Thursday, April 9, 2020 — 6
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Last spring, no one could have predicted 

the economic downfall we currently find our 

country in. Meanwhile, broadcast television 

networks have been developing sitcoms based 

on the premise that everyone has extended 

family just one questionable investment or 

medical misfortune away from being forced 

to consolidate under one roof. This kind of 

uncertain economic pre-apprehension makes 

comedies like NBC’s “Indebted” and CBS’s 

“Broke” feel eerily grounded in our reality.

Even ABC has an “Extended Family Loses 

Their Fortune Forcing Multiple Families 

Under One Roof” show with “United We 

Fall,” set to premiere later this spring. These 

shows’ applicability to our current reality 

doesn’t inherently make these shows funny by 

any means, but their foresight must be worth 

something. As far as these new and suddenly 

relevant sitcom subgenres go, “Broke” probably 

has the most potential — which isn’t really 

saying much.

Marking the former “NCIS” star’s return to 

television, Pauley Perrette plays hardworking, 

bartending Jackie — the loud single mom of 

talented elementary-aged Sammy (Antonio 

Corbo, 
“Brooklyn 
Nine-Nine”). 
Jackie’s 

childhood home is practically falling apart 

when her estranged sister Elizabeth (Natasha 

Leggero, “Another Period”) and wealthy 

husband Javier (Jamie Camil, “Jane the Virgin”) 

unexpectedly show up at her front door. Jackie 

hopes to use their sudden reappearance as an 

opportunity to ask for a loan to get back on her 

feet, but little does she know that Elizabeth and 

Javier are also broke. Don’t worry, given the 

name of the show, this isn’t a spoiler. In the pilot, 

and presumably in subsequent episodes, Javier 

learns and Elizabeth re-learns to live a life 

within new financial limits. Meanwhile they 

still deal with a personal assistant named Luis 

(Izzy Diaz, “Telenovela”) because he remains 

on Javier’s father’s payroll.

Perette’s performance should only improve 

as she settles into the kind of acting necessary 

to perform in front of a live studio audience. But, 

for that to happen, the writers will need to give 

her more to work with.

There’s a clear division between Leggero 

and Perrette’s characters that enables Perrette 

to find humor in her own. Leggero’s character 

has one of those faintly British “I only started 

speaking like this after I got money” accents as 

well as a tiny dog for her purse, while Jackie’s 

personality revolves around having a son and 

being stressed about finances.

Anyone who has seen “Jane the Virgin” 

can immediately appreciate Camil’s character 

— a toned down version of the big-hearted 

actor Rogelio de la Vega, one that fits the blue-

collar atmosphere of the show as opposed 

to the extravagant one you would get from a 

telenovela. The best character, who will surely 

get more screen time as the series progresses, is 

Javier’s assistant Luis. He’s gay, but that isn’t at 

the forefront of his character, as he circumvents 

stereotypes with cleverness. There are also 

frequent interactions between Javier and Luis 

when they speak in Spanish to each other, which 

is an added layer of realism to an otherwise 

unrelatable show.

“Broke” attempts to reflect the current 

delicacy of the economy, recognizing that the 

low unemployment rate and high stock market 

aren’t benefiting all families equally.

‘Broke’ has a relevant story, 
but that doesn’t make it good

JUSTIN POLLACK

Daily Arts Writer

TV REVIEW

COMMUNITY CULTURE NOTEBOOK
Shattered dreams and new hope in ‘A Beautiful Country’

TRINA PAL

Daily Arts Writer

To Matthew Ozawa, director of the University 

production “A Beautiful Country,” the COVID-

19 pandemic has felt like “having the rug ripped 

from under you.” The intended opening night 

of “A Beautiful Country” was April 2, but, like 

so many other productions, the show has been 

canceled. 

“It’s been a crushing blow to see so many 

artists out of work and so many companies on 

the brink of closing,” Ozawa said.

“A Beautiful Country,” by playwright Chay 

Yew, would have been the fifth production that 

Ozawa, also a professional opera director, has 

directed at the University. He currently serves as 

a voice professor in the School of Music, Theatre 

& Dance. When the cast learned that University 

instruction would be shifted online, the show 

was already one month into intensive rehearsals 

six days a week, costumes were in progress and 

the production was almost completely staged. 

Ozawa is hopeful that the show can premier in 

Fall 2020, but nothing is set in stone. 

“A Beautiful Country” follows 150 years 

of Asian American history in vignettes, told 

through the eyes of Miss Visa Denied, an 

Asian male drag queen. Miss Visa Denied is a 

Malaysian Chinese immigrant, aptly named 

when his visa is denied by U.S. immigration 

authorities. The play explores this country’s 

history of xenophobia toward Asian Americans, 

assimilation and the intersecting identities 

of immigrants. In light of the COVID-19 

pandemic, these hot-button issues seem all the 

more pressing.

“COVID-19 was detrimental to what we 

were trying to show,” Music, Theatre & Dance 

sophomore Morgan Bo, an acting major cast as 

the body of Miss Visa 

Denied, said. 

The 
show 
details 

xenophobia 
against 

Asian Americans, and 

clear parallels are seen in 

the COVID-19 pandemic 

today. 
Hate 
crimes 

against Asian Americans 

have been on the rise 

over the past month. Bo 

pointed out that racial 

homogenization between 

Asian Americans and 

Asian immigrants has 

increased as well, as 

is often the case when 

a 
particular 
minority 

group becomes a target 

of racism.

“I’ve 
only 
heard 

stories like this in history 

books,” Bo said. “It says 

something about how we, 

as a world, haven’t grown 

to love each other.”

“A Beautiful Country” 

is deeply personal for Ozawa, whose father was 

raised in a Japanese internment camp during 

World War II. For him, the COVID-19 pandemic 

feels like a repeat of history. He’s scared about 

what the U.S. will look like after the pandemic 

blows over, and fears for his safety and that of 

other Asian Americans. 

“I’m sometimes shocked by how little our 

country has evolved and how we continue 

to make the same mistakes,” Ozawa said. 

“This pandemic is only 

heightening feelings that 

have existed for a quite a 

while.

Immigrants 
are 

largely 
characterized 

by their racial identity, 

often because it’s the 

most visible. But “A 

Beautiful 
Country” 

recognizes that there’s 

so much more to any 

immigrant. Miss Visa 

Denied 
has 
a 
racial 

identity as East Asian, 

a cultural identity as 

Malaysian and a gender 

identity as a male drag 

queen, among others. 

“(Immigrants) 
are 

caught 
between 
two 

continents, two cultures, 

two 
languages, 
two 

homes,” Ozawa said. 

Ozawa chose to split 

up Miss Visa Denied 

into three parts — the 

body, the voice and the soul — to show that 

immigrants can’t be homogenized into black-

and-white groups. Yet, immigrants aren’t 

writing the history of our nation, and their 

stories aren’t taught in K-12 schools. 

“Who are we listening to, and what’s being 

left out?” Ozawa said.

Bo, like Ozawa, identifies as Asian American, 

and feels strongly that this show deserves 

to be shown, especially in light of current 

circumstances. In assuming the role of Miss 

Visa Denied’s body, Bo focused on learning how 

to dress hyper-feminine and dance in vogue. 

“I learned a ridiculous amount about myself 

and my identity through playing this character,” 

Bo said. “Things were clicking, but I was 

definitely still learning as I was going.”

The messages of “A Beautiful Country” were 

special for everyone involved in the production, 

and the cast is devastated that their production 

is canceled for the foreseeable future. 

“We were creating something that was not 

only important, but was created with care,” 

Ozawa said, who made extra efforts to ensure 

rehearsal spaces were safe, comfortable and 

afforded a sense of agency for the cast. 

Yet, in the midst of this chaos, there’s still 

optimism and hope.

“When things start to restore, we as a society 

need the arts,” Ozawa said. “The arts will have 

a huge responsibility to restore our sense of 

being.” 

The pandemic may be keeping us at home, but 

this idle time is ripe for creativity and creation. 

“People have such creative minds right 

now,” Bo said. “People are going to want to do 

something where they don’t feel like they’re 

locked in. I do believe theatre will have that 

rejuvenation and renaissance period.”

Can the performing arts recover from the 

blows of this pandemic? Bo remains optimistic. 

“The theatre industry is shifting toward a 

new light,” Bo said. “A better light, hopefully.”

COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN

SAMMY SUSSMAN

Daily Community Culture Columnist

The concert hall on 
the computer screen

As a high school student, I remember asking my 

friends if they’d be interested in coming with me to 

various classical music concerts. We’d dress nicely 

— not too nicely, of course — and sit in the faraway 

student-ticket sections of incredibly high-end 

concert venues. We’d turn off our cell phones and 

disconnect from our Internet-based high school 

lives. It was the only occasion in which we would 

choose to forget about social media and virtual 

interaction for hours at a time.

Back then, in the era before digital wellness 

became technology companies’ newest selling 

point, I wasn’t as conscious of the battle between 

the performing arts and the cell phone. I had 

witnessed the occasional pre-concert reminder to 

turn off my cell phone, of course, but that hadn’t 

become part of the concert ritual. And I hadn’t ever 

witnessed a concert designed for Internet viewers 

or social media posts.

Over the next six or seven years, I watched the 

cell phone come into conflict with the performing 

arts. First there were the musicians who stopped 

playing when ringtones interrupted their chains 

of thought. Then there were the actors who 

called out audience members for recording their 

performances, sometimes even weaponizing 

ushers as a means of ensuring they didn’t end up 

online.

Artists began to describe the fight against cell 

phones as a desire to control how their artistic 

work is shared and consumed. They didn’t want 

unauthorized recordings to make it to the Internet 

— they didn’t want to discourage people from 

buying tickets. And in many cases, artists said cell 

phones distracted them from producing their best 

work. These practices were strongly discouraged 

but never expressly banned.

However, at a performance by Hasan Minhaj 

last year at the Michigan Theater, I had my first 

experience with a mandatory cell phone ban — I 

had my phone locked in a magnetically-sealed 

pouch at the door to enter the theater. This was a 

precaution, Minhaj’s production company claimed, 

meant to ensure that none of the jokes from his 

upcoming show ended up online. It was the only 

way that he felt comfortable trying out new jokes 

and new ways of telling these jokes.

While I could understand this rationale, it 

felt more punitive to me than preventative. Had 

the trust between artists and audience members 

completely disappeared? Were comedians this 

distrustful of their fans, that to prevent an errant 

joke from becoming a Twitter trend they were 

forced to lock away our cell phones?

And what did this say about the human 

condition, about our constant need to record and 

digitize our experiences? I remember sitting with 

a friend before the event started, trying to make 

small talk in a time we both knew would normally 

be spent in our respective digital spheres. The cell 

phone had begun to encroach on the sanctity of the 

performance; during intermissions playbills were 

gradually replaced with my cell phone. 

Yet at that performance, I enjoyed not having 

the ability to check my phone between acts. I loved 

talking to my friend about it afterward, neither of 

us feeling any pressure to immediately re-enter 

our digital lives once the entertainment had ended. 

And I began to wonder if Minhaj acted in our 

best interest. Were we becoming addicted to our 

phones — addicted to the point that they needed 

to be locked away from us if we wanted to enjoy 

a concert? Was the locking of our phones just as 

much in our interest as it was the artist’s?

The play explores this 

country’s history of 

xenophobia toward Asian 
Americans, assimilation 

and the intersecting 

identities of immigrants. 
In light of the COVID-
19 pandemic, these hot-
button issues seem all the 

more pressing

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

Read more online at 

michigandaily.com

