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