar or Wilco and Billy Bragg's Mermaid Gibbard can muster on these tracks, Avenue sessions, the conjuring of and sadly they don't do it justice. dead writers for new songs proves to More often than not, the lyrical be a winning formula here. phrasing sounds too forced: Farrar's The Gibbard-Farrar pairing cer- blue-collarbaritonedoeslittletoani- tainly seems out of left field at first mate Kerouac's prose, and Gibbard's glance, as Death Cab's typically shaky, boyish tenor sounds much too lighter, more pop-friendly songwrit- innocent to embody the same voice ing is a far cry from Farrar's slower, as Sal Paradise or Jack Duluoz. Ker- more pensive roots rock. But where ouac, often sprawling and imagistic Farrar is often too gloomy and Gib- to a fault, was certainly not intend- bard too sweet, One Fast Move joins ed for a format as condensed as the them somewhere in the middle to four-minute folk song. If only trum- the benefit of each. pets - a la Keruac's own musical "These Roads Don't Move" is a heroes - could speak! perfect combination of each song- The key to One Fast Move lies in writer's strengths, featuring both viewing the record as not merely an Farrar's knack for classic Ameri- homage to Kerouac, but as a proj- cana and Gibbard's brighter vocals ect between two very talented and and pop sensibility: They even play established songwriters. This is a into each other's styles - Gibbard's Gibbard-Farrar album after all, and "Willamine" sounds like a Farrar as the pair tours select American cit- creation from the start. More som- ies this fall in support of the album, her and meditative than Gibbard's the collaborative moniker might usual work, the vocal melody is start to build some clout all its own. loaded with strange intervals and Aside from some compositional suspended notes. The result is pure and conceptual lapses, Gibbard and Son Volt, but seen through Gib- Farrar offer some terrific songs, bard's eyes. with enough old, weird Americana While it's often obvious to see to keep the Beat tradition alive. It's who had a bigger influence in writ- just a shame the record doesn't run ing each song, the Gibbard-Farrar off the rails a little more - Kerouac coupling is surprisingly collabora- never sounded so stable. WRITE FOR ARTS E-mail battlebots@umich.edu for an application. A classic character robbed of identity By ANDREW LAPIN Daily Film Editor For whatever reason, the folks at Summit Entertainment ** are aggressive- ly promoting Astro Boy "Astro Boy" to college cam- At Showcase puses. Maybe and Quality 16 it's something Summit about the nos- talgic appeal of the brand name - the Japanese comic book series on which the film is based dates back to the 1950s and is widely considered some of the best manga ever written. The subsequent anime adaptation is a pioneering work of art. Even still, here we are in 2009 with a completely Americanized film adaptation that has white- washed out every Japanese influ- A robotic film lacking soul. ence except the big doe eyes, and the result is nothing more than a bland movie for bland kiddies. Because the source material for "Astro Boy" pre-dates most mod- ern science fiction, it's difficult to say who's ripping off whom. But still, there's no denying that the opening sequence - a mock- infomercial extolling the virtues of robots built for human service, played in a city floating above piles of garbage on the Earth's sur- face - plays like a carbon copy of "WALL-E." Even if this moment and later moments that seem to reference "The Iron Giant" and "I, Robot" are just coincidental, the film doesn't add anything new or interesting to these basic sci-fi concepts, which is troubling in itself. Also concerning is the lack of enthusiasm on display from the voice actors. Voice acting is the least important aspect of an ani- mated film until it becomes dis- tracting. The professional actor who plays Astro (Freddy High- more, "Finding Neverland") is somehow much less convincing with his screams and shouts of glee than the star of "Up" (first- timer Jordan Nagai). Nicolas Cage is here too as Astro's father, who rebuilds his human son as a robot after he is killed by a rogue experiment. Pre- dictably, Nathan Lane ("The Lion King") is the most comfortable behind the mic: His character, a Fagin-like repairman who houses orphans in his foster home, is one of the only people in the film who gets any laughs. There's too much and yet not enough going on in "Astro Boy." The plot takes forever to getcoff the ground, as the first act is setcalmost entirely in small, claustrophobic, blue-tinted rooms and the audi- ence is never given a sense that a real city exists outside of them. It seems like the filmmakers are try- ing to wrestle with deeper ques- tions about philosophy - there's a reference to Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" in the film - while trying to work in some clumsy political satire. A sleazy politi- cian's re-election banner reads, "It's Not Time for Change." Does any of this work? Not really. The movie picks up when Astro leaves his city for the wild, any- thing-goes lifestyle found on the planet's surface. It's here where he meets the hilarious Robot Revolu- tion Front (RRF) and stays in an orphanage where a girl cuts her pizza with a chainsaw. Unfortu- nately, these moments of relative brilliance don't do enough to off- set the ridiculously predictable story arc, nor do they redeem the Saturday-morning-cartoons-in- shiny-Spandex vibe that perme- ates the rest of the film. There's so much under-utilized potential in the RRF that it feels like an entire- ly separate movie starring them was cut out of this one. Despite its attempts to be memories of your son. Doesn't that warm and fuzzy, this kid's movie mean anythingto you?" can't escape its cold and robot- "Astro Boy" is programmed ic demeanor. A heartfelt talk with the memories of a great fran- between two scientists hits the chise, but ultimately the film lacks film's emotional climax when one a soul, and it shouldn't mean any- says, "He's programmed with the thing to you. Get a head start on the application process: * Get insider tips from the directors of admissions at the Ross School and the Law School. * Learn how to present the best possible application. * Learn what works and what doesn't. Register at: www.bus.umich.edu/admissions/mba/forumsrecetions/rosspreviewdays.htm Monday, November 2 4:00-5:00 pm Ross School of Business Room R2210