The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts & Sports
Tuesday, March 31, 2015 — 7
‘Iphigenia at Aulis’
comes to Walgreen
By COSMO PAPPAS
Daily Arts Writer
“One of the great anti-war
plays, ‘Iphigenia,’ exemplifies
how the momentum of war can
propel
indi-
viduals and a
nation toward
the
unspeak-
able.”
This
is
how
the
website
for
the School of
Music, Theater
and Dance bills
its
upcoming
performance of
the last surviv-
ing play of the
ancient Greek
tragedian
Euripides, written at the end of
the fifth century B.C.
“Iphigenia”
examines
the
story of the ethical conflict
over the sacrifice of Agamem-
non’s daughter, Iphigenia, in
the prelude to the Trojan War.
Agamemnon, the commander of
the Greek forces, faces this deci-
sion because Athena is barring
their travel to Troy and decides
that a sacrifice of a family mem-
ber will appease her. But he has
to grapple with doubt and hesi-
tation over this decision, and
deals with a back-and-forth
game of persuasion with his
brother, Menelaus.
Euripides, writing against the
backdrop of the Peloponnesian
War, had war at the front of his
mind. “Iphigenia at Aulis” was
performed at the state-sanc-
tioned annual dramatic festival,
the Dionysia, where it took first
prize a year after the author’s
death and a year before the end
of the Peloponnesian War – the
conflict that supplanted Ath-
ens as a major economic and
political power, giving way to
Spartan hegemony. Lysander,
a Spartan commander, estab-
lished the oligarchic rule of the
Thirty Tyrants in 404 B.C., dur-
ing which time Athenians faced
land expropriations, state-legit-
imated murder and forced exile.
“I think (war) is something I
constantly react to, and I think
our students do, too. I just think
it’s important for art, and the-
ater as one of the arts, to keep on
reminding people that maybe we
should be doing more to stop it,”
said SMTD Professor Michael
Tulip, director of the produc-
tion.
If literature is written in the
confluence of historical, politi-
cal and social forces, then “Iphi-
genia” is no exception. Just
because it was written 2421
years ago does not mean that it
was written in an indetermi-
nate
then-and-not-now.
And
it is significant that Euripides
was writing amid – or against
– the Peloponnesian War, since
Thucydides’s canonical account
of the military conflict is one
that influences military strat-
egy and historiography to this
day. Victor Davis Hanson, a
classicist and military historian
who introduced “The Landmark
Thucydides” is also someone
who praised President George
W. Bush’s decision to invade
Iraq and advocated for strong
responses to Iran.
Tulip and students of SMTD
set their production of “Iphi-
genia” in the 21st century,
foregrounding the resonances
between Euripides’s anti-war
play and the immediacy of anti-
war politics to our geopolitical
situation.
“In terms of costumes, we
are in 21st century Greece and
the soldiers look like they could
be in Desert Storm or Afghani-
stan, but without any emblems
or anything to say that these are
Americans or Greeks,” Tulip
said. “We’re not doing any old
robes or anything.”
Tulip said that he and the cast
have
emphasized
movement
and physicality in their produc-
tion as a means for enacting the
internal ethical and affective
conflict in and between each
character.
“For me, I would say that the
way we’re looking at this work,
it’s almost like a cross between a
wrestler, a dancer and a human
being who has got a lot at stake,”
Tulip said.
For Tulip and the SMTD cast,
their production of Iphigenia
always plays out at multiple levels.
On the one hand, theirs is a theat-
rical project that emphasizes the
duality between character and
that character’s allegory in an
ethical conflict in the context of
war. On the other hand, there is
the way that “Iphigenia” empha-
sized Euripides as an anti-war
writer, and de-historicized and re-
historicized the piece all at once. It
pulls Euripides’s play out of history
to make comment on a time – ours
– that is entirely not his. But read-
ing his work as an anti-war play
also puts Euripides into context as
someone who was responding to
his contemporaneous geopolitics.
The Friday performances (April
3 and April 10) will be followed
by a talk-back session with the
director, dramaturge and cast.
Iphigenia
at Aulis
April 2-12
Arthur Miller
Theater
7:30 p.m.
General
Admission:
$28.00
Students: $10.00
EVENT PREVIEW
‘Big Time’ letdown
By MATT BARNAUSKAS
Daily Arts Writer
Two police officers stand over
a suspect. Dark blues and greens
contrast with the shining fluores-
cent light over
their
heads.
The first offi-
cer
(Lenny
Jacobson,
“Nurse Jack-
ie”) fails to get
the criminal
to talk. His
partner (Alex
Anfanger,
“Secret
Life of Wal-
ter
Mitty”)
holds up his
lit cigar and
says in Spanish, “You like to smoke
cigars?”
“No,” the criminal glowers. “I
like to smoke pigs.”
The cop laughs before respond-
ing, “I like Cubans. I love the way
they burn.” He jams the cigar into
the Cuban’s eye.
The man releases a tortured
scream the wall behind him slowly
rises, and bright light fills the room
as the cops cry out, “Mom, we’re
right in the middle of shooting!”
The tough-as-nails cops intro-
duced in the opening of “Big Time
in Hollywood, FL” are revealed to
be 30-something slacker brothers,
Jack and Ben, played by Anfanger
and Jacobson, respectively. The
pair still live with their parents,
the assertive Diana (Kathy Baker,
“Medium”) and the submissive
Alan (Stephen Tobolowsky, “Cali-
fornication”). The cinematic inter-
rogation is reduced by the show to
a poorly done home movie that the
siblings are convinced will help
them make it big, in spite of the
shaky camera works, jumpy editing
and bad acting.
Jack and Ben live in a brightly
lit world of ignorance. They have
no skills, but their arrogant con-
fidence in their “abilities” knows
no bounds. So, it’s understandable
that Diana and Alan ask the two to
move out. When confronted with
this, the brothers’ first solution is
to suggest to their mother, “There’d
be more space if you divorce Dad.”
When this doesn’t work, the next
obvious course of action is to fulfill
the episode’s title “Severance” by
pretending Ben has a drug problem.
It would be easy for these two
to fall into utterly despicable and
unlikable territory, but series cre-
ators Anfanger and Dan Schimpf
(“Next Time on Lonny”) imbue the
characters with enough naiveté
and arrested development that
their schemes are more amusing
than sinister. However, Jack is the
more manipulative of the two, com-
fortably convincing Ben that he has
to have the drug problem.
Amusing is the best way to
describe “Big Time” ’s humor. The
situations that the brothers find
themselves can be ridiculous and
most of the characters have a goofy
charm to them. Tobolowsky’s door-
mat of a father, Alan, stands out as
he only gets through disciplining
his sons through Diana’s prodding.
The antics seen in “Severance” are
mostly worth an eyebrow raise or
slight chuckle, and keep the view-
er interested, but the show never
breaks into absolute hilarity for the
majority of its first episode, skating
by on well established man-child
humor. Only in the show’s final act,
where it goes into unexpected ter-
ritory, does the series begin to real-
ize its full comedic potential.
The pilot is boosted by the
presence of guest star Ben Stiller
(“Tropic Thunder”) as Jimmy Sta-
ats, a failed actor, that Jack and Ben
enlist to play a drug dealer shaking
Ben down for money. Staats’s own
illusions of stardom trump even the
central pair’s as he puts on his best
C-grade version of Scarface – white
suit, bad accent and all. Stiller owns
the screen anytime he’s present in
the episode, especially in the sur-
prising and hilarious final moments
when the brothers’ light reality of
self-delusion slips into a dark world
of violence with Staats as the idi-
otic, ultimate victim. The shift in
lighting back to the color scheme
in the opening fantasy helps trig-
ger this change creating a contrast
between the brothers’ fantasy and
the real-world (albeit ridiculous)
consequences they have to face in
the upcoming episodes.
“Big Time in Hollywood, FL”
finds itself within the well-known
territory of Comedy Central slacker
comedies with the likes of “Broad
City” and “Workaholics,” but it has
yet to reach the comedic heights its
predecessors have displayed over
the years. However, the amusing
atmosphere of the show prevents
it from ever being boring, and the
off-the-rails ending to its first
episode displays promise for Jack
and Ben.
B-
Big Time in
Hollywood,
FL
Series Premiere
Comedy Central
Wednesdays at
10:30 p.m.
COMEDY CENTRAL
The Three Stooges 2k15
TV REVIEW
Michigan to face two
MAC foes this week
Toledo, Central
Michigan visit
Wilpon Complex
Tuesday, Wednesday
By NATHANIEL CLARK
Daily Sports Writer
Winning two out of three
games against No. 20 Maryland
was
undoubtedly
a
major
achievement for the Michigan
baseball team.
The Wolverines (14-12, 2-4
Big Ten) will not be able to
bask in their glory for long,
though.
Two
Mid-American
Conference
teams
stand
in
their way this week: Toledo on
Tuesday and Central Michigan
on Wednesday.
“I’m just focused on our next
training session,” said Michigan
coach Erik Bakich. “Before we
can even get to the next game,
we have to focus on getting
better.”
On the surface, the Rockets
(9-18, 3-3 MAC), don’t appear
to be a credible threat. The
Wolverines defeated Toledo,
19-5, back on March 7 at the
Coastal Carolina Invitational,
and the Rockets are coming off
losing two out of three to Akron.
Alex
Wagner,
who
has
posted a 1-2 record with a 6.88
earned-run average in seven
appearances,
will
start
for
Toledo. The Wolverines will
counter with redshirt junior
right-handed
pitcher
Matt
Ogden, who is 1-1 with a 4.91
ERA.
But in order to prevent
Michigan from coming down
to Earth, Ogden will have to
contend with the Rockets’ A.J.
Montoya, who sports a .313
batting average with five home
runs.
Central Michigan (18-10, 5-1
MAC), on the other hand, will
likely be a more formidable foe.
The Chippewas swept Miami
(Ohio) last weekend, led by
Logan Regnier, who is hitting
.353 with 23 RBI. He went 4-for-
5 with three runs and four RBI
in Central Michigan’s victory
Friday.
Not to be outdone, offense
has been plentiful for the
Wolverines thus far this season.
Michigan leads the Big Ten with
a .293 batting average and is
second in the conference in hits
(259), doubles (54) and on-base
percentage (.374).
Senior centerfielder Jackson
Glines is leading the way for the
Wolverines,
hitting
.425
with
an
on-base
percentage of
.519. He rests
atop the Big
Ten in both
categories.
“I think we
have a lot of
really
good
hitters on this team,” said senior
infielder Kyle Jusick. “When we
put a lot of good at-bats together,
we put up a lot of big numbers.”
But the hero of the series
with the Terrapins was junior
right-handed pitcher and third
baseman Jacob Cronenworth.
Normally
Michigan’s
closer,
he started the first game of
Saturday’s
doubleheader,
throwing 64 pitches in five
innings, giving up two runs on
three hits while striking out
nine. The Wolverines’ offense
came up short, though, and lost
the contest, 3-1.
But it was Cronenworth’s
bat that made the difference
in Michigan’s 10-1 victory in
Saturday’s second contest. He
blasted a two-run home run in
the second inning and belted
a three-run triple in the fifth.
Cronenworth’s success boosted
his batting average to .305.
With Cronenworth expected
to take on more starts going
forward,
expect
to
see
freshman righty Bryan Pall
take over the closer role. Pall
boasts an 0.59 ERA with 14
strikeouts this season, and
earned his first career save in
the Wolverines’ 5-2 triumph
Sunday.
As for Michigan’s success
against
Maryland,
it
came
despite some key contributors
still sidelined with injuries.
On the pitching staff, junior
southpaw Evan Hill has yet to
start this season, but should
return soon.
“We’ll work
(Hill)
back
in
slowly,”
Bakich
said.
“We’re
not
going to just
run him out
there in his
first
outing
and
expect
him to pitch
a
complete
game. But we’re really looking
forward to getting him back.
He’s a great teammate.”
At the plate, junior shortstop
Travis Maezes — who hit .302 in
2014 — has not been able to play
since March 7.
“We thought we were going
to have (Maezes) back this
weekend (against Maryland),”
Bakich said. “He’ll be ready any
day now. He may not get to 100
percent, but he needs to get to a
point where he can compete and
help the team win.”
So while it may be tempting
for the Wolverines — with their
ongoing goal of competing for a
Big Ten championship — to look
ahead to the upcoming three-
game series with conference foe
Indiana next weekend, Toledo
and Central Michigan cannot
be ignored if Michigan wants
to vie for a spot in the NCAA
Tournament.
JAMES COLLER/Daily
Redshirt junior right-hander Matt Ogden, who is 1-1 with a 4.91 ERA, will start for Michigan on Tuesday against Toledo.
“We’re really
looking forward
to getting (Hill)
back.”