The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, October 30, 2018 — 5

Ironically 
enough, 
with 

the release of Be The Cowboy, 
Mitski’s most experimental 
and 
pop-inflected 
album 

to date, Mitski has finally 
become the true rock ‘n’ roll 
star she was clearly born to be. 
Untethered from her guitar 
with a full band and backing 
tracks, 
Mitski 
completely 

owned the stage and attention 
of the audience, diving deep 
into the emotionality of her 
music with a newly developed, 
incredibly 
intense 
stage 

presence. 
In 
an 
interview 

with The Fader, Mitski said, 
“How can I use my voice as 
an instrument and make this 
interesting?” and she delivers 
on all fronts when it’s the only 
instrument she’s focusing on.

Only 
limited 
by 
the 

struggling sound system of 
a club venue like The Magic 
Stick, 
Mitski 
brought 
her 

new material to life this past 
Tuesday among a surprising 
number of deep cuts from her 
earlier 
material, 
including 

tracks 
like 
“Townie” 
and 

“First Love / Late Spring,” 
closing with “Goodbye, My 
Danish Sweetheart,” which 
elicited much screaming and 
excitement from the crowd. 
Surprisingly, 
Mitski 
only 

has three full-length studio 
albums under her name, yet her 
21-song set felt surprisingly 
evolutionary for such a young 
artist; she flashed all of her 
best facets within an hour 
and a half, revealing growth 
not only in songwriting but in 
performance as well.

Yet, this is precisely the 

unfortunate 
paradox 
of 
a 

Mitski 
performance: 
She 

played a full set spanning her 
entire career, and it still left 
me wanting more. This isn’t 
to the fault of the artist, but 
speaks more to the fact that 
the only way to be satisfied 
by a Mitski set is a full three 

hours to perform her entire 
catalogue. I was heartbroken 
that “Fireworks” had lost its 
spot in her setlists, while I 
heard others mourn the losses 
of “A Burning Hill” and “Texas 

Reznikoff.” Simply put, she’s 
that talented, and while her 
set 
perfectly 
exemplified 

her growth as an artist, her 
individual 
tracks 
are 
too 

nuanced to not notice when 
they’re missing.

Regardless of these selfish 

tendencies 
of 
her 
fans, 

Mitski’s 
live 
performances 

are spectacular, and her vocal 
abilities and new emotional 
investment 
in 
movement 

contribute to her magnetic 
nature. Her control of volume 
in particular weighed heavily 
on the room’s atmosphere; she 
can just as easily overpower 
the 
room 
with 
bellowing, 

soaring vocals like those of 
“Geyser” as she can softly tease 
out sadness and nostalgia as 
witnessed during “Two Slow 
Dancers,” which completely 
silenced the crowd.

While her older songs more 

or less carry an indie-rock 
sound with them, her newer 
material added the perfect 
amount of diversity to her 
setlist. 
Playing 
“Washing 

Machine Heart” only three 
songs into the set, the crowd 
bobbed 
and 
swayed 
with 

the 
disjointed 
synth 
and 

drum lines, which perfectly 
accent her soft ruminations 
before the song falls into an 
elegant melody over it all. 
It’s an aching song masked 
in some of the most inventive 
pop music written this year, 
and her delivery perfectly 
mirrored this. She proceeded 
to pull this off several more 
times, especially with singles 
“Geyser” and “Nobody” which 
both pull from a similar vein 
of songwriting style.

Having sold out The Magic 

Stick weeks in advance of the 
concert, it’d be shocking if 
Mitski doesn’t start to take 

I am 16 years old, standing 

on 
West 
40th 
Street 
in 

Manhattan, 
freezing 
and 

naive. There’s a Dec. chill in 
the air, a longing beating in my 
chest and a day-of Broadway 
ticket burning a hole through 
my jacket pocket. My hands 
reach for the door in front of 
my wide eyes and pink nose 
and I exhale. I stare up at the 
published plays and musicals 
lining the shelves and wonder 
what it would take to get my 
name printed down one of the 
slim, glossy spines. In that 
moment, I commit myself to 
the goal of making it here. This 
is my first time in New York 
City’s The Drama Book Shop. 

Anyone 
who 
knows 
me 

knows that my two greatest 
loves are theatre and books. 
I cannot choose between the 
two, because they share my 
affection 
both 
passionately 

and evenly. If you get me 
started on either topic, I’m 
likely to never stop ranting on 
some romantic diatribe about 
one or the other or both. The 
Drama Book Shop marries the 
comfort and security I feel in 
a bookstore with the magic 
and passion the theatre brings 
me. They have 8,000 original 
plays in stock — waiting to 
be read, waiting to be picked 
up, waiting to live. The shop 
nurtures and sponsors new 
and established playwrights 
alike with a 50-seat theatre 
in 
the 
basement 
for 
new 

performances, workshops and 
trial runs. It’s a theatre inside 
a bookstore — one inside of the 
other, like the Russian doll of 
my dreams. Walk through the 
front doors and be in the arms 
of the playwright — ready to 
be transported to whatever 
world you so choose as you 
scan the shelves. Moments 
later, descend a flight of stairs 
and be removed from reality 
entirely as you’re inspired 
and pushed as an artist and 
a human being. New work is 
enthralling. It is imaginative 

and 
energizing. 
There 
is 

no place quite like this one 
anywhere in the world. When 
I’m leaving The Drama Book 
Shop, my backpack weighed 
down by a few new plays and 
perhaps another book or two 
that caught my eye on my 
way to the checkout, I wish to 

bottle up the feeling the place 
gives me. For the fear and the 
knowledge that there’s no 
other place like it in the world. 

The 
Drama 
Book 
Shop, 

for me and for so many other 
creators, is what some call 
a home away from home. 
The people who have passed 
through those doors — artists, 
visionaries, 
appreciators, 

designers and tourists — all 
share a universal love for 
theatre. This is not your normal 

bookstore; it is the safe haven 
for theatre lovers and readers. 
It is specifically unique and a 
wild idiosyncrasy: a bookstore 
for 
plays, 
bulletins 
with 

audition listings lining the 
wooden walls, musical scripts, 
biographies, 
guides 
and 

history books filling the place 
like air. This store is a staple in 
the theatre community. It has 
thrived in Manhattan for over 
100 years. Like oxygen and 
water, it fulfills a specific need 
for so many of us. Theatre 
people need to be brought 
together with other theatre 
people because collaboration 
is where the magic happens. 
Theatre 
people 
understand 

the rise and fall, the trial and 
error, the effortless pushing 
and pushing and pushing to 
break through into something 
magnificent. 

So it comes as a heartbreak, 

and somewhat of a personal 
tragedy for me, to see that 
The Drama Book Shop has had 
to announce that it is being 
forced out of its home (not 
its first location, but the only 
location I’ve ever known) due 
to New York’s classic rising 
rents. Patrons and theatre-
goers and customers of the 
shop have flooded the store’s 
moderately-sized 
interior 

since, 
declaring 
they 
will 

spend as much money as they 
can to attempt to make even 
the smallest dent in the shop’s 
rent cost. In addition, Lin 
Manuel Miranda, who wrote 
much of “In The Heights” in 
that very The Drama Book 
Shop basement, stopped by the 
store recently to sign copies 
of everything with his name 
on it. But even then, with this 
outpouring of support, the 
owners are unsure if they’ll be 
able to stay afloat. 

For 
some 
people, 
Pete 

Davidson and Ariana Grande’s 
breakup or Kim Kardashian 
losing a diamond earring in a 
tropical destination overseas 
hits hard, but in the past few 
days, I’ve held back tears more 
than once thinking of one of 
my favorite places in the world 
closing its doors, potentially 

ELI RALLO

Daily Arts Writer

Courtesy of The Drama Book Shop

Anyone who 

knows me 

knows that my 

two greatest 

loves are theatre 

and books. I 

cannot choose 

between the 

two, because 

they share my 

affection both 

passionately and 

evenly

CONCERT REVIEW
Mitski achieves rock star status at The Magic Stick

DEAD OCEANS

DEAD OCEANS

COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
A love letter to New York City’s The Drama Book Shop

for good. As a playwright 
and a theatre creator and an 
avid reader, I’m constantly 
terrified nobody will ever 
read my plays or stories, and 
that one day soon there will 
be nowhere to see them on 
shelves. I wonder where the 
childhood dream of being 
published on a shelf at The 
Drama Book Shop will go long 
after they’re gone. I wonder 
what young playwrights are 
supposed to do in a world that 
doesn’t seem to be buying 
enough 
plays. 
I 
wonder 

how we’re supposed to find 
communities or little safe 
havens in cities as large and 
looming as New York, if our 
safe spaces are struggling 
to survive. I wonder what 
this says about our society 
— one where it’s becoming 
increasingly easier to choose 
online ordering to standing 
outside on a cold Dec. day and 
waiting for The Drama Book 
Shop to open. Everything is an 
iPhone click away — all of our 
books and words and human 
moments. I fear there’s no 
solution. 

I want my children to see 

The Drama Book Shop and I 
want them to get the feeling I 
do when I go there: empowered 
as an artist, thrilled that 
places exist to celebrate our 

artistry 
and 
excited 
that 

there are communities for 

burgeoning 
playwrights. 
I 

want so desperately for my 

children to know book shops 
— independent book shops 
— or something, anything 
other than Amazon Prime. I 
feel foolish by adding to the 
problem. How easy it is to 
send myself books and plays 
from the comfort of my bed, 
and I feverishly and angrily 
decide to stop doing it all 
together. I need to walk to a 
bookstore, to open the door 
and feel at home in its warm 
glow, a feeling I lose when I 
order online. I am terrified 
that we are going to Amazon-
Prime away the experience 
of independent bookstores. I 
wonder again if there’s a way 
to bottle up the feeling of The 
Drama Book Shop so I can hold 
it near when I’m longing for it 
halfway across the country, or 
in a few months, when it says 
its forced goodbyes. 

But more than this, and 

maybe selfishly so, I’m sad that 
there’s a very real potential 
that I’ll never have the chance 
to see my own plays lining a 
shelf. That there will never 
come a day that a young, naive, 
freezing-cold girl with a day-
of Broadway ticket burning a 
hole in her pocket stares up 
at my name printed on the 
sleek, slim spines, wondering 
if maybe one day, that will be 
her, too. 

I wonder 

how we’re 

supposed to find 

communities 

or little safe 

havens in cities 

as large and 

looming as New 

York, if our 

safe spaces are 

struggling to 

survive

Mitski only 

has three full-

length studio 

albums under 

her name, yet 

her 21-song set 

felt surprisingly 

evolutionary for 

such a young 

artist; she 

flashed all of 

her best facets 

within an hour 

and a half

her shows to larger venues 
that can better accommodate 
her demanding vocal range 
and complex arrangements. 
But for now, she continues to 
put out incredible work that is 

deeply moving to see delivered 
live. Mitski is an artist that 
has proved her dedication to 
her art time and time again, 
and it seeps into every aspect 
of her shows, from her dancing 

and singing to her interaction 
with the crowd. Mitski is truly 
loved by her fans, and based 
on last week’s performance, 
it’s likely she truly loves them 
back.

DOMINIC POLSINELLI

Senior Arts Editor

