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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