8A - Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Basement Arts
kicks off year
with Mamet play
You say "Bob Hope Humanitarian Award." Clooney says "Target practice."
Clooney doing Clooney in
lopsided The American'
By BRAD SANDERS
Daily Arts Writer
Basement Arts is wasting no time
starting off its fall season. Ina small
collaborative theater project this
summer, three School of Music, The-
atre & Dance under-
grads discovered the A .t
nuances of "A Life ALife i the
in the Theatre," a Theatre
David Mamet play
to open on Broad- Thursday
way this fall. They through
are bringing their Saturday at
spin on this char- 7:30 p.m.
acter-driven work Walgreen
to Studio One this Drama Center
weekend. Free
"A Life in the
Theatre" tells the
story of two men: a mentor and his
student who act together in a sea-
son of repertory theater, played by
School of Music, Theatre & Dance
seniors Yuriy Sardarov and Paul
Koch. As time goes on, their relation-
ship evolves while the theater begins
to have distressing effects on their
lives.
Koch and Sardarov are big players
in campus theater. Koch appeared in
"Orpheus Descending," which was
directed by Kacie Smith, a senior
in the School of Music, Theatre &
Dance, aswell as "Our Town." Smith
is directingKoch again for "A Life in
the Theatre." Sardarov appeared last
year in Basement Arts performances
"After Ashley" and "Twelve Angry
Men," as well as films like "The
Double," which stars Richard Gere,
Topher Grace and Martin Sheen.
Compared to a traditional audition
process, this production of "A Life in
the Theatre" has different roots -
Sardarov and Koch presented the idea
as an acting project to Smith.
"We said that we wanted a col-
laborative nature for the play. We
are constantly bouncing ideas off of
each other and giving each other our
input," Smith said. "We found this
projecttogetherandit's.muchmo
fleshed out and complex show than I
would have been able to accomplish
on my own.",
Accustomed to directing plays
with large casts, Smith had some res-
ervations about a two-man show.
"I've been a fan of bigger casts - I
like the dynamic of a lot of people in
the room and I like staging for more
people. I was a little worried coming
into this that I would not be stimu-
lated only working with two actors,"
Smith explained. "I'm so pleased
to say that I was completely wrong.
It's been very fulfilling because
we've been able to delve deeply into
the characters and actors in a way I
haven't been able to do in past pro-
ductions."
Smith took a brief hiatus in August
to go to New York City, leaving
her assistant director Neal Kelley,
School of Music, Theatre & Dance
sophomore, to take the reins in her
absence. Coming back, Smith had a
new perspective on the work.
"Part of the challenge as a direc-
tor is, once you get sofamiliar with a
work, it's hard to critique it from an
audience point of view," Smith said.
"Now I'm able to see and reinterpret
things that I didn't necessarily see
before."
Smith is relying less on the visual
aspects of theater and more on the
script for "A Life in the Theatre."
"We have basically done our own
costume and set design, there are
a lot of hats," Smith said. "It's not a
design-heavy show, we are focusing
more onthe acting. I tend to do spec-
tacle shows, and doing something
that's so low-tech and just elling the
story without the spectacle has not
been a challenge, but a wonderful
experience."
The play is just under an our
long, with quick transitions between
multiple scenes. The show takes you
everywhere from the dressing room
to the differentproductions in which
the two characters act over a period
of time.
"It's really impressive from an
acting perspective because you
watch them transform repeatedly.
One second they're two marooned
sailors, the next they're in their
dressing room, and the next they're
two World War II soldiers," Smith
explained. "It's interesting because
we think Mamet is playing off major
genres. It's taking these genres and
stretching the style to make it really
obvious that the play is in that style.'
"A Life in the Theatre" is comedic
and witty, butit also has serious mes-
sages that outline the tolls of being
an actor.
"It's a very tragic view of the the-
ater working him over, using his life,
cheing him up and spitting him
out," Smith said. "It's also about gen-
erations, the younger outstripping
the old and whether that's some-
thing to be proud of or if it's some-
thing to envy."
Finding these themes is harder
than it sounds; the play requires a
audience member to really examin4
the characters' relationship in eacl
scene.
"The show is not in your face at
all; it gives you a minimum amounj
of information," Smith said. "W *
have noticed that as characters, their
relationship evolves while their rela,
tionship backstage is also evolving;
It's not as clear cut as you may wanj
it to be."
Meatless take on 'A Very
Private Gentleman'
fails to stimulate
By BEN VERDI
Daily Arts Writer
It's becoming apparent that George Clo.-
ney ("Up in the Air") has a singular distaste
for being tied down. Why else would he keep
agreeing to movies in which his character
undergoes the same basic life transforma-
tion?
An isolated man obsessed
with his career who only
commits to brief flings
involving occasional sex -
this tagline could describe Americal
Clooney in real life, the man At Quality 16
he plays in the award-win- and Rave
ning "Up in the Air" or the
life of his newest character, Focus
an assassin of sorts (either
'named Jack or Edward depending on whom
he's talking to), in "The American."
While this Anton Corbijn ("Control")
movie is well directed and well cast, there is
little to sink your teeth into until almost the
very end. Meaning, not alot "happens" in this
movie. It's based on a book called "A Very Pri-
vate Gentleman," and it appears this gentle-
man truly didn't say much.
It's clear that most ofthe story in the novel
occurs in Jack/Edward's mind. While this
almost invisible plot style works in a novel,
it's a bit awkward when transferred to the
screen. That said, if you're going to stare
at one stone-faced actor this year and ask,
"What's going on in there?" it might as well
be Clooney.
When things do happen in this story,
they seem to carry .more weight than they
would were the plot full of confusing action
scenes and choppy dialogue. You can count
the number of real conversations that take
place in this film on your fingers. The sparse
dialogue becomes more memorable and
refreshing, like oases amongst the silence
that dominates most of the 105 minutes.
This ominous and dramatic silence pro-
vides the movie with its greatest strengths
and its most glaring weaknesses. While it
does heighten the tension and anticipation
in the viewer - whose patience is rewarded
with a perfectly twisted ending - the lack
of dialogue and action forces the camera to
do a lot of the story's work itself. This can
feel slightly annoying and heavy-handed at
times, and by the one-hour mark you might
find yourself saying "Okay, we get it!" to
many of the things the screen insists on
showing you.
We get it: Clooney has sex a lot. We get it:
Clooney has a dark past that he doesn't want
to talk about.
Even the de facto mentor and "moral oppo-
site" toour antihero, a priestwhose character
borders on stock, is a bit overdone. He looks
like Tommy LaSorda and sounds like Vito
Corleone. We get it. He's Italian.
Nevertheless, the film ends by bringing its
mumbled themes together in a creative way
that almost forces you to agree with what
Clooney seems to be saying (by deciding to
be in this movie) about the potential conse-
quences of settling down with one woman
and taking your eyes off "the mission," so to
speak. Women have hindered Clooney's char-
acter from accomplishing his assassin-style
tasks in the past, and "The American" ends
with what, by Clooney and his character, is
considered the most dangerous of human
endeavors: falling in love.
There are conclusions and analyses of the
struggle between the desire for career-driv-
en independence and allowing your fate to
fall out of your hands - by falling in love -
that can be made for years to come, but "The
American" basically tells us something we
already know.
We get it: Clooney, you're the best.
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