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Arts & Sports
Wednesday, March 16, 2016 — 5A
Lacking ‘Characters’
By SHIR AVINADAV
Daily Arts Writer
“The Characters” is exactly
what it sounds like: a seemingly
never-ending string of wholly
inconceiv-
able characters
brought to life
under outland-
ish
circum-
stances.
The
new
sketch
series highlights
the talent and
edge of eight
up-and-coming
comedians
by
giving them free reign to write and
perform whatever they want in 30
minutes. Each comedian acts out
an array of characters confined to
an episode, ranging from quirky
individuals to exaggerated tropes.
In one episode Lauren Lapkus
(“Orange Is The New Black”) flu-
idly transitions from a pop diva
searching for love on a “Bachelor”-
esque reality show to an insolent
teenage boy clashing with his
mom. Though the premise of the
reality show frames the episode
and makes for a humorous parody,
Lapkus’s personification of the
washed-out, overly made-up celeb-
rity is quite hollow. Not only is her
bright orange face (a cross between
a certain presidential candidate
and someone from the cast of “Jer-
sey Shore”) distracting, but her
performance is painful to watch.
From the nasal giggles to the lines
screeched out at the show’s con-
testants (all named Ben), I couldn’t
wait for the episode to be over.
Despite the reliance on heavy
makeup and the hackneyed per-
formance, Lapkus’s style marks
the episode as distinctly hers. The
type of characters enacted are the-
matically dramatized stereotypes
of their real-life counterparts, and
her use of detail — even in the bla-
tant advertising spoof suggestive
of the advertising used on real-
life dating shows like “The Bach-
elor” — lend the episode cohesion
and style. Otherwise, the series of
sketches would be a jumbled mess
of ideas haphazardly brought to
life.
Lapkus’s episode is one of the
few containing this feeling of cohe-
sion. With a single mind acting
as the force behind each episode,
you would expect there to be an
inherent coherence. However, the
opposite is often the case. Many
of the episodes feel like their cre-
ators tried to do too much with the
short time they were allotted. John
Early’s (“Wet Hot American Sum-
mer: First Day of Camp”) episode
is not only difficult to follow, but
his tense performance imparts the
episode with a sense of chaos that
renders his characters unconvinc-
ing. However, with eight differ-
ent comedians given the the kind
of freedom they have by Netflix,
there are bound to be some that
stand out more than others.
Henry
Zebrowski
(“Dirty
Grandpa”) is one of these, bringing
a burst of energy following Early’s
episode in his run in with an igno-
rant passerby at a food cart. After
reprimanding an oblivious man
who mistakes him for Jim Gaffigan
by charging him for a signature,
then throwing the money in the
bewildered man’s face, he lectures
him, saying “Wear better shoes
before talking to a celebrity.” This
small piece of arbitrary wisdom is
emblematic of Zebrowski’s biting
style.
Moments like these highlight
the individuality that marks each
comedian’s writing and acting.
Zebrowski’s superficial arrogance
makes his shrewdly delivered lines
even more hilarious, while Nata-
sha Rothwell’s (Writer, “Saturday
Night Live”) masterfully diverse
slate of performances makes her a
standout in the series.
Though a breath of fresh air
for Netflix’s comedy category, the
series begs the question of whether
a single comedic mind and pres-
ence can sustain an entire episode
in the sketch format without los-
ing the audience’s interest. In their
efforts to personify the extreme
characters they’ve written, the
show’s comedic cast shed their
inhibitions and infuse the series
with panache. And though well-
produced, the show’s sketches lack
the narrative cohesion desired in
an eight-part series.
It’s eccentric and it’s fresh, but
it’s exactly “Saturday Night Live.”
It’s a bunch of comedians given the
chance to show what they’re made
of, and though they’re having fun
doing it, the audience isn’t guaran-
teed the same feeling.
COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW
Unique ‘Gutenberg!’
By BAILEY KADIAN
Daily Arts Writer
Two men. One musical. A lot of
hats. And a lot of laughter.
This weekend, Basement Arts
presents:
“Gutenberg!
The
Musi-
cal!”
Written by
Scott Brown
and Anthony
King, “Guten-
berg!
The
Musical!”
first appeared
as a 45 min-
utes one-act
production, at the Upright Citi-
zens Brigade Theatre in New York.
Following that, it appeared in the
New York Musical Theatre Festi-
val in 2005 and 2006.
“Gutenberg!” tells the story of
two playwrights, Bud and Doug,
who perform a backer’s audition
for their newest work — a musi-
cal about Johannes Gutenberg,
the inventor of the printing press.
Bud and Doug perform every
part in the show and sing every
song, using hats to indicate who
is switching from one role to the
next.
Their collective research into
Gutenberg’s life is less than reli-
able, which makes the play within
a play just as absurd as Bud and
Doug’s characters outside of their
play. The play serves as a parody
of what you’d find in a “typical”
musical — a big opening and clos-
ing number, an excess of drama,
energy, dancing and of course, a
song about almost anything imag-
inable.
The show is structured around
Bud and Doug’s commentary, or
“annotation” sections, with tran-
sitions back into the play they
are performing. The audience
and their laughter adds a differ-
ent rhythm to the script, which is
already packed with humor.
“It’s a technically sparse show,
there are barely any lights, there is
no set, just two tables of hats with
different character names writ-
ten on them and a piano,” Music,
Theatre & Dance senior Graham
Techler said, in an interview
with the Michigan Daily. “It’s one
of those shows that is theoreti-
cally not complicated, but is actu-
ally very complicated, as we have
learned. But in a fun way, it’s a fun
challenge.”
The members of this produc-
tion have been creating visions of
the show for a while, and when the
proposal was accepted, they were
able to start putting ideas into frui-
tion.
“We started piecing togeth-
er this weird production team,
where Barry and I are acting in
it, I’m co-directing it with Rob-
ert O’Brian, and Anna is assistant
directing it, and is here all the time
doing blocking and comedy stuff,”
Techler said.
Techler and Music, Theatre &
Dance Barry Riggins, the Music
Director, were familiar with the
work, as they had heard from
people that it was a piece that they
should look into. Anna Garcia, the
assistant director, came across
“Gutenberg!” in a less convention-
al manner.
“Graham and I were on a road
trip, and we were driving through
graveyards in Virginia and to dis-
tract ourselves, Graham put on
‘Gutenberg,’ ” Garcia said. “I loved
it so much. Once the proposal was
accepted, I asked if I could come in
and help.”
Garcia is also an improviser and
uses her experience to add come-
dic elements to the scenes, as well
as adjust blocking.
Riggins has worked as a music
director before, he said, but never
while also acting in the musical he
is also directing.
“This has been a very unique
process, in that I’m on both sides of
the table,” Riggins said. “My first
love is performing and getting to
do both has been very fun. This
show is really just an absolute blast.
It is a show that in satirizing musi-
cals, it clearly comes from a place of
deep love for them — as both Gra-
ham and I have.”
Rather than a director staging a
scene for actors, Techler and Rig-
gins do both simultaneously.
“It’s five or six people all collab-
orating on what is happening at the
same time. It just works,” Techler
said. “Things that would normally
not be so good, if you were stag-
ing yourself in a musical, somehow
become just right for this show.”
Basement Arts offers the per-
fect platform for this sort of pro-
duction, Riggins added.
“ ‘Gutenberg’ is a perfect exam-
ple of a Basement show because it
is completely a passion project. It
could never be done in a normal
University setting,” he said. “The
SMTD community, and I think
everyone, will appreciate the type
of things it is lampooning.”
NETFLIX
Listen up fives, a 10 is speaking.
TV REVIEW
By AMELIA ZAK
Daily Arts Writer
I have been writing about music
for publications for over a year
now, and here’s what I’ve learned: I
shouldn’t call myself a music critic.
It isn’t appropriate.
Why? I do not have the knowl-
edge to provide a reader with a
full-bodied conclusion as to how
they should receive a piece of musi-
cal art. I’m not being self-deprecat-
ing; I’m being honest.
Critiquing music, in an accu-
rate and educated fashion, is an
art that started to die with the
rise of the digital age. The inun-
dation of artists and their respec-
tive musical projects filled digital
page after digital page on Spotify,
SoundCloud, BandCamp and the
like. And, like with so many other
things, this started to kill the
music critics because now, for bet-
ter or worse, the world’s ears are
constantly occupied.
So with so many comparisons to
make and so many trends to follow,
everyone with a keyboard became
a critic. Niche blogs grew from all
the digital holes in the wall. The
power of so many voices eventual-
ly drowned out the power of a few
truly knowledgable ones.
There are those music critics
who think they are on top of the
allegorical ‘all.’ To them, I say:
stop kidding yourself. There are
those constantly trolling the music
sites, listening and re-listening to
albums and artists of similar or
non-similar genres to find some
new trend. To them, I say: stop try-
ing so hard.
I can critique these individu-
als because I am one of them. I’m
trying to stay on top of it all, to no
great avail. And I’m trying to find
something out of nothing, to no
great success. I wish I would stop,
and I think the great Alex G would,
too.
Alex Giannascoli grew up in
Havertown, Pennsylvania. In high
school, he studied the stylings of
Radiohead and Modest Mouse,
stole the CDs of his siblings and
had a couple high school bands.
He followed a route similar to so
many up-and-coming artists — he
followed what he felt. He treated
the music as something precious,
almost holy.
“To me, I always considered
music pretty sacred,” Alex said in
a phone interview with The Michi-
gan Daily. “I love it to the max. So
it makes me feel pretty strongly
when people focus on the shit that
doesn’t matter.”
Alex G is one of the 21st century
artists whose music grew into the
digital age. His incredible guitar-
based instrumentations and ang-
sty, but preciously poetic, lyrics
made it past the modern barri-
ers of quantity over quality. In an
arena of so many artists and their
respective aspirational projects,
Alex G rose up ever so slowly into
the spheres of popular music dis-
cussion. He wasn’t one of the first,
but rather one of the few, to rise to
fame through the random, indeci-
pherable avenues of the Internet.
There is so much to be gained in
that ascent, and so much to be lost.
“The positives are pretty obvi-
ous: I gained this following with-
out any promotion on my part,”
Alex explained. “The downside
is uh, I don’t know. I don’t like all
of the coverage of the music. It
sucks because that’s what helped
me so much — all these different
outlets covering my music, but
now it seems like it is cheapening
the music in some way. When they
have so much shit going on, and
when there are all these publica-
tions writing all these little bits —
there is all this saturation. There
isn’t a lot of mystery anymore,
either. So much of the appeal for
me is when I find an artist and the
only thing I knew was their story,
with what they were saying in
their lyrics.”
The art of defeating the bar-
riers of the digital age has been
mastered by Mr. Alex G, though
he would never accept that praise.
Alex knows the fight for authentic-
ity, and the fight to stay as true to
oneself as possible. Because he’s
still unsure, too, if all this coverage
is a good thing.
“Maybe it’s a good thing, maybe
it will make artists more account-
able,” he said. “I don’t know, I
think we are starting to lose a lot.”
And he’s right. There is no way
of saying just yet, but there are
grounds to wonder: what is going
to be lost in the digital explosion?
When everything is accessible,
and when everyone has an opin-
ion, are we gaining everything?
We have to be losing something,
right?
Here’s the only way to combat
it: focus on the music.
Alex G’s early work was record-
ed in his college dorm room. With
a basic understanding of music
production via one’s computer,
Alex nursed a couple tracks to
indie rock perfection within the
four walls of his room at Temple
University. And then he put them
on BandCamp. And that honest,
self-satisfying process continued
as Alex rose to slow, intangible
Internet fame.
Those angsty swinging guitar
sounds and unapologetically sto-
ryline lyrics about frustrated emo-
tion, lost people and indescribable
anxieties hit the web and played
into the ears of those who still held
a candle for the dying indie rock
music world.
“I guess it’s half and half, most of
the time it stems from a real expe-
rience or something that I really
have the urge to write about,”
Alex said. “But I will morph a lot
of them so that they aren’t direct
attacks on someone that I know. It
usually does come from something
real. I do want to write something
well, and if it isn’t real I don’t think
that I can write it as well.”
So Alex dropped out of col-
lege and became one of the indie
world’s full-time saviors. Alex
and his band released their most
recent album, Beach Music, in
October of last year. They’ve been
touring the album ever since. And
they aren’t worried about going
anywhere too fast, and they aren’t
too worried about pleasing anyone
but themselves.
“Yeah, I mean we are trying
to incorporate some new stuff —
we’ve got a keyboard now that
the guitar player is fooling around
with,” Alex confessed. “I don’t
know, it’s going to be hard to
make any drastic changes. Some
people might say: oh yeah it’s all
guitar music, but to me it sounds
completely different. It’s different
to me. But to some, it could be all
the same. I guess it’s all the same,
either mostly guitar-based or pia-
no-based.”
So stop overthinking it, every-
body. Stop obsessively analyzing
and just sit back and enjoy. Alex
and his band want you to know
that you don’t need to let the over-
whelming nature of the Internet
kill your joy. They’re pouring their
hearts, personas and experiences
into something that you can love
or hate. They can give you some-
thing to hold a candle to, or they
can give you something to scoff at
and ignore. They don’t care what
you think, but you’ll probably post
about it on some blogger site any-
way. You will paste your thoughts
onto something, next to three mil-
lion other unnoticed, unimportant
and unvalidated opinions. Just like
this one.
Alex G will be performing at MO
POP Music Festival this summer in
Detroit, Mich. Tickets available at
www.mopopfestival.com.
The rise of Alex G
MUSIC INTERVIEW
Gutenberg!
The Musical!
Studio One
Walgreen
Drama Center
Fri. & Sat. 7 p.m.
& 11 p.m.
C
The
Characters
Season One
Netflix
Ways looks to make leap
By KELLY HALL
Daily Sports Editor
Michigan
football’s
passing
game coordinator, Jedd Fisch,
needs another receiver who can
make 40 to 50 catches next year.
He’s already expecting fifth-
year senior wide receivers Jehu
Chesson and Amara Darboh to
be closer to 75 catches apiece this
season, but a third consistent
threat would make the Wolverines
that much more dangerous. And
after seeing Chesson rack up a
team-leading 764 yards and nine
touchdowns this past fall, junior
receiver Moe Ways is hoping he
can have a similar breakout season
in 2016 and become that third
receiver.
In 2015, Ways appeared in 11
games, making just three catches
for 40 yards. He’s going to need to
make a leap in order to get to that
number of completions, but he
doesn’t think it’s out of the realm of
possibility after seeing Chesson’s
season.
“Honestly, for Jehu, it just all
clicked,” Ways said. “After the
Utah game, everything clicked for
him. He just played with so much
confidence. He knew he was the
go-to guy, him and Amara, and he
knew that when the game was on
the line, like the Indiana game and
the Minnesota game, it’s time to
make plays.”
Now, in his third season, Ways
feels as if everything he has
worked on is starting to fall into
place. He goes to Darboh and
Chesson for advice, getting in
extra practice with them in the
meantime, because they’ve been in
his shoes before.
After an offseason of practice
and advice, he feels better prepared
to take on a larger role.
“(This
spring
feels)
very
different,” Ways said. “I know the
offense a lot better. I’ve gotten
better working on my weaknesses
in
the
offseason.
I’m
more
confident, playing confident. I
know what I’m doing.”
For Ways, the answer to getting
those extra catches is simple: He
needs to get to the right place and
catch the ball without dropping it.
In order to ensure he can
capitalize on the opportunity
when the ball comes to him, Ways
put in a lot of handgrip and forearm
work. Though he doesn’t think
dropping the ball was a weakness
of his, he wanted to get better, and
according to Fisch, he did just that.
“I’m not sure I can remember a
drop so far in spring, ” Fisch said of
Ways. “I think Moe Ways leads us
with the least amount of drops, so
(the wide receivers) have all come
in and they’ve all done a nice job
coming back and kind of letting us
pick up where we left off.”
Though
the
quarterbacks
are still receiving even reps, the
constant rotation hasn’t been a
difficult adjustment for Ways or
the other receivers. Ways admitted
that sometimes he can’t even tell
who’s playing quarterback when
they quickly switch out — except
for when left-handed redshirt
junior
Shane
Morris
throws
the ball, because it spins in the
opposite direction.
Freshman quarterback Brandon
Peters, who graduated early from
high school and enrolled this
semester, has stood out to Ways,
who conceded that he doesn’t look
like a freshman at all.
“(Peters’) arm strength is very
good, his accuracy is very good,
his knowledge of the game is
very good,” Ways said. “His age is
young, but the way he plays is not
young at all.”
Now that Ways is one of the
older players on the field, he has a
better grasp of the learning curve
of college football.
“It just comes with time,”
Ways said. “Like I said, first year,
you learn the offense and kind of
struggle a little bit, by the second
year you have a better grasp of it.
As you get older, your football IQ
grows and your body changes and
you start making more plays.”
ALLISON FARRAND/Daily
Moe Ways is hoping to mirror Jehu Chesson’s breakout campaign last season.