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October 24, 2019 - Image 5

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Text
Publication:
The Michigan Daily

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With the word “magic” in the title, “The Magic Flute”
is bound to be an exciting adventure. The famous tale
by composer Amadeus Mozart details the love story of
Tamino, a young traveler, and Pamina, daughter of the
Queen of the Night, and the trials Tamino has to endure
to rescue Pamina and be together. What made this
performance magical was not fairy queens or enchanted
trials, but the expert blend of cultures, stories and
realities.

The Isango Ensemble, a collection of South African
performers of all ages, is a unique group that reimagines
Western theatre classics in a South African context.
Blending cultures, races and experiences, the group
presents innovative works that transform a famous
classic into a seemingly entirely new story. They
bring their works of cultural fusion all over the world,
including a variety of people into the conversation. Their
production of Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” was one of
their many ingenious inventions of taking a while known
classic and making it almost unrecognizable in the best
possible ways.
Milling around the Power Center stage before the

show, the cast chatted with each other, looking out into
the growing house, making the audience feel comfortable
in their unexpected, un-operatic surroundings. The
actors doubled as the musicians, with the music director
taking on just as big of a role onstage right next to them.
Everything about this performance was exposed:
the wings and the roof of the stage were uncovered,
there were barely any props, all the trials that Tamino
went through were portrayed by actors shaking sheets
with Sharpie letters on them. Yes, having the set of an
internationally touring show consist of bedsheets was
a bit perplexing. But in the context of the show — with
dustbins for drums and recycled bottles for sounds — it
made perfect sense. The set let the performance speak
for itself
This version of the famous opera was unexpectedly
humorous and playful. Papageno, Tamino’s sidekick,
stole the show with his hilarious side comments and
facial expressions. The Spirits were portrayed as a version
of The Supremes, dancing in different sixties inspired
costumes and hyping up the playful, snapping trio image.
Papageno even made a reference to Gloria Gaynor and
her famous song “I Will Survive.” All of these little quirks
made the show accessible and interesting. It drew the
audience in and made us feel like we were a part of the
show ourselves.
The most compelling part of this show was the
beautiful blend of cultures. Languages blended together
seamlessly, weaving in and out of dialogue and song. But
no matter what language scenes were done in, everything
was still understandable. If one actor began speaking in a
different language, not only would that actor still succeed
in getting her point across, but the scene partner would
pick up the slack and her reactions would explain the
scene.
These intercultural conversations that the Isango
Ensemble perpetrated are what push theater to progress.
Just performing the same shows the same way does
nothing to enhance the narrative. Innovation and
creativity leads to discovery, all of which is presented in
the works of the Isango Ensemble.

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Thursday, October 24, 2019 — 5

While nothing of the type quite exists, the closest
thing to a surefire formula for a successful TV show
is following a group of absurd characters with hefty
delusions of grandeur. From David Brent and Michael
Scott in both versions of “The Office” to Jimmy Shive-
Overly in “You’re the Worst,” we love characters
whose egos are only eclipsed by their incompetence.
BBC Three’s “People Just Do Nothing,” in its five
short seasons, perfected this formula yet remains, to
this day, criminally underappreciated compared to its
inspirations.
This “Office”-style mockumentary centers around
Kurupt FM, a pathetically small pirate radio station
based out of Brentford in West London. Run by “MC
Grindah” (Allan Mustafa) and “DJ Beats” (Hugo
Chegwin), the illegal setup has an operating radius
of about two blocks, but doesn’t stop the pair from
deluding themselves that they take over the London
airwaves every time they play. Other staff include
“Steves,” a stoner who displays infrequent flashes of
remarkable intelligence and Decoy, the straight man
to Grindah’s overall outrageousness.
Despite the fact that each of these characters are
noteworthy on their own, they are eclipsed by one of
the most absurdly funny characters ever to grace a TV
screen: Chabuddy G (Chabuds to his mates, Charlie
to his colleagues), portrayed by Asim Chaudhry.
Also known as “Brown Casanova” and the “Mayor
of Hounslow,” he is a potent combination of Alan
Partridge and the aforementioned David Brent/

Michael Scott all rolled into one. A self-proclaimed
“entrepreneur,” he provides most of the “resources”
to the Kurupt FM crew as well as his own products,
including a vodka made of window polish which he
markets as “Polish vodka” as a legal loophole.
Perhaps the show’s biggest asset is the chemistry
that the cast has built up over the years. Before the
show even piloted, most of the actors on the show
worked together on a YouTube sketch series which
parodied the underground radio stations that
permeated the grime/garage scene in the UK, a scene
which many of the actors were themselves a part of.
As Sam Wallaston of The Guardian points out in an
interview with the cast, the show is both a parody and
a homage to that world, down to the “music samples
and trainer [sneaker] brands,” not to mention the
glorious array of tracksuits.
While the relatively niche aspects of the music are
important to the show, the charm comes from the basic
fact that most of the characters are blithering idiots, or
at least they seem to be. Apart from Chabuddy G, it is
difficult to tell just how self-aware the characters are.
Grindah tries to convince us that his daughter with
his girlfriend Miche (Lily Brazier) appears mixed-
race (despite both parents being white) because he is a
quarter cypriot, when it is clearly obvious that Decoy
(who is Black) is the actual father. Miche, a hairdresser,
herself tries to convince herself that it is her destiny
to become a celebrity and that her boyfriend (later
husband) is actually more than a musically hopeless
MC. Yet at the end of the day, don’t we all have our own
hopeless delusions about who we are and who we will
be? As the Kurupt FM crew show, maybe that’s fine

‘People Just Do Nothing’:
Mockumentary perfected

DANA PIERANGELI
Daily Arts Writer

TV NOTEBOOK

Isango Ensemble’s fresh
take on ‘The Magic Flute’

SAYAN GHOSH
Daily New Media Editor

Harry Styles’s “Lights Up” marks a two-
year gap between the releases of his last two
singles. His presence never evaded the public
eye, but the tribulations and subtleties of his
personal life was never at the forefront. He
coasts along in interviews with a sheer cheeky
charm that never conveys too much and seldom,
if ever, brands the gossip magazines you find
at the grocery store. An artist to his very
core, he captivates us in grand, eye-catching
statements. Blooming from the teen heartthrob
image of One Direction, he shed the wrapping
but wore the attention on his sleeves. These

were the sheer Gucci sleeves he co-hosted the
Met Gala with this spring, the unrecognizable
fervor he brought to the role of British soldier
Alex in Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” the
melodramatic, spiraling six-minute lucid dream
of his 2017 single “Sign of the Times.”
“Lights Up” is a move no different. Clocking
in at less than three minutes long, it is literally
half the length of “Sign of the Times.” The
’70s-inspired rock balladry makes way for a
soulful airiness, a melange of synth, guitar,
keys and choir music that sparkle with sweat.

The lyrics pour out in abstracts, “I’m sorry by
the way / Never coming around / Be so sweet if
things just stayed the same,” a seemingly hazy
cliche. But with a release on National Coming
Out Day, “Lights up and they know who you
are / Do you know who you are?” plays out a
grander proclamation.
Regardless of whether the fan speculations
hold true, Styles furthers the idea of a coming-
out statement in the “Lights Up” music video. No
formal narrative or symbol congeals the overall
plot; instead, glimpses of a glimmering, sweaty
Harry Styles grace the screen. Set completely
in the dark, it shines in bursts of green, red
and white lights that alternate and illuminate
Styles’s journey throughout the video. The
images feels otherworldly as Styles traverses
through them effortlessly. At the
very focal point, he is entangled
within
a
throng
of
sensuous
admirers of all genders. They
glisten under a pale neon-green
light, pressing their barebodies
against Styles’s as he sings. Other
images fill in gaps between this
scene, namely one of Styles seated
back-to-back on a motorcycle with
an anonymous chauffeur and one
of him partially submerged in
water while wearing a sequined
suit, reflected over a version of himself in boxer
shorts.
The significance behind these images and
the video are dubious, but they are imbued in
an ether of sensuality. They oscillate between a
desire for exploration and a visible frustration
on Styles’s face in some cuts, culminating to
an unconventional, almost strange aura as
we struggle to pinpoint the ramifications of
Styles’s situation. But for a song that questions
if you know who you are, such imagery seems
appropriate.

Harry Styles ‘Lights Up’

DIANA YASSIN
Daily Arts Writer

Since its release at the close of September, Ryan
Murphy’s “The Politician” has gotten its shine from six
days to Sunday. And rightly so — the writing, while a
bit ham-fisted even for the Netflix generation’s answer
to “Bonfire of the Vanities,” dives head first into the
kinds of topics that can easily veer into trivializing
and exploitative landscapes with aplomb. It does so by
immediately going for the jugular, hitting you upside
the head with the bluntness of its message in the most
camped up, almost-derisive fashion, discrediting
itself and rendering all defenses null before it actually
starts to hit home. The tangled relationship between
emotional centeredness and youthful ambition,
the ever-climbing bar for achievement cloaked in
little more than sheer existential dread, what it
means to be your “authentic self,” the simultaneous
condemnation and idolization of extreme wealth
and all the particulars of loneliness, anxiety and
depression (especially in reference to queerness) are
baked into a televised sheet cake both indelicately and
with great care.
The real storytelling jewels, however, lie in
the show’s visuals. The dichotomy of reality and
the common portrayal is co-signed by an endless
cornucopia of truly fabulous backdrops. The makeup
of each scene — how every room is decorated and
the way the architecture helps inform the space, the
personal styling of each character and how it betrays
their intentions, while placing them neatly into the
overall visual narrative — lifts an immense amount
of weight. It’s a classic Ryan Murphy spectacle with
every still, but the ideas expressed are so clear and
immediate that there isn’t any real margin of error. It
serves as a reminder of just how much can be said of
oneself when you dress with intention.
Not everybody gets to be Gwyneth Paltrow,
trimming her hedges in a poppy red Carolina Herrera
gown and matching crochet gloves or a downtrodden
Lucy Boynton furiously practicing her serve in the
middle of the night in tennis whites, complete with a
bold-striped cashmere sweater that says TENNIS on
it (and neither are necessarily intended as realistic
options). Embodying a character can afford the
opportunity to escape from the mores of commonly
accepted personal styles and the wider norms that

inform them. The characters of “The Politician”
succeed so thrillingly in their personal style because
they poke fun at their identities, at the pomp and
circumstance of getting dressed for a particular role
and all that comes with it. The downright comedic
drama that comes with their wares doesn’t exist off-
screen, but a touch of self-awareness and a willingness
to subvert our chosen roles can go a long way.
I find gender so interesting because it completely
eludes me. When I think of myself in my own private
headspace there is no underlying status that feels like
home, and I think a very large part of why I, along with
many members of the queer community, so prefer
to be alone is because that untetheredness becomes
real when you’re around other people. To defy
something so ingrained in how people conceptualize
themselves and go about their life, or even to feel like

what you project doesn’t quite fit, is to be forced to
think about all of the different places it’s steeped in. It
is to be conscious of it, all the time, and every choice
in how you represent yourself can quickly feel like a
negotiation as a result. As hard as anyone can try, there
is no vacuum you can self-actualize in. We are raised
through a series of negotiations between who we are
and what we’re born with, and pursuing concepts, as
opposed to perceptions, is one way to create a home
within yourself. It’s a way to put yourself in the driver’s
seat, to self-satirize, to navigate the social pressures
we inevitably adhere to in some way or another with a
little bit more agency.

Velveteen Dreams: ‘The
Politican’ & embodiment

SAM KREMKE
Daily Style Columnist

STYLE COLUMN

ERSKINE RECORDS LIMITED

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW

To defy something
so ingrained in how
people conceptualize
themselves and go about
their life, or even to feel
like what you project
doesn’t quite fit, is to be
forced to think about all
of the different places it’s
steeped in

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

ISANGO ENSEMBLE

Lights Up

Harry Styles

Columbia Pictures

Blending cultures, races
and experiences, the group
presents innovative works
that transform a famous
classic into a seemingly
entirely new story

VICELAND

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