A&E

Tuesday, January 25, 2022

The MarqueTTe Tribune Arts & eNtertAiNmeNt

Page 8

Voices Included for People of Color Theatre launched

Created to provide more opportunities for racial minorities

By Izzy Fonfara Drewel

isabella.fonfaradrewel@marquette.edu

This year, Marquette’s theater department is launching Voices Included for People of Color Theatre. The VIP Theatre was created to provide an opportunity to minorities and people of color involved in the theater industry.

A study done by the Asian American Performers Action Coalition concluded that in the 2018-2019 season only 41.4% of actors on New York City stages were people of color. The VIP Theatre has been created to increase diversity onstage within Marquette University.

Stephen Hudson-Mairet professor in the College of Communication and associate professor of digital media and performing arts submitted a proposal for this new theater and received the university’s Explorer Challenge Grant which he used to jumpstart the program.

“I think it’s critical that Marquette has an opportunity for people of color to have both projects that are for people of color but also have opportunities within the theater program,” Hudson-Mairet said when explaining the theater.

VIP Theatre seeks to amplify the presence of people of color within theater, and their mission statement states that they desire to “provide performance and career building opportunities for the Marquette and Milwaukee communities while also providing role models of professional artists of color for our students and alumni.”

The first play from the VIP Theatre will be “The Light.” This show features only two actors; Martilia Marechal, a junior in the College of Communication, as Genesis and Joseph Brown Jr., a junior in the College of Communication, as Rashad. Genesis and Rashad are romantic partners and the play takes place on the night of their engagement, but things end up going awry.

“[The engagement] gets derailed when they spark up a conversation about one of

Photo courtesy of VIP Theatre

“The Light” is going to premiere in April 2022. The show was pushed back due to COVID-19 concerns.

Rashad’s favorite artists who has a problematic past,” Brown said. “It spirals into this whole big argument … that stems from separating the artist from the art.”

While the show was set to begin performances at the end of January, they have now been pushed to later in the semester due to concerns about COVID-19. The cast and crew are hoping to perform April 2224 and 27-30.

Most of the play’s cast, crew and production staff identify as people of color. The students are taking this show as an opportunity to put their message out there.

“I do think that this is a good thing we are integrating into the theater because I do think that not only should we expose ourselves to shows that are written and acted by a diverse set of people, but I also think these stories are important because they very much relate to today and I think that we can start good conversations,” Marechal said.

The director, Marti Gobel, who also identifies as a person of color, said she has done her best to make sure the cast and crew feel appreciated and accepted for everything they do.

With her, the students felt and Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. Gobel has also directed three previous shows with the Marquette Theatre program. Her experience means she knows the importance of having a supportive environment to work in while also pushing others toward high goals.

“I think that (support and appreciation) comes from being in a room of people like you, people that look like you, people that want to see you thrive, and how can we not in a place like that?” Marechal said.

All the support has given the students high hopes for the show, and they want to reach as many people as they can with a range of different dreams.

Brown said he wants to inspire change within the theater industry.

“I hope it brings interest to minority-told stories,” Brown said. “I think VIP is a very good step in the right direction to integrating the theater world because I think there is a lot of gatekeeping in the entertainment industry in general, and I think piquing interest in stories like these are how we are going make sure we get to that overall goal of having stories like these be told at a mainstream level.”

Carlos Alba, a junior in the College of Education and costage manager of “The Light,” said he wants to shed light on overlooked individuals.

“The hope for this show that I have is for people to realize and see how talented the underappreciated people are … because I feel so often like we are always just pushed to the side or doing things that aren’t shown as much,” Alba said.

The cast and crew ask that the audience comes in with a willingness to listen to their message.

“I hope that everyone who sees (the show) comes into it with an open mind and open heart and actually gets the awareness it’s trying to push onto the audience, and that they walk away from it taking away a new perspective,” Berry said.

The later performance dates are not fully set, but stay updated with VIP Theatre and the work they are doing within Milwaukee and the Marquette community by following @mutheatre on Instagram.

welcomed, and they trust her to help them create a show they can be proud of, said Nathan Berry, a sophomore in the College of Communication and co-stage manager of “The Light.”

“We had a good bonding moment in one of the last rehearsals where we just showed pictures of family and just laughed and cracked a lot of jokes. We shared a lot of personal stories for some nice team bonding,” Berry said.

Gobel has an extensive background in the industry, she has both acted and directed for Next Act Theatre, Renaissance Theatreworks, Forward Theatre

REVIEW: Alex’s Book Cave - ‘Project Hail Mary’

Author Andy Weir wrote award winning novel “The Martian”

By Alex Wagner

alex.wagner@marquette.edu

Ryland Grace is Earth’s last hope.

He wakes up twelve light years from Earth with no recollection of his name, identity or why he’s even there. With his two crewmates dead and memory slowly returning, he comes to the realization that he has to stop a mysterious intergalactic space microbe from causing the sun to dim which will wipe out humanity if unchecked.

No big deal right? With fuel, food, water and a science lab that any scientist would die for, the only thing he’s running low on is time. Not one to back down and with the help of an out-ofthis-world-friend, Ryland Grace may just save us yet.

Review and Rating:

“Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir was my favorite book from 2021, and everyone should read it going into 2022. Weir’s previous work includes “The Martian,” which was made into a movie with the same name starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain and Sebastian Stan in 2015.

I rented this book from the Marquette Raynor Library Dec. 19, 2021. I binge read it in two days, finishing all 476 pages well before my January 2022 return date. No joke. Weir just has this gift of making his characters likable to the average reader and making science digestible to the most scientifically illiterate person.

The main character, Ryland Grace, is full of optimism and charisma. Even in the face of this monumental obstacle, he maintains his humor and is dedicated to the task.

I did struggle with understanding the science, but to me that’s because Weir is working with more assumptions in this book than in “The Martian.” Unlike “The Martian,” we know our red neighbor very well thanks to numerous rovers and other unmanned missions.

“Project Hail Mary” takes on a lot of educated guesses about science. While all of it is grounded in real facts, some liberties had to be made. Liberties such as alien life, where Ryland meets a five-legged spider-like creature named Rocky because he looks like a rock. Rocky has no vision and is from a planet with 29 times the atmosphere of Earth. Interstellar space travel is another issue entirely. In the book Ryland and his crewmates are asleep for decades, and seemingly have no mental gaps or regressions when they wake up. I can’t fault Weir for trying. We just don’t know the effects of long term space travel on the human body or what form alien life comes in.

The main reason I want you to read this is simple: it shows the best of humanity, even if it’s fictional. When the threat of extinction looms just beyond the horizon, traditional adversaries such as China and the United States share resources, and Africa is lifted out of poverty by mass producing Astrophage, the very alien microbe threatening humanity, for fuel. Finally, the novel acknowledges our finite and fragile life on a pale blue dot in the black sea of the cosmos.

If I may digress for a moment, humans are not inherently evil. One of the first signs of civilization is a healed femur. Usually a death sentence in the wild, a healed femur shows someone nurtured and loved another person just as much — if not more — than their own. We are creatures of love, empathy and kindness — that’s what this book shows me. I give “Project Hail Mary” by Andy Weir five out of five stars. Project Hail Mary

Graphic by Lily Werner elizabeth.werner@marquette.edu

Marquette shares shows, movies watched over break

Favorites included “Death at a Funeral,” “The Unforgivable”

By Rashad Alexander

rashad.alexander@marquette.edu

The extra week of winter break gave students and faculty time to prepare themselves before the spring semester.

But the additional week gave some the chance to catch up on some movies and shows that they might not have been able to watch during the fall semester.

Here are some movies that members of the Marquette community may have had the chance to look at over the winter break.

Death at a Funeral – Netflix

You know those movies and shows that you watched as a kid, where you never really understood some of the jokes until you watch it when you’re older? This movie was one of those for me.

“Death at a Funeral” features a plethora of comedic stars, including Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Tracy Morgan and Kevin Hart. The 2010 movie is about a funeral orchestrated by Rock’s character, where things go awry very quickly, as a stranger (played by Peter Dinklage) comes to the funeral with a big secret that could tear the family apart.

The World – YouTube

Dinesh Sabu, a digital media professor in the College of Communication, saw the 2004 film over break.

“Set in a theme park in Beijing, the film follows the lives of the workers who live there. The film is a neorealist depiction of these workers lives, but as it progresses, it really turns into a heartbreaking meditation on globalization, loneliness, and desire during a period when China’s place in the world,” Sabu said in an email.

Sabu highlighted the film’s visuals and characters as the things that helped him enjoy “The World.”

“The film really balances individual characters’ desires and motivations with these larger themes and ideas (globalization, simulation, etc.), without being too heavy-handed or too conceptual. It’s also at times

just beautifully shot,” Sabu said in an email. Sabu, a filmmaker himself, said he believes that when it comes to determining if a film is worth watching, the filmmaker has to tell the story without being too obvious. “A good movie or show is one in which the filmmaker is both fully using and also expanding this language, one that doesn’t necessarily spell things out or insult our intelligence as an audience,” Sabu said. “You can usually tell within the first five to ten minutes of a show or movie if the filmmaker has what it takes.” BMF – Starz Based on the real life events of the Black Mafia Family in Detroit, the series “BMF” explains the story of Demetrius and Terry Flenory, two brothers who became part of one the biggest drug syndicates the country has ever seen. In the show, we see the repercussions of their dangerous lifestyle and how it affects their friends and families. Demetrius Flenory (known as Big Meech), is played Graphic by Lily Werner elizabeth.werner@marquette.edu by his actual son Demetrius Flenory Jr. (known as Lil Meech), which I thought was one of the coolest aspects of the series, considering how well he plays his father’s role.

The Unforgivable – Netflix

Joe D’Aloia, a senior in the College of Engineering, enjoyed the film, which starred Sandra Bullock, whose character tries to get her life together after a 20 year prison sentence.

“Bullock in the movie was just released from prison, and she becomes determined to find her little sister, who witnessed a murder that Bullock went to prison for,” D’Aloia said. “Just a heartwarming story.”

My Octopus Teacher – Netflix

Kristin Holodak, a digital media professor in the College of Communication, said it took a while for her to watch the show, but she enjoyed it when she gave it a chance. The documentary highlights a filmmaker who goes freediving and develops a relationship with the octopus in a South African bay.

“I was late to the party on that one because I had heard that it gets super sad at the end and I didn’t want that,” Holodak said in an email. “But it wasn’t really. Give it a try if you like natural history documentaries, you won’t be disappointed.”