6A — Monday, February 8, 2016
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW
Greenwell in A2
By ALLIE TAYLOR
For the Daily
On
Monday,
author
Garth
Greenwell will read a section of
his debut novel, “What Belongs
to You,” at Lite-
rati Bookstore.
The novel draws
from
Green-
well’s four years
living in Sofia,
Bulgaria, where
he taught Eng-
lish at a Bulgar-
ian high school.
The main narra-
tive of the book
describes a relationship between
an American man living in Bel-
gium and a young Bulgarian man
whom he meets and pays for sex,
and how the relationship between
the two men develops over the
course of a few years.
Broken up into three parts,
“Mitka,” “A Grave” and “Pox,” the
book also explores the narrator’s
childhood growing up in Ken-
tucky, where, in the early 1990’s,
people felt as though their lives
had no dignity if they admitted to
being queer.
“The structure of the book
came from thinking about what
it means to be a queer person in
places like these,” Greenwell said
in an interview with The Michi-
gan Daily.
All of the information that the
reader learns about the narrator
of the novel, who is never named,
lines up with Greenwell’s personal
autobiography.
“That’s the kind of game the
book is playing,” Greenwell said.
“It wants to explore the blurred
space between fiction and autobi-
ography.”
Greenwell wrote this book over
three years while in Bulgaria,
waking up at 4:30 a.m. (two hours
before he was to teach) and writing
by hand in a notebook.
“It was the most private experi-
ence of my life,” he said. “To have
this very private thing become
public has been bizarre. It’s not
quite like a journal, because I was
thinking of it as art, but a very pri-
vate kind of art. But, it is similar in
the sense that I really did feel like
I was writing entirely without an
audience, and therefore able to say
and explore anything I wanted.”
Greenwell said that it was mov-
ing to see his book placed in a cat-
egory of books and writers — such
as James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s
Room” and Edmund White’s “A
Boy’s Own Story” — that saved his
life when he was a 16-year-old boy
in Kentucky struggling with being
queer.
“Those books told me my life
had dignity,” he said. “And in Bul-
garia, that is still the case, that gay
people are told one thing about
their life: their lives have no dig-
nity and no value. I wanted to write
a book that gave those lives dignity
and that recognized the value that
those lives and communities have.”
“What Belongs to You” has been
incredibly well received, with The
New York Times regarding it as
“an instant classic,” and Publishers
Weekly claiming that “it’s the first
great novel of 2016.”
“It’s a surreal experience. The
response is beyond anything I
could have imagined or hoped
for,” Greenwell said. “Shocked and
bewildered is kind of what I feel.”
Read
more
online
at
michigandaily.com
TV REVIEW
FOX succeeds with
superb ‘Grease: Live’
By ALEX INTNER
Daily Arts Writer
I wasn’t expecting much from
“Grease: Live.” NBC, who brought
back the format of the live musical
a couple years
ago with “The
Sound
of
Music,”
was
coming off a
production
of
“The
Wiz”
which
brought in big
numbers and
earned critical
acclaim.
I
questioned
whether FOX could do something
to even come close to that
production,
especially
given
that “Grease” is a fun musical
without much substance and
the dialogue scenes drag like
nobody’s business. “Grease: Live”
isn’t able to overcome all of the
musical’s problems, but it is able
to put the production quality of
the NBC musicals to shame with
pure energy and ambition.
This
live
production
of
“Grease” brings in elements
from both the original stage
production and the better-known
movie adaptation. It opens with
“Grease is the Word” and replaces
“It’s Raining on Prom Night” and
“Alone at the Drive-In” with
“Hopelessly Devoted to You”
and “Sandy,” respectively. It also
includes “Those Magic Changes”
from the musical, which is only
an instrumental in the film.
The book is reworked by Robert
Cary and Jonathan Tolins (who
worked on the latest Broadway
revival of “On the Town”).
However, the live broadcast
didn’t work through all of the
musical’s problems, mainly its
tedious book sequences. Especially
in the first hour, the dialogue
doesn’t have any energy or sense
of direction. Scenes happen, but
moments like Sandy (Julianne
Hough, “Dancing with the Stars”)
and Patty’s (Elle McLemore,
“Army
Wives”)
cheerleading
competition are slowly paced
and way too long. (When you’re
looking at 15 minutes between
musical numbers, you can’t afford
to have anything not work.)
FOX upped the game from
NBC’s musicals in the sheer scale
of the event. Director Thomas Kail
(coming off directing the “little-
known” new musical “Hamilton”)
was clearly given support to tell
this story in a bold, audacious way.
In the first number (“Grease is the
Word”), the camera follows Jessie
J around the show’s backstage
areas before opening up into a
massive outside set. The scale
of the live action is much higher
than anything NBC has done. In
the dance scenes in the gym, the
camera swoops around the room,
capturing the gorgeous dance
moves in a creative and ingenious
manner. The production even
makes the smaller numbers big,
with usually forgotten songs
like “Freddy My Love” (sung by
Keke Palmer, “Scream Queens”)
and “Those Magic Changes”
(performed by Jordan Fisher,
“Teen Beach Movie”) getting the
full production number treatment.
The musical’s cast is filled with
a wide range of names and talent.
Aaron Tveit (“Graceland”) and
Hough play Danny and Sandy
respectively, and neither bring
much to their parts. They’re
charming and sing well, but
I was hoping for a little more
depth to their performances. Ana
Gasteyer (“Saturday Night Live”)
and Wendell Pierce (“The Wire”)
have fun in the show’s thankless
adult roles. The group that
shines the most, though, are the
Pink Ladies: Frenchy (Carly Rae
Jepsen, who played Cinderella on
Broadway), Marty (Palmer) and
Jan (Kether Donohue, “You’re the
Worst”). Each of them brings a
sense of warmth and fun to their
performances and have their own
standout moments.
The MVP of the broadcast,
though,
is
Vanessa
Hudgens
(“High School Musical 3: Senior
Year”), who gives a career-
defining performance as Rizzo.
Hudgens’s dad passed away from
cancer the night before the show,
but she’s still able to bring snark
and sharpness to her character.
Rizzo is the emotional core of
the show, getting the only song
where powerful thoughts and
feelings are shared in “There are
Worse Things I Could Do.” Just
thinking about her delivery of
“But to cry in front of you / That’s
the worst thing I could do,” the
closing line of the song, still sends
chills down my spine and brings
tears to my eyes. Just watch the
performance; this is what live TV
is all about.
By the end of “Grease: Live,”
I’d forgotten about all my nitpicks
and bought into the energy of
the show. By the time the show
was telling me that it was the
one that I wanted and that we go
together, I had a huge smile on
my face, mostly because of what
it was able to pull off in a live
setting. The boldness of the big
musical numbers and Hudgens’s
performance more than made up
for some of the earlier dragging.
NBC is planning to perform
“Hairspray” in December, but
they’ll be facing a new high
standard. The game has just been
changed. It’s your move, NBC.
B+
Grease:
Live
Live Musi-
cal Event
FOX
Garth
Greenwell
February
8, 7 p.m.
Literati
Free