Live Performance Review

No self-respecting theatre company can resist performing Shakespeare at least once a year and over the past weekend the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre, & Dance hosted a production of William Shakespeare’s classic problem play All’s Well That Ends Well. This is one of the Bard’s lesser-known works (as much as any of Shakespeare’s plays can be considered less known) and Michigan decided to stage the drama entirely with musical theatre students as opposed to the more traditional dramatic actors. This was a fascinating decision but also one that seemed to also reflect the depths that were sometimes left unplumbed by the actors at times. Michigan also decided to move the setting of the play up to the 1950’s which was a very inspired choice and which showed the versatility of Shakespeare’s drama.
The plot of All’s Well That Ends Well revolves around the love of Helena, a lady-in-waiting to the dowager Countess of Roussillon for the Count Bertram who initially rejects her and thusly, she is forced to resort to trickery and deception to gain his love. Indeed, the character of Helena is very much in line with the long list of Shakespearean women, in both comedy and tragedy, who are very proactive and push forward the actions of the play, which was not the case in much of the drama produced during the playwright’s time. This characteristic helps keep the play relevant to the modern audience and was something that the production illustrated, showing the centrality of women to the medieval court.
The modernized dress was a success as the director seemed to be aiming to emulate the popular 1950’s style that he inundated popular culture lately and seen in the television show Mad Men and films such as Far from Heaven. The court was transformed into what seemed like a large sitting room in a 1950’s style home. The actual text was not changed and remained in the original Shakespearean blank verse. The actors managed to often catch the musical nature of the text but also just as often, were unable to provide the dramatic heft that was sometimes required by the situation. Tyler Jones, who played Bertram, was able to capture the mercurial nature of the Count and also imbued his lines with the type of nobility that would benefit his status. He managed to portray Bertrand, who in reading the text seems quite worthless, as someone that Helena would reasonably want to pursue. Laura Reed did not do as successfully in her portrayal of Helena, the major character of the play and she seemed to often be struggling to present a multifaceted presentation of the character as someone other than a desperate woman. She also did not really portray the character as someone with a goal but rather someone who just seemed to be flailing away at whatever she could find.
This production of All’s Well That Ends Well was a mixed bag though it certainly deserves applauds for its attempt to bring a different perspective to the well-worn drama. The musical theatre cast did not necessarily live up to expectations but Tyler Jones’ acting and the costumes helped the show to leave a few memorable impressions and the night was not entirely a waste.

Final Paper Prompt

I was thinking of doing the critical profile personality piece for my final paper and I thought that a really fascinating person to do it on would be Morrissey. In the past few years, Morrissey has become exceedingly relevant again and has since himself become perhaps more popular, at least in the States, than he has even been in his career and he has also continued to be in the news for his often highly controversial and highly quotable statements. His visibility has also been raised by all the bands that have cropped in the wake of the Smiths and which profess their undying love for the man and his music; these bands are at the cutting edge of music today and they have brought even more wide renown to the formerly “Cult” singer.
I have been a big fan of Morrissey for a long time and feel that he is a unique figure in popular culture in the way that he has synthesized his influences, from as disparate sources as Oscar Wilde and Richard Burton, and made them into something new. He is especially irregular when considered in the framework of modern popular music where most male singers do not croon as he often does, especially in his late work, nor do they write from third-gender standpoints or from such a seemingly “blues-oblivious” viewpoint. He also is a singer who continues to be visible through regular album releases and tours with a good amount of drama always surrounding him though he also manages a great mystique about him, especially in regards to his sexuality and private life.



A few sources:

Goddard, Simon. Mozipedia: The Encyclopaedia of "Morrissey" and the "Smiths". Sheffield: Ebury Press, 2009.

Woods, Paul. Morrissey in Conversation: The Essential Interviews. London: Plexus Publishing, 2007

Pauline Kael: The Critic as Cultural Force

Pauline Kael, the longtime film critic of The New Yorker, is often considered the pre-eminent American film critic of the twentieth century. Her influence is felt, even after her death by the legions of her disciples such as A.O. Scott and Roger Ebert who fill the rank of film critics throughout American media. Unlike critics such as Andrew Sarris or Francois Truffaut, Kael did not formulate film concepts but rather attempted to throw out any pretense of being objective and wrote in the vernacular so that the public at large could more easily understand her. Kael’s criticism continues to be historically important and her work is more interesting, independently of the films that she describes, than most of her contemporaries though she is also guilty of a sometime didactic in her views and a later propensity for advancing movies that she creative input into or that were associated with friends of hers. Kael was at least consistent in her dislike of figures such as Clint Eastwood or David Lean.
Kael has made an indelible mark upon both film critics and filmmakers and her contentious reviews for The New Yorker brought the film critic a larger place in the cultural consciousness and made it possible for critics such as Roger Ebert or Gene Siskel to gain the amount of cultural cache that they have been able to. For example, Kael’s review of Bonnie and Clyde helped that film to accelerate and eventually revolutionize the way that movies were made in Hollywood. The critic was here not just reacting to films but actually influencing the way that they were being created. In fact her enthusiasm for Bonnie and Clyde is emblematic of one of what Renata Adler in her piece House Critic refers to as Kael’s “frissons of horror; physical violence depicted in explicit detail” (Adler, 329). This is opposed to Kael’s avowed dislike of what she termed “Fascistic” films such as Dirty Harry and Straw Dogs. Where Kael derided the vigilante violence of the aforementioned films, she engaged in what Adler describes as “physical sadism” in her journalistic prose. This violent prose can possibly be attributed to Kael’s intent to make the language of her reviews speak more the common moviegoer than to the intelligentsia but it also provides some psychological insight into her fascinations.
Lastly, Kael in her own review of Alain Resnais’ film “Hiroshima Mon Amour” lays out the high expectations for the film and then proceeds to present her own pan which culminates in her hypothetical statement “I have never understood why writers assume that repetition creates a lyric mood or underlines meaning with profundity” (Kael, 30). This is intriguing because it is precisely in Kael’s own reviewing corpus, that she utilizes repetition to underline her reception of a film. In fact, her review excoriates the “liberal intellectuals” who champion the film as much as the film itself. She includes an illustrative line of dialogue “They make movies to sell soap, why not a movie to sell peace?” (Kael, 32). This is the strongest point of Kael’s argument against Resnais’ film: Even though this is an art film, it is selling its message just the same and is no less of a commercial vehicle. This is the essence of Kael’s reviewing: while you may not agree with her opinion of a film, she challenges our understanding of the film and allows to perhaps appreciate it even more deeply and certainly in a new way.

NYT Defense

NYT Defense

My defense is on A.O. Scott’s review of the Mel Gibson vehicle Edge of Darkness. Scott
has been a critic at the Times since 2000 and also served as a guest host on the TV program
At the Movies. He also prepares video blogs on classic movies for The Times.

His review shows a clear understanding of the trajectory of Gibson’s career and a willingness to put his role in Edge of Darkness in context next to his roles in earlier films and through the namedropping of these films, he is able to wield his authority. Very importantly, in the case of Mel Gibson, Scott shows a willingness to put aside the actor’s recently very checkered past and to manage to bring an even tone to the review without mentioned his tirade against Jewish people and women.

The “but” of this article is when Scott writes that “But it turns out that the killer did not miss his target” as it sets up the humor that runs through the review and allows him to humorously state that he felt the movie did not fully add up to a well-rounded film. He also shows an appreciation of the audience that this movie is catered to and surprisingly for what is most likely seen as a star vehicle, contributes a great portion of the review to Danny Huston and Ray Winstone, the latter’s performance even being deemed “the movie’s chief pleasure”.