The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, February 21, 2017 — 5

Two young girls sit in a locker 

room. They are scared and unsure. 
One girl tells the other to punch 
her in the stomach — maybe that 
will suffice to abort the fetus 
growing inside of her.

This week, Basement Arts 

presents 
Ruby 
Rae 
Spiegel’s 

“Dry Land,” in Studio One at the 
Walgreen Drama Center. “Dry 
Land” tells the story of an unlikely 
friendship that forms in the face of 
a conflict in which both girls have 
to keep a secret.

Amy, a popular teenager with 

a strong personality, confides 
in Ester, an intense athlete and 
introvert, who offers Amy the 
counsel and support that she 
cannot find anywhere else.

“The whole play, except for one 

scene, takes place in the locker 
room of a girls’ swim team,” said 
Delaney Moro, Music, Theatre & 
Dance Senior, and director of the 
show. “It follows the story of these 
two girls named Amy and Ester, 
who become unlikely friends, 
basically because Amy is in a 
predicament that only someone 
like Ester can help her with — 
which is that Amy is pregnant.”

The girls go on this journey 

together, supporting one another 
through a conflict that they refuse 
to tell their classmates or parents 
about. After having read through 
the script many times, the cast 
has brought plenty of delightful 
surprises 
to 
the 
process 
of 

developing these characters. 

“For Ester, the character has 

surprised me in a lot of ways. I 
think initially when I read her, I 
didn’t give her enough credit. I 
thought of her as a very naïve girl, 
who is just this athlete with no 
friends,” Moro said.

Carly Snyder, Music, Theatre 

and Dance senior, plays Ester. She 
presents an entirely new version 
of her character, one that further 
illuminates 
the 
brilliance 
of 

this play and offers depth to the 

character as she helps her friend 
through an extremely difficult 
situation.

“When Carly came in, she 

brought this sweetness to her and 
also brought an intelligence that 
really came alive in the room,” 
Moro said.

Amy, played by Kay Kelley, 

Music, Theatre & Dance senior, is 
the figure who is battling the most 
intense conflict in 
this piece, but is 
hesitant to turn to 
anyone for help.

“Kay can take 

a 
character 
like 

Amy, who has this 
tough outer shell, 
but 
also 
show 

she is extremely 
vulnerable 
on 

the 
inside 
and 

susceptible with all 
the basic human 
emotions that we 
can come to terms 
with,” Moro said. “Especially 
when we are going through 
something traumatic, like hiding a 
pregnancy.”

The dynamic between both 

actors has added extra reward 
to this piece, as both Kelley and 
Snyder build off each other in 
beautiful ways.

“When I put them together, 

they just fed off of each other so 
well, their natural banter with the 
dialogue is something that you can 
only dream of when you have three 
weeks to put it together,” Moro 
said.

Though abortion is a politically 

sensitive topic, Moro says the 
politics of the issue do not 
overshadow the performance. =

“I don’t think I would call it a 

political play,” Moro said. “What I 
think it does so well is it presents 
this issue and it allows the audience 
to think for themselves about it. It 
doesn’t have a spin, it doesn’t have 
an idea about abortions that says: 
‘Okay this is what we think, what 
do you think?’ You can decide for 
yourself.”

The cast has engaged in multiple 

discussions about the pro-life and 
pro-choice debate, and they have 
realized that even with differing 
views, there are different ways to 
communicate ideas to an audience 
without forcing them to sway to 
one side of the spectrum. 

“I think after talking to the cast 

and really sitting with the piece for 
a while, I didn’t want to put just one 
commentary on the issue. Because 

I 
don’t 
think 

that really solves 
anything,” 
Moro 

explained. 
“We 

live in Ann Arbor, 
which is a bubble 
of people who are 
very 
likeminded, 

but that takes us 
away 
from 
the 

entire 
country, 

which is something 
I think we saw in 
November.”

“Dry 
Land” 

explores 
the 

importance of assistance and safe 
abortion care when it’s needed. 
Amy and Ester are so terrified to 
tell anyone that they go about the 
process in a highly unsafe way.

According to Moro, that is just 

one side of the issue.

“Another way to look at it — 

there’s a life. There is something 
in there … she (Amy) describes it 
as the size of a lemon. It’s shocking, 
when you actually look at it,” Moro 
said.

This play is constantly evolving, 

as the cast discovers further truths 
about friendship, hardship and 
who to turn to in the midst of such 
events. 

Supportive of the project, the 

cast is grateful that they could 
bring a piece like this to the Ann 
Arbor 
community, 
and 
they 

continue to dive into the reality 
of the situations proposed in the 
show.

“As we have gone along, every 

time we read a scene, we discover 
something new about the script,” 
Moro said. “That’s the joy of being 
an actor, you dig and you find stuff 
to keep it alive and surprise you.”

Basement Arts explores 
girlhood, abortion in play

Moro’s ‘Dry Land’ reveals the realities of high school pregnancy

BAILEY KADIAN

Daily Arts Writer

“Dry Land”

Walgreens Drama 
Center — Studio 

One 

February 22nd & 

24th @ 7 P.M. 

February 23rd @ 7 

P.M. & 11 P.M. 

Free

COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW

20th Century Fox

A still from Verbinski’s “A Cure for Wellness”

‘Cure’ combines genuine 
thrills with poor pacing

Verbinski’s film presents a kooky, occasionally entertaining 
movie which locates its fault in an overbearing run time 

For most of its runtime, 

“A Cure for Wellness” plays 
like a poor man’s version of 
Martin 
Scorsese’s 
“Shutter 

Island.” But where that film 
had the advantage of stellar 
source material and one of the 
greatest directors to ever live, 
“A Cure for Wellness” has Gore 
Verbinski, the man behind 
“The Lone Ranger.” That’s not 
to say that this is a bad movie. 
There is certainly plenty to like 
here, and the story — that of a 
young businessman who is sent 
to a mysterious wellness center 
to retrieve his boss — is initially 
intriguing, but the whole thing 
labors under the feeling that a 
more experienced hand could 
have polished it to the point of 
greatness.

Instead, 
“A 
Cure 
for 

Wellness” is a Verbinski film 
through 
and 
through. 
It’s 

weird. It’s creepy. And, by 
god, is it long. Clocking in at 
almost two and a half hours, 
it feels like a flick in desperate 
need of editing, particularly 
in the first act, where a steady 
stream of flashbacks disrupts 
the pacing and several scenes 
pass 
without 
contributing 

anything to character, plot or 
scares. At least in Verbinski’s 
“Pirates of the Caribbean” 
movies, 
audience 
had 
the 

swashbuckling tone and fun 
characters to gravitate towards 
when the story dragged. Here, 
there is nothing besides a 
central mystery that is too 
poorly developed to be truly 
captivating.

But even if “A Cure for 

Wellness” had asked a clear 
and intriguing question right 
off the bat, Justin Haythe’s 
(“Snitch”) script does it no 

favors. The dialogue is the 
worst 
part 
of 
the 
movie, 

as it is so on-the-nose that 
guessing the twists is all too 
easy. By the halfway point 
of the film, everything has 
been so telegraphed that later 
scenes that could have been 
surprising are robbed of their 
heft. 
Foreshadowing 
twists 

is a necessity in 
order 
to 
make 

repeat 
viewings 

that much more 
enjoyable, 
but 

Haythe crosses a 
line here.

Finally, 
at 

around 
the 

midpoint 
of 
the 

film, the pacing 
picks up and the story becomes 
interesting, allowing Verbinski 
to 
indulge 
in 
his 
most 

ridiculously weird dreams on 
screen for all to see. The first 
half isn’t entirely devoid of 
scares, for example a creepy 
scene in a steam bath, but these 
moments were drowned in the 
then-uninteresting plot. But “A 
Cure for Wellness” cuts loose 
in the second half. Verbinski 
shows able command of the 
horror, switching from gross-
out scenes to psychological 
thrills to a distinctly gothic, 
Edgar Allan Poe-influenced 
feel, oftentimes within the 
space of a single scene.

Visually, 
“A 
Cure 
for 

Wellness” 
is 
unassailable. 

Cinematographer 
Bojan 

Bazelli 
(“Pete’s 
Dragon”) 

and production designer Eve 
Stewart (“The Danish Girl”) 
construct a world that is 
simultaneously reminiscent of 
the aforementioned “Shutter 
Island,” 
yet 
something 
all 

its own. The darkness of the 
outside world clashes with 
the 
bright, 
almost 
sterile 

wellness 
center, 
giving 
it 

an 
otherworldly 
appeal. 

Even during the film’s worst 
moments, the visuals make it 
bearable.

The 
performances 
do 

the 
movie 
a 
service, 
as 

well. 
Dane 
DeHaan 
(“The 

Amazing Spider-Man 2”) gets 
progressively 
better 
as 
“A 

Cure for Wellness” goes along; 

he begins as a 
stereotypical 
young 
businessman 
who speaks in 
nothing 
but 

sanctimonious 
monologues 
and smug one-
liners and ends 
as a character 

worthy of DeHaan’s range with 
whom audiences can actually 
begin to sympathize in his fear.

The real star of the film is 

Jason Isaacs (“Harry Potter 
and the Deathly Hallows—Part 
2”) as the head of the wellness 
center. As Dr. Heinrich Volmer, 
Isaacs infuses every line he’s 
given with the kind of creepy 
energy that much of the first 
half of the movie needed. He 
alone avoids the pitfalls of the 
dialogue to create a gloriously 
entertaining antagonist, and 
he only gets better as the film 
peels back the layers of his 
character.

Gore 
Verbinski 
makes 

weird movies. Even when the 
films are ostensibly for kids, 
like his excellent “Rango,” 
they’re 
almost 
stunningly 

kooky. “A Cure for Wellness” 
is no different. If Verbinski 
had shown the restraint with 
the runtime that he showed 
for the first half, the movie 
might have been great, but as it 
stands, his newest is a plodding 
yet occasionally entertaining 
entry into the gothic horror 
genre.

JEREMIAH VANDERHELM

Daily Arts Writer

“A Cure for 
Wellness”

Rave Cinemas, 

Goodrich Quality 16

20th Century Fox

A 
pre-teen 
British 
girl 

(newcomer Madi Linnard) ditches 
school on the German military 
base where her family is stationed. 
As she walks the snow-covered 
roadside, a yellow van approaches. 
Years later, a woman (Abigail 
Hardingham, 
“Broadchurch”) 

walks perhaps the same path with 
the snow melting before reaching 
a small town and collapsing. 
Simultaneously in the past, the 
van stops and the girl disappears. 
We soon learn that the two are one 
and the same — Alice Webster — 
sharing the same improvised spider 
web tattoo. Lying in a hospital bed, 
the grown Alice mentions another 
long-missing girl, Sophie Giroux, 
and a whole new mystery unfolds.

“The Missing” is a series that 

excels when it’s able to play its two 
timelines off of each other, letting 
the past inform us about the present, 
while changes in the present make 
us speculate about what happened 
in the past. Whether it’s a change in 
a relationship or a scar that wasn’t 
there before, “The Missing” has a 
wait as it methodically fills in the 
blanks. It was this interplay that 
made the first season so intriguing 
as it continuously brought forward 
new questions and revelations, 
using each timeline to construct 
an intricate web of connections 
and deceptions that stretched out 
over nearly a decade. Meanwhile, 
the series dove into the lasting 
effects of trauma that afflicted all 
the characters involved with the 
disappearance of the young Oliver 

Hughes, the missing boy from the 
first season.

However, instead of focusing on 

Alice’s initial disappearance and 
subsequent reappearance, season 
two takes the reappearance in2014 
as a starting point and then flies 
us forward to 2016, where retired 
French detective Julien Baptiste 
(Tchéky Karyo, “The Patriot”) 
steps out of an airport into the 
scorching heat of the Middle East.

In 
addition 
to 

common 
themes 

and methods, “The 
Missing” finds its 
connective 
thread 

in 
the 
character 

of 
Baptiste, 
the 

sole returning cast 
member from the 
show’s first season. 
And 
while 
the 

first season tied up its long tale 
of mystery and grief with very 
few loose ends, it was clear that 
the wounds, both physical and 
emotional, would leave deep scars 
for all those involved. Still haunted 
by the disappearance and death of 
Oliver and the ghosts of so many 
others he’s lost over the years, 
Baptiste jumps at the new lead on 
Sophie Giroux, another case he was 
unable solve. Desperate to make 
things right, Baptiste now pursues 
this case with the same reckless 
intensity that consumed season 
one lead Tony Hughes (James 
Nesbitt, “The Hobbit” trilogy).

The hunt for those long-gone 

leads Baptiste to Iraq, a sharp 
contrast to the frigid German 
forests that dominate the exteriors 
of the 2014 mission. And while 2014 
is captured in the washed out greys 

of winter, where questions remain 
to be answered and the truth lies 
of focus, 2016 is filmed in sharp 
daylight as Baptiste moves forward, 
boldly following his instincts, in 
spite of the horrors that may lie in 
wait.

As 
Baptiste 
searches 
for 

answers, 
the 
Webster 
family 

struggles 
to 
deal 
with 
their 

daughter’s return in 2014. Led by 
patriarch Sam (David Morrissey, 

“The 
Walking 

Dead”), 
the 

Websters 
go 

through a gauntlet 
of emotions upon 
reuniting 
with 

their 
daughter. 

Disbelief, 
relief, 

uncertainty 
and 

horror grip the 
family 
as 
Alice 

recounts her captivity. Morrissey’s 
strong presence as an actor is tested 
as the military man Sam tries 
to bear the brunt of his family’s 
trials; however, by the time we 
reunite with the family in 2016, 
Sam looks tired with a large burn 
scar covering the right side of his 
body — a man worn down by years 
of hardship. The rest of the family, 
including mother Gemma (Keeley 
Hawes, “The Casual Vacancy”) 
and son Matthew (Jack Davies, 
“Cyberbully”), is equally up to the 
task in conveying the wear and tear 
of time.

Ending on two gut punch twists, 

“The Missing” ’s season premiere 
forces us to rethink everything 
we’ve just seen as the truth again 
slips through the cracks and the 
characters are left to pick up the 
pieces. 

‘The Missing’ brings new 
mysteries and emotions

MATTHEW BARNAUSKAS

Daily Arts Writer

TV REVIEW

“The Missing”

Season Two 

Premiere

Starz

Sundays at 8:00 

p.m.
DO YOU PRONOUNCE REESE’S 

“REES-IS” OR “REES-EES”?

JOIN DAILY ARTS AND HELP US 

FIGURE IT OUT.

E-mail Natalie Zak and Anay Katyal at arts@umich.edu for 

information on applying and more thought-provoking questions.

FILM REVIEW

