THE ATLANTIC

Inside the mind of Alec
Baldwin, star of SMTD’s
‘Death of a Salesman’

“For me, acting used to be
like sex,” Alec Baldwin said to
a group of the School of Music,
Theatre & Dance students on
Sunday morning, the day after
his performance. “I would just
do it with anybody, anywhere.
And then, I got a little bit
older, and, well, I thought,
maybe it’s time I got a bit more
selective.”
The
night
before,
on
Saturday, Sept. 29, Baldwin
joined
a
group
of
SMTD
students
and
faculty
to
perform a dramatic reading
of Arthur Miller’s “Death of a
Salesman” at the Power Center.
The play was performed in its
entirety, running for almost
three hours, to a sold-out
audience of over 1,300 people.
Baldwin,
who
had
never
played the role of Willy Loman
before, arrived in Ann Arbor
that Friday night. He’d been
here once before, “a million
years ago,” he said, during the
time he was a college student
himself, to visit a friend.
Baldwin began his own
college
career
at
George
Washington
University
in
D.C., majoring in political
science
and
intending
on
going
to
law
school.
He
attended for a few years before
a friend convinced him to take
an audition at NYU Tisch for
their acting program. He took
the audition and was awarded
a full scholarship.
“My parents flipped out
when I told them,” Baldwin
said of breaking the news to
his parents that he planned
to transfer. But then, he said,
he broke down the financials
for them, proving that, as a
New York State resident (he is
originally from Long Island),
it would actually be cheaper
for him to attend NYU. “And
then suddenly,” Baldwin said,
“my dad was like, ‘Wait. Let’s
hear him out.’”
In the early ’80s, not even
a year into acting school,
Baldwin was working at a
restaurant and waited on a
casting director. The director
was casting a new soap, and
told him he was exactly what
they were looking for. He took
an audition for “The Doctors,”
got
the
part
and
started
working. He went on to work
steadily from then on, proving
himself as a versatile actor
and force to be reckoned with,
starring in material across
all genres — drama, comedy,
romance, animation, etc. —
and excelling in each.
His personal life closely
parallels his professional life.
His role in “30 Rock,” one of
his most famous and recent
roles, was offered to him right
after his divorce from actress
Kim Basinger. The job was in
L.A. where their daughter,
Ireland Baldwin, lived, and
so he decided to take the job
to ensure he would be in L.A.
often — close to his daughter.
He commuted every other
weekend for five years.
“It turned into one of the
best jobs of my life,” Baldwin
said of his time on “30 Rock.”
“It ruined me. I was working

with some of the smartest
writers I’ll ever know — the
funniest people alive. Other
people don’t know what funny
is (compared to them).”
A theatre student in the
audience
quipped
that
in
Amy Poehler’s (“Making It,”
“Parks and Recreation”) book,
“Yes Please,” she writes that
Baldwin is always the funniest
person in the room, wherever
he goes.
“Amy Poehler smokes a lot
of weed,” Baldwin whispered

in response.
Throughout his time here,
Baldwin was glowing with
paternal pride. Every chance
he got, Baldwin spoke of his
wife and kids — he has four
kids with Hilaria Baldwin, all
under the age of five — joking
that she pops the children out
“like popcorn.”
A
lifetime
New
Yorker,
Baldwin
is
also
heavily
involved
with
the
New
York
Philharmonic,
having
donated one million dollars
to them in 2011, as well as
serving on their board and
hosting
their
nationally
syndicated radio show, “The
New York Philharmonic This
Week.” Matthew VanBiesen,
the
current
president
of
University Musical Society —
who presented this production
of “Death of a Salesman”— was
president of the New York
Philharmonic until 2017, a
time during which he and Alec

Baldwin met and became close
friends. When the prospect of
doing the dramatic reading
was proposed to Baldwin, he
agreed. Baldwin explained his
wife’s surprise: “She was like,
wow, I didn’t realize you liked
Matthew that much!”
Ultimately, the production
was pulled together in under
24 hours. The rest of the cast —
theatre students Jack Alberts,
Nico
Dangla,
Ted
Gibson,
Juliana
Tassos,
Jackson
Verolini, AJ D’Ambrosio, Lolly
Duus, Georgia Spears, Marty
McGuire,
Sam
Schoenfeld
and
Skylar
Siben,
and
professors Priscilla Lindsay,
Eva Rosenwald, Leigh Woods,
Alex
Leydenfrost,
Blake
Griffey and Daniel Cantor —
had been rehearsing for a few
weeks, but only had one full
rehearsal with Baldwin on
the day of the show. He and
the cast rehearsed for around
four hours, running through
the entire show, took a dinner
break from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.,
and then were back at Power
Center to prepare for curtain
at 8:00 p.m.
With no scenery, costumes,
props or music to distract
from
what
Arthur
Miller
had written, it was quite an
intimate experience: All we
had were the words — the
emotionally
heavy
prose
that has earned itself the
reputation of being one of the
greatest plays ever written.
(Fun
Fact:
Arthur
Miller
graduated from the University
in 1938 and wrote for The
Michigan Daily! There is a
theatre named after him on
North Campus.)
Baldwin’s performance as
Willy Loman was searing,
emotional
and
compelling.
The story, which follows the
Loman family — Willy, Linda,
Biff and Happy — centers on
the conflict between Willy’s
dreams of being well-liked,
financially
successful
and
happy, and his opposing reality
of being an aging, defeated
salesman. It switches between
present day and flashbacks,
which show Willy’s complex
and flawed relationship with
his sons and wife.
“A great play is both of its
time, and beyond its time,”
said director Daniel Cantor,
during his opening remarks
before the beginning of the
show.
“Death
of
a
Salesman”
has proven to be both. It
is a story that still holds
incredible relevance, and has
a fierce impact on audiences.
Saturday’s production was one
of utmost professionalism and
poignancy. The chemistry on
stage between the students,
professors and Mr. Baldwin
was raw, organic and gripping.
At
the
reception
that
followed
the
marathon
of
a
performance,
Baldwin
remarked that the University,
with its campus life, sports,
academics
and
arts,
is
regarded, indubitably, as one
of the best schools in the
country.
“Next
time,”
he
said,
exciting
guests
with
the
possibility of there being a
“next time,” “we will have to
do this as a fundraiser.”

ALLIE TAYLOR
Daily Arts Writer

COMMUNITY CULTURE

Cloud rap crosses the
pond, finds little new

I
always
wondered
why
cloud rap never really took
off. The genre’s heyday of
like, five years ago, was a
fascinating
departure
from
the mainstream, which itself
was at a rather dull point, as
it straddled the end of the
era of Wayne and the trap
boom. Clams Casino and the
magical Bay Area rapper Lil
B were the genre’s pioneers,
with the former having the
biggest influence on the genre’s
trademark hazy, lo-fi sound.
Music
writers
collectively
increased their use of the
word “ethereal” one thousand-
fold and never looked back.
The sounds of cloud rap were
also plastered all over A$AP
Rocky’s debut Live.Love.ASAP
and the music of the Swedish
rapper Yung Lean. But then
after 2014, it was swept away
by the Chief Keefs and Young
Thugs of the world, never to be
heard of since.
It turns out it had just had
a
premature
midlife
crisis
and moved to France. More
precisely, a duo of Frenchmen
from the troubled “banlieues”
of Paris had decided to carry
its flame. The duo PNL (Peace
and Lovés) has seen a meteoric
rise to arguably become the
Francophone
world’s
most
popular hip-hop group. Little is
known about the members
Ademo
and
N.O.S.
themselves, beyond the fact
that their real names are
Tarik and Nabil and that
they are from the banlieues.
Their social media profiles
are sparse, with little other
than announcements about
new releases.
Their appeal is readily
apparent
in
their
two
biggest hits, “Le monde
ou rien” (“The world or
nothing”) and “Oh lala.”
The
instrumentals
for
both
are
classic
cloud
rap,
with
washed-out
synthesizers and little else
save for snippets of guitar
licks. The pair, heavily
autotuned, rap about the
depressing realities of life
in the heavily segregated
and
neglected
Parisian
suburbs, mostly comprised
of immigrants from North
and
West
Africa.
The
chorus of “Le monde ou
rien” sums it up in a way
that
is
simultaneously
nihilistic
and
easy
to
chant along to at a concert.
Ademo sings, “J’suis dans
ma bulle, bulle, bulle / Oh
shit, le shit, le shit, bulle
/ Sang sur l’pull, pull,

pull, olala olala / Dégage ton
boule, boule, boule” (“I’m in
my bubble, bubble, bubble /
Oh shit, the hash, the hash is
bubbling / Blood on my sweater,
sweater, sweater, oh my my, oh
my my”). Like much of their
music, there is a mixture of

reservation towards the reality
of their situation (“I’m in my
bubble”), a clever turn of phrase
towards something like drug
dealing (“Le shit bulle” roughly
translating
to
“The
hash
bubbles”) and a threatening
command to simply get out of

the duo’s lives.
Another common reference
is towards the sanctity of
family unity, represented in
one the group’s slogan “QLF”
(“Que la famille,” “for the
family”). The videos for these
two singles are fitting as well,
with “Le monde ou rien” taking
place in the equally neglected
suburbs of Naples, and “Oh lala”
allowing the brothers to flex in
the otherworldly landscapes
of
Iceland.
In
the
videos
and
the
songs
themselves,
the duo portrays a mixture
of confidence and bravado,
necessary to navigate the world
around them, but also a sense of
vulnerability and desperation.
The moments of self-reflection
and
awareness
are
unique
and emotional, such as when
Ademo sings, “J’rentre, coke
dans les poches, quand p’tit
frère part à l’école” (“I come
back home with coke in my
pockets while my little brother
leaves for school”).
PNL’s wide appeal mostly
stems from its sheer catchiness
and
production.
However,
digging deeper reveals skillful
and
poignant
observations
about life in the neglected
immigrant
communities
of
European metropolises such
as Paris (and really, around the
world), areas which many have
strong opinions of, but which
receive little assistance with
stopping the cycle of poverty
and hopelessness.

WORLD MUSIC COLUMN

SAYAN GHOSH
Daily World Music Columnist

‘For me, acting

used to be like

sex,’ Alec Baldwin

said to a group

of the School of

Music, Theatre &

Dance students on

Sunday morning,

the day after his

performance. ‘I

would just do it

with anybody,

anywhere. And

then, I got a little

bit older, and, well,

I thought, maybe

it’s time I got a bit

more selective.’

Music writers

collectively

increased their

use of the word

“ethereal” one

thousand-fold

and never looked

back

6A — Monday, October 8, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com