6A - Wednesday, December 5, 2012

The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com

UMGASS to bring fairy
tale 'Iolanthe' on stage

By TEHREEM SAJJAD
Daily Arts Writer
Magic, fairies and forbidden
love: This year, the University of
Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan
Society brings
all the drama Iolanthe
and comedy
of fairyland Thursday,
onto the stage Friday and
with their Saturday at 8
production of' p.m., Saturday
"Iolanthe." and Sunday
"Iolanthe" at 2 p.m.
attempts to Lydia Mendelssohn
blend the fruit- Theate
ful person-
alities of the Ftsm $10
classic fantasy
world creature, fairies, with
members of the British parlia-
ment. Though on the surface
"Iolanthe" seems to be a play
about a crowd of misguided fair-
ies, its fantasy aspect is an eye-
opener into reality.
The play commences with
the fairies mourning the anni-
versary of Iolanthe's exile, a
fairy that committed the crime
of marrying a human 25 years
prior. When the Fairy Queen is
convinced to pardon Iolanthe,
the banished fairy is brought
back with her son, Strephon. It's
soon revealed that Strephon is in
love with Phyllis, the ward of the

Lord Chancellor. Unfortunately,
the Chancellor forbids Strephon
from marrying Phyllis because
of his low rank. When Phyllis
asks for Iolanthe's help, things
begin to look up for not only
Strephon, but all of fairyland as
well.
For Robyn Tierney, artistic
director of the production, this
will be her first UMGASS show.
"We wanted to focus more on
some of the previous produc-
tions that we've seen and that
have gotten good reviews," she
said. "We really wanted to make
this silly. We wanted to embrace
the comedic elements of it. We
have some funny characters and
we have very good characteriza-
tion of the actors - we really
dove into further characteriza-
tion and the personalities that
Gilbert and Sullivan have writ-
ten."
UMGASS is the oldest stu-
dent-run organization devoted
to operettas of Sir William Gil-
bert and Sir Arthur Sullivan. It
serves as a pedestal for theater
students and a creative outlet for
community members who are
devoted to the theater.
The cast consists of Univer-
sity students and community
members, Tierney explained.
"So, we have a nice blend -
younger students all the way up

to the golden age community
members - many of which are
faculty at the school. We have a
very nice variety of those who
have learned the talent, vocally
as well as just stage presence. So
the cast is very diverse."
As a fantasy, "Iolanthe" is a
classic fairy tale with a tinge of
comedic reality.
"ft's very goofy, it's very silly.
It's a light-hearted comedy: defi-
nitely a comic opera," Tierney
said.
One of Gilbert
and Sullivan's
lesser-known
classics.
"('Iolanthe') is not one of Gil-
bert and Sullivan's well known
plays," Tierney concluded.
"They are known more for
'H.M.S Pinafore' and 'Pirates of
Penzance,' but this particular
production has been a really fun
experience ... you can look back
and say that it's very entertain-
ing and that the audience will
be able to sit back and enjoy the
show."

4

I1

Pin the tail on the Donaghy
'30' still rocking it

NBC's hit comedy
isn't slowing down
in seventh season
By SAM CENZHANG
DailyArts Writer
"30 Rock" has long been an
institution of TV comedy. It has
become different from the "30
Rock" that
everyone was
talking about
back in 2006, 30 Rock
having basi-
cally become Season Seven
a live-action Midseason
cartoon. While Thursdays
it struggled in asdays
season six, the
problems were NBC
mostly in the
show's architecture. The writ-
ing never noticeably declined in
quality, and the frantic, joke-a-
minute rhythm was still satisfy-
ing. Those structural issues are,
if not solved, completely incon-
sequential in this farewell tour-
of a final season. While there are
some cursory nods to season-
long narrative arc, "30 Rock" just
wants to depart making us laugh
as hardlas ever.
Clips from- fake TV shows
and movies have long been a "30
Rock" highlight, and the sea-

son premiere offered these up in
spades. Ack Donaghy (Alec Bald-
win) realized that the only way to
save NBC was to tank it so badly
that the parent company would
be forced to sell it to somebody
else, greenlighting spectacularly
bad shows like "Hunchback,"
NBC's answer to sexy vampire
programming and "Homonym,"
a game show in which contes-
tants guess which of two hom-
onyms has just been said, their
answers always happening to be
the incorrect word.
While "30 Rock" isn't known
for moments of profound pathos,
it can still spin hilarity out of
character traits. The show's
treatment of Liz Lemon's (Tina
Fey) sexuality has taken some
turns more head-scratching than
funny. The idea in the second
episode of the season that she's
turned on by organization not
only makes sense given what we
know about her, but culminates
in a montage in which Liz and her
boyfriend Criss (James Marsden)
pour paper clips and white-out
on each other in an office supply
store. Given what we know about
Liz's Germanophilia, the phrase
"Dusseldorf bus schedule sex"
was particularly amusing.
In the past, the series's nods
to current events have yielded
uneven results, and the same is
true this season. The show's elec-

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tion arc became bogged down
in token topicality without add-
ing all that much to the ripped-
from-the-headlines plot points. A
plotline that featured a group of
Jenna Maroney (Jane Krakows-
ki) superfans living in northern
Floridawho would determine the
election was a little too on-the-
nose, and the political satire just
wasn't particularly incisive or
absurd enoughto be funny. There
were some nice moments, par-
ticularly Lemon putting on a Bos-
ton accent somehow even worse
than Julianne Moore's when she
guest-starred, albeit intentionally
so. Ultimately, the two-episode
arc just felt clunky and thrown
together to accommodate the
need to address the election in
some capacity.
"30 Rock" has touched on the
women-in-comedy issue before,
specifically in season five's "TGS
Hates Women." The third episode
of the seventh season explicitly
takes on the question of'whether
women are funny, the impetus
for which is Tracy Jordan (Tracy
Morgan) tweeting at Stephen
Hawking, because that's just the,
kind of show "30 Rock" is now.
Liz refuses to engage until she
can't take itanymore, and she and
Jenna revive their two-woman
show to prove Tracy wrong. The
show is apparently hilarious, but
we (the viewers) don't get to see
much of it. It's a subtle reminder
that Tina Fey doesn't need to
prove to us that women are funny,
even if Lemon feels like she does.
Also, the episode featured Ryan
Lochte guest starring as a "sex
idiot." That's all that needs to be
said about that.
While the final season hasn't
been perfect, it has been a lot
closer to the original comedy in
recent seasons. Perhaps the writ-.
ers always meant to go out in a
blaze of glory, or maybe fans of
the show are just more willing to
indulge the occasional missteps,
but whatever the case, it's worth
seeing how one of the seminal sit-
coms ofthe 2000s makes its final
exit.
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YOU A
TWITTER
BUG?

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RELEASE DATE- Wednesday, December 5,2012
Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle
Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

ACROSS
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Wright's delivery
15 Fragrant hybrid
bloom
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17 They enjoy being
cruel
18 GPS display
19 Scottish refusal
20 Melodic passages
21 Cabbage head?
23 E. _ bacteria
24 Hug
27 Buckeyes'sch.
29 Blunt blade
32 Main idea
33 Defensivestory
35"1 hate when you
do that!"
36 Bakan Peninsula
captal
37 Profitshare
38 Heavenlyhunter
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details
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common heritage
55 Eyeball
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hunting knife
60 More apt to pout
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Nickelodeon
watcher
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64 Astonishingly
enough
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years
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