Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Wednesday, December 1, 2021 — 5
MUSKET returns to the Power Center for a weekend of “Funny Girl” PRISCILLA KIM Daily Arts Writer
After a successful four-show run, the cast and crew of MUSKET wrapped up their production of the Broadway hit “Funny Girl” last Sunday at the Power Center. Audiences watched leading lady Fanny Brice, played by Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore Carly Meyer, go from a determined dreamer to a star whose attention every character longs for. Inspired by the real life of Fanny Brice, the musical follows the actress’s rise to fame and the effects fame had on her life off the stage. The show began with quite the entrance from Fanny. Walking from behind the audience, she made her way through the aisles to take her place at center stage. Shortly after, the first of many exclamations Fanny would make was a memorable one: “I’m a bagel on a plate full of onion rolls!” She admitted that she’s not like others, but used this fact to advocate for herself, reminding the audience that what’s more important than surface appearance is self-advocacy. As she declared herself “The Greatest Star” in one of the musical’s most iconic
numbers, other characters began to acknowledge her stardom as well. While Fanny achieved fame, she was quickly consumed by it, and those close to her worried about its effects. When Fanny entered a long and complicated relationship with the charismatic socialite and swindler Nicky Arnstein, played by LSA sophomore Sohil Apte, the two sang a series of songs that depicted their struggle to find their identities apart from each other. By the end, Fanny found clarity back on the stage, with a triumphant reprise of the iconic tune “Don’t Rain on My Parade.” Storyline aside, serving as the base for the musical’s progression was the 21-piece orchestra led by Andrew Gerace — the Music Director and LSA and Music, Theatre & Dance senior — seen swaying along to the music as he conducted. One of the musical’s most exuberant moments was the number “Cornet Man,” with trumpeter Ryan Venora, a Music, Theatre & Dance junior, onstage interacting with Fanny. Blasting like a big band, the pit orchestra showcased full energy as Fanny imitated the trumpet sounds above. Another show highlight came about midway through the first act with the number “His Love Makes
Me Beautiful” — a scene that brought in stunning solos by Meyer and Music, Theatre & Dance sophomore Alexandra Humphreys. When Meyer struggled comically up a set of stairs — a possible nod to the stairs in the 1968 film with Barbra Streisand — as a pregnant bride, her interactions with an appalled Humphreys were priceless. As the bridal scene came to an end, figures in black swiftly wheeled the stairs offstage, bringing in simple panels to transition into Fanny’s dressing room. These stagehands were a reminder of yet another team driving the production forward. The mechanism of actors onstage, musicians in the pit and stagehands worked like clockwork on the Power Center stage. With only a two-and-a-half-hour running time and a relentlessly moving orchestra below the stage, MUSKET’s production staff, completely studentrun, made a lasting impression, allowing the cast to shine. “Funny Girl” marked MUSKET’s much-anticipated return to the Power Center since halting live shows in March of last year. While the theatre group had kept itself busy at the height of the pandemic with well-produced virtual stagings of “Bright Star” and
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“Newsies,” viewers last weekend laid witness to a full range of expression from an unmasked, in-person cast, with ample distance between stage and audience.
In the words of MUSKET’s Music, Theatre & Dance senior Jonas McMullen, whose Director’s Note graces the playbill: “We are reminded why we love to gather in the theatre,
when we could not for so long.” After all the time that has passed, the celebratory nature of MUSKET’s return seemed to make their year-long hiatus well worth the wait.
One Sunday morning at the Pioneer Woods CECILIA DURAN Daily Arts Writer
I bet you can think of a song from which you can never detach a specific memory. The kind where, every time it comes on, the place you’re currently in blurs, and you’re suddenly in another space, in another time. For me, books have the capacity to bottle up feelings. “Bloom” by The Paper Kites will forever remind me of the novel “The Light Between Oceans,” and “Jolene” by Ray LaMontagne is the faint sound that accompanies any flashback I get to the novel “A Little Life.” The greatest memory-keepers, however, are walks. More specifically, what I like to call ‘thought walks,’ the ones you take when thoughts become so loud that you feel like you need to drown them out with a tune that is ten decibels too loud. As much of a coping mechanism as it is, music can also be a catalyst, an absinthe that makes a specific moment in time become ingrained in your memory forever. Let me tell you about my favorite place in Ann Arbor for those
“thought walks”: the Pioneer Woods. It wasn’t until late in my time in Ann Arbor that I found it, and I’m bitter I didn’t find it earlier. You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you the closest road to it was W. Stadium Boulevard (in my opinion, the noisiest and least appealing road in Ann Arbor). It is the place where industrial life mingles with nature. There are various entrances to the woods, so many that I am pretty sure I have yet to discover new ones. Typically, I make my way toward the small, almost rabbit-hole paths off the side of W. Stadium Boulevard. Like entering Narnia, you go from being surrounded by street signs to tall trees that drown out the hum of city life. The woods are not big — it takes less than ten minutes to cross through them — but it’s a magical place where oaks, white pines and shagbark hickories engulf you, the leaves below your feet crunching with every step you take. At the end of the woods, an arched tunnel created by bent branches leads you into a vast open space called the Greenview Nature Area. In the fall season, the meadow
grows untamed, and in the spring, the weeds turn into colorful wildflowers that become the home of 55 different kinds of butterflies. A few
the first snowfall or the first dip in the ocean after a cold winter. It felt pure, so much so that I felt like I was trespassing. Yet at the same time, I
Design by Madison Grosvenor
yards away is a little pond, seemingly so forgotten and untouched that you could imagine the water has been the same since the beginning of time. The first day I set foot in this place was probably one of the most cathartic days of my life. I experienced nature as one experiences
was welcomed, embraced by the tall weeds, calmed down by the sound they made as the wind brushed them from side to side. I sat down on one of the three logs at the top of the meadows, and here is where catharsis occurred. “One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley’s Boyfriend)” by Wilco start-
ed playing, and suddenly, breathing felt like a harder task than it usually is. I am not a crier, I never have been, but in that moment, a tear rushed down my cheek. They weren’t tears of joy, but they weren’t tears of sadness, either. I think it was my body’s way of telling me it was at peace. “Outside I looked lived in” was whispered in my ear as I took everything in. Those twelve melodic minutes glued every detail in the scenery to the twists and turns of the phrases, the piano motifs and the painfully honest lyrics. I had felt like this before, but it’s not often that a song and a landscape leave you gasping for air. I don’t mean to sound melodramatic, exaggerated or even absurd, but I really mean it. A song, “One Sunday Morning,” and a landscape, the Pioneer Woods, had caused a perfect chemical reaction — liberation pickled with sadness. Not out of grief, but by the mere fact that I couldn’t live in that moment forever. I knew I could still go back to the Pioneer Woods whenever, but it just wouldn’t be the same. Life isn’t static. It’s ever-changing, and I am a different person every time I go
back — even if only two days go by between visits. But for twelve minutes, despite what I may be going through, despite the weather or the season or the reason for my escape, the warm tenderness that I bottled up one afternoon in May becomes present. I cannot come to these woods and not listen to “One Sunday Morning.” I make it a ceremony, actually, a ritual to see how this song morphs as I myself morph — reading between the lines and seeing details of the landscape I hadn’t seen before. It’s all part of a continuous narrative, one which parts me from the acceptance that that tenderness will never be as strong as the first day I encountered this safe haven. Songs being memory boxes is a universal phenomenon, I think, or at least I hope it is. So I reveal my secret, my little treasure — it would be selfish not to. I think everyone should know this feeling of release through alignment. So go out to the Pioneer Woods and allow yourself to feel, whatever that means. The Wilco prayer said it first: “Something sad keeps moving, so I wandered around. I fell in love with the burden, holding me down.”
The cultural impact of Noodle the Pug HANNAH CARAPELLOTTI Daily Arts Writer
A semester in Washington, D.C. Keeping a priceless opportunity within reach • Financial support available • • Open to all majors • • Earn a full semester of credit • • Network with experts • • Gain work experience through internships •
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Produced by Michigan Creative, a unit of the Office of the Vice President for Communications. MC190193
“Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to yet another round of Bones or No Bones: the game where we find out if my 13-year-old pug woke up with bones, and, as a result, we’ll find out what kind of day we’re going to have.” This is how Jonathan Graziano opens almost every one of his TikTok videos featuring his adorable pug, Noodle. For over a year now, Graziano has made jokes about Noodle having “no bones,” flopping back down on his bed every time he has to get up to go for a walk or use the bathroom. In the last couple of months, Graziano has begun posting daily “readings,” in which Noodle’s having bones (or lack thereof) determines how our day will go as well. “It’s kind of like reading tea leaves,” he says in one video. A “bones day” is a sign of good luck, and we’re supposed to treat ourselves and go after the things we want. A “no bones day” is not necessarily a bad thing, though. Graziano recommends we use the day for self-care, and just take it easy. For those of us lucky enough to have these little videos cross our “For You” pages, Noodle has quickly grown into a cultural phenomenon. Graziano currently has 4.5 million followers on Tik-
Tok, and #Bones and #NoBones have hundreds of millions of views as well. Creators are writing songs about Noodle, designing “bones day” animations and 3D-printing wallet-sized displays to help keep track of each day’s reading. Noodle’s fame is not limited to TikTok, as he and Graziano have made appearances on several talk shows and most notably, Noodle was canceled by Rolling Stone. There’s merchandise available just about everywhere, and teachers are even incorporating the lingo into their classrooms. I’ve heard stories of students in class crowding around someone’s phone to watch the daily reading once it’s been posted. So why does it concern me to see some people taking these forecasts a little too seriously? Sometimes the videos under the Bones/No Bones hashtags are clearly just meant to be funny, but other creators seem to be basing their day on whether an old dog stands up or not. This isn’t the first time that the general public has taken the “advice” of an animal. We have an entire holiday built around it. Instead of controlling the weather, Noodle con-
trols people’s moods and energy, like a version of spoon theory for Gen Z. Why do we feel like we need an excuse to have a good day, or to take it easy? If I had to guess, I’d say this is one of the ways we’re coping post-pandemic. Most of us are back in person now, whether it’s for school or for work. Having spent the last year and a half adjusting to
isolation, I’ve found it’s an equally big adjustment to leave. Being expected to return to our normal workload is exhausting, and some of us still need a break but don’t feel like we’re allowed to take it. Noodle is our current solution to this problem, providing us with either the justification for taking that break or motivation to keep going. As one creator put it, “The entire world is revolving around Noodle right now, and we are okay with that because he came to us in a time of need.” There’s no telling how much longer Noodle’s fame will last, but for now, he’s helping us feel better — and looking cute while doing it. Design by Maggie Weibe
