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Arts
Wednesday, December 11, 2019— 5A

“There’s no place like home for the holidays.”
This lyric from the popular song “Home
for the Holidays” has become a staple of the
holiday season. However, while rampant
global consumerism and capitalism wants us to
believe the holidays are filled with gingerbread
houses and smiling grandmas, that is simply
not the case for many Americans. Many of us
(especially those in the LGBTQIA+ community)
search for a home away from home during the
holiday season. At least, that’s what Taylor
Mac, co-director and star of “Taylor Mac’s
Holiday Sauce” did. According to their website,
“Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce” is a “two-hour
intermission-less extravaganza (musical show)
for an adult, gay-friendly audience.”
In an interview with “Q Voice News,” Mac
(who uses the pronoun “judy” lowercase sic
unless at the start of a sentence) described
judy’s holiday experience as “tortorous and
homophobic.” Mac said, “‘Holiday Sauce’ is a
tribute to my drag mother, Mother Flawless
Sabrina. I went to a Christmas party and a
couple of holiday parties at her house. They
were the best. The parties were so freeing. I
didn’t have to hang out with family. I could be
myself. It was a loving environment.”
“Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce” is brought to
Ann Arbor by the University Musical Society.
Mac, along with a “spectacular” band and
surprise special guests, will take the stage of
the Power Center Sat. Dec. 14 at 8 p.m. and Sun.
Dec. 15 at 4 p.m.
“Taylor grew up queer and went on to
find a found family in New York City,” said
Co-Director of “Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce”

Niegel Smith in an interview with The
Daily. Smith and Taylor are longtime artistic
collaborators. “Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce”
is just another one of their collaborative
masterpieces.
“Taylor and I are working to make the culture
we want to see in the world,” Smith said. The
performances in “Taylor Mac’s Holiday Sauce”
contain a celebratory and healing culture
that extends to its audience, too. The audience
members, many who may or may not find solace
in going home for the holidays, can certainly
find an exciting home for themselves while
watching the performance.
“I hope everyone is a little surprised and
delighted, and we center our elders and those
who came before us. You’ll know what I mean
by that when you come to the show,” Smith said.
Like its audience, the show itself is changing
and growing with the times. “Each iteration
(of) the work changes … constantly evolving
as we evolve and as our world evolves,” Smith
said.
The show skillfully uses costuming to
comment on our ever-changing world. Costume
designer Machine Dazzle has created costumes
that can be considered characters of their own.
“There is a maximalism in Machines’
aesthetic. Inside each costume are added
layers that slowly reveal themselves,” Smith
said. “Machine is looking to not only express
the character with the costumes but to show a
deeper message beneath.”
The costuming for this show is incomparable
to almost everything in our current theatrical
landscape.

‘Holiday Sauce’ hits home

COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK

ALIX CURNOW
Daily Arts Writer

Shia LaBeouf has always been a character. In 2014, at the Berlin Film
Festival, he wore a paper bag over his head reading “I am Not Famous
Anymore.” Later that same year, he performed #IAMSORRY, where
he wore the paper bag again and let people visit him in a room while
he sat silently, sometimes weeping. On top of these performances
were multiple arrests for public drunkenness, that culminated in a
2017 incident after which he attended a 12-step rehab and anger
management program. That is where “Honey Boy,” written by
LaBeouf and directed by Alma Har’el (“LoveTrue”), was written.
In an opening montage centered around LaBeouf’s breakthrough
in the early 2000s, Otis, LaBeouf’s cinematic alter ego played by
Lucas Hedges (“Boy Erased”), falls apart in a booze soaked spiral as
he films blockbuster after blockbuster. It’s jarring, almost painfully
so, making it the perfect way to convey a fractured, addicted
headspace. After a horrific car wreck and an arrest where he spars
with police officers, Otis is sent to rehab.
Then the movie jumps to Otis’s childhood. Noah Jupe (“A Quiet
Place”), a child actor, plays young Otis. His father, played by LaBeouf,
acts as his chaperone. He’s a recovering alcoholic and convicted
felon, constantly hitting on the nearest woman and reminding anyone
and everyone about his glory days as a rodeo clown. He’s latched onto
his son for the money from his acting success, not to right any wrongs.

Yet this is no caricature — LaBeouf has never performed this well
or this honestly. Playing his own father, LaBeouf wears his heart on
his sleeve. He’s not afraid to rip it to shreds right in front of one’s eyes.
The bulk of the movie is conversations between Otis and his father,
with each character asking for what the other cannot give them. Otis
needs a stable adult in his life, while his father wants his son to forgive,
condone and encourage his bad choices. While their relationship
is anything but healthy, there’s still love between them, which, for
better or for worse, makes it hard for either of them to step away.
Adult Otis watches this all play out with the audience, trying
to come to terms with it. The rehab scenes are just as honest as

the
flashbacks,
with
LaBeouf
psychoanalyzing his own anger
issues, narcissism, trauma and
addiction. It’s incredibly brave.
“Honey
Boy”
is
a
riveting
dialogue between past and present;
between violence and trauma. It’s
genuinely heartbreaking. There
are no easy answers, and one gets
the sense that LaBeouf himself
still isn’t sure how to feel about his
father.
Looking
back,
LaBeouf’s
performance art doesn’t seem
so silly. Of course he would try
and avoid fame after what his
childhood was like. Plus, what’s so
different between making a movie
like “Honey Boy” and sitting alone
with strangers and crying one’s
eyes out, laying personal trauma
bare for all the world to see? It may
not be the most subtle, structured
or healthy way to go about things,
but it makes for remarkable
cinema.

‘Honey Boy’ is a heartbreaking look at past & present

FILM REVIEW

ANDREW WARRICK
Daily Arts Writer

Honey
Boy

State Theatre

Amazon Studios

“Reprisal” thinks it’s really cool. And you know
what? It’s right. “Reprisal” is cool. It’s a gorgeous
blend of neon lights, Lolita sunglasses, dank motel
rooms, rusty hot rods and sequins on burlesque
costumes. The time period is hazy — flip phones
are as present as pastel rotary landlines. “Reprisal”
has a lot going for it. Whether it’s enough to be truly
worthwhile remains to be seen.
The story, while presented as twisted and
complex, is rather simple: A man betrays a woman.
The woman gets revenge. The man
and woman in question, however,
are brother and sister. Together,
they make up a sibling team who
run a vaguely Southern, extremely
violent gang called the Banished
Brawlers. Picking up years after
her brother Burt left her for dead,
“Reprisal”
follows
Katherine
Harlow (Abigail Spencer, “Mad
Men,”) now under the alias Doris
Quinn. Since her brush with death,
Doris married a wealthy Detroit
restauranteur with a terminal
illness, so she eventually can collect
his inheritance.
Meanwhile, a former employee of Doris,
Ethan Hart (Mena Massoud, “Aladdin”) arrives
at Burt’s Bang-a-Rang, a no-holds-barred night
club operating as the Brawlers’s headquarters.
Ethan is soon recruited by a smaller group called
the Three River Phoenixes to help transport
contraband between the Bang-a-Rang’s various
branch locations. As a Phoenix, Ethan meets —
and becomes infatuated with — the club’s star
pin-up girl Meredith (Madison Davenport, “Sharp
Objects”) who happens to be the daughter of the
gang’s leader, Burt Harlow.
As Ethan gains trust with the Phoenixes, he
communicates his successes with Doris, who has
been slowly building a gang of her own to take
down the Brawlers from the inside. With the help of
two small-time criminals and her timid daughter-

in-law, Doris sets out to reclaim her identity as
Katherine and destroy her brother’s empire.
Despite its solid concept and striking exterior,
“Reprisal” starts off slow and relies on gratuitous
violence and trite mobster-movie dialogue to
bide time before Doris/Katherine can get bloody
revenge. Within the first four episodes, the show
sets up so many subplots for minor characters that,
even with a flawless look, the story feels messy and
disorganized.
Rather than explore the nuances of Doris’s story,
“Reprisal” sets up every character as seeking their
own individual form of redemption. Ethan’s wanted
for murder in Michigan. Meredith searches for her
missing stunt-woman mother and
sells dangerous hallucinogens to
bankroll her investigation. Gang
elder Joel (Rodrigo Santoro, “300”)
leads the Brawlers while trying
to raise his young daughter away
from the violence. Burlesque emcee
Queenie (Lea DeLaria, “Orange
Is the New Black”) tries to assert
herself as a valuable member of
the gang. As the season progresses,
“Reprisal” starts feeling more like a
TV-MA version of “Riverdale” than
a coherent, adult drama.
The stakes of “Reprisal” are
constantly changing, and, as a
result, the pacing of the show suffers. One minute,
a room of bikers are getting murdered. The
next, a girl watches a home video from the ’70s.
Yet, somehow, both moments are still boring in
comparison to the very best of the show’s visuals.
In trying to cross over into multiple genres and
aesthetics, “Reprisal” can’t settle on what actually
works.
“Reprisal” may not be the next “Sopranos”
or “Sons of Anarchy.” It may not be the most
innovative or compelling thing on TV right now. It
may not even be the best “woman seeks revenge in
patriarchal system” show on Hulu at the moment
— looking at you, “Handmaid’s Tale.” However,
if “Reprisal” can figure out what its strongest
characters and story lines are, the show could end
up being just as cool as it looks.

‘Reprisal’ is try-hard TV

TV REVIEW

ANYA SOLLER
Daily Arts Writer

It turns out 2019 wasn’t the Year of the Pig:
2019 was actually the Year of the Orange. Yeah,
that’s right. But what does that mean, you might
find yourself asking. I’ll tell you. 2019 was the Year
of the Orange because San Francisco, CA’s finest,
Larry June, dropped not one, not two, but five
albums. In one year! That’s crazy. It’s like that time
in 2017 when King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
released four solo albums and one collaborative
album (with the Mild High Club). Each of those
albums had their own sound and vibe, which
was a hell of a lot of fun to listen to throughout
the year. The same goes for Larry June’s string of
releases over the past twelve months.
Two things make Larry’s historic run different
from that of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard,
though. First, he’s a rapper. Second, his five
albums were a lot more fun to listen to throughout
the year.
Larry June is such a developed and fully-
realized character that it’s hard to take him
seriously as an artist. For his entire career, he has
worked to maintain a certain persona, one that’s
carefree, loose, candid and in love with Whole
Foods. He loves his city, oranges (so much that
they’re featured prominently on a couple of his
album covers), riding his bike and looking after his
son. On the microphone, he’s a goofy character.
There’s no debating that. He’s prone to erratically
hopping on and off the beat, often just to talk shit
and stunt. He adlibs things like “good job, Larry”
and “yeehee!” at the end of damn near every line
he raps. He often relies more on his charisma
than his rapping ability to entertain listeners. He
releases a lot of music, at least a couple of times
per year. Some of it good, some of it bad, very little
of it great. But he took December of 2018 and most
of the new year’s first two months off to collect
himself. It’s a good thing he did. Starting with the
release of his first project of 2019, February’s Early
Bird, there was a new Larry in town.
Early Bird is the perfect execution of the things
everyone loves about Larry June: the ad-libs,
the rants, the health food talk, the shit talk and
the bizarre flexes. He raps about the things that
normal people talk about with their friends.
However, unlike past releases, the flows are
tighter, bars more descriptive and the sound more
cohesive. The beat selection is impeccable, bouncy
and never boring. At one point on album opener
“Lets Go Eat,” he raps, assisted by a bombastic
take on the classic Bay Area sound, “This not
a date baby girl, this just how I play / A little 65

dollars ain’t nothing to me.” That’s the Larry
everyone loves, flexing the same way an average
person would when talking about a night out.
However, Larry introduces a new side of
himself in this new project. He was seldom ever
sentimental or introspective on his previous
releases, but on Early Bird, he shows that he’s more
than just a braggadocious goofball. On the chorus
of the title track, he delves into his personal life
a bit, rapping, “To live like this, you gon have to
take Ls / You gon have to fall off, you gon have to
bounce back / Have you ever lost it all, hundred
thou to a rat / God, I’d trade everything to have
my grandma back.” Moments like these show just
how much Larry June has grown as an artist. You
can’t help but be proud of him.
His next project, April’s The Port of San
Francisco, keeps the ball rolling. This time around,
though, Larry shows off some of his versatility.
The album is slower, groovier and more intimate,
thanks to its soul-inspired sound. It’s like a loved-
up version of Early Bird, and it’s so fun to listen
to. The album reaches its climax on the Polyester
the Saint-assisted song, “Let’s Get Smoothies.” He
talks about all the things he loves about his girl,
and it’s not just the obvious things that rappers
often say when they praise their girls. He points
to her aversion to posting too much on Instagram,
and he suggests taking her biking around the
city — something that he typically only does by
himself. This album proved that Early Bird wasn’t
just a fluke and that 2019 really has been Larry’s
year.
What’s
impressive
is
that
each
release
brings something different to the table. June’s
CardoGotWings-produced Mr. Midnight brought
the extra-boastful bangers, September’s Out the
Trunk brought the chillers and October’s Product
of the Dope Game brought a street-oriented mix of
them all, like a victory lap of sorts. Each release
reveals a new dimension of Larry. The widely-
mocked rapper has transformed himself into
someone respectable.
What’s great about it all, though, is that Larry
never forgets who he is. He’s still the same Larry
on each album. He still flexes about pedestrian
things, like how much his Hydroflask cost, while
spouting motivational speeches, often on the
same song. He’s still hilarious and unleashes the
best ad-libs in the game, even if he does go a little
overboard at times (he really goes off on “Baggage
Claim”). He’s still addicted to oranges. With these
five albums, he finished carving out his own lane,
something he’s been trying to do for his entire
career. Larry is finally starting to get the love he
deserves, and rightfully so. 2019 was his year, the
Year of the Orange.

This was Year of the Orange

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

JIM WILSON
Daily Arts Writer

AMAZON STUDIOS

THE FREEMINDED / YOUTUBE

Read more at
MichiganDaily.com

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