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