University of Utah Student Newspapers--The Chronicle | 2010-02-24 | Page 5

5 www.dailyutahchronicle.corn ARTS Joining a classic experience Wednesday, February 24, 2010 `Rocky Horror show' immerses audiences in play The cast, which is mostly made up of students in the ATP, will often break the fourth wall and interact with the audience when call-backs are made. John Terry has a great affinity for this in his role as Dr. Frank N. Furter, fantastically portraying the character that made both the part and its original actor— Tim Curry—famous, and even improvises extra lines during performances. A live band is used for the show's music, topping off the wholly immersive experience that the play provides. "The Rocky Horror Show" is often and deservedly placed in top-bo lists of must-see musicals. Audience members might even leave the theater with an expanded outlook on life. "For me, it preaches openmindedness," Shippobotham said. "There lurks an edgier, darker side in all of us." Devin Richey La Carreta (The Wagon), 1966, lithograph, from the permanent collection of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, purchased with funds from the Phyllis C. Wattis Endowment for Modern and Contemporary Art. Exhibit shows artist's love for Mexico Steve Coons STAFF WRITER The UMFA's exhibition of the lithography of Pablo O'Higgins seeks to introduce an artist born in Salt Lake City who is already well-known throughout Mexico. At the age of 20, O'Higgins—born Paul Higgins in turn-of-the-century Salt Lake City—wrote a letter to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Then a young artist living in San Diego, O'Higgins didn't expect to hear anything back, said Susan Vogel, whose book, Becoming Pablo O'Higgins, was published last year by Pince-Nez Press. But Rivera did write back, offering O'Higgins a job as a mural assistant in Mexico City, responsible first for mixing paints and later for painting sections of murals under Rivera's direction. O'Higgins worked for Rivera on his government-contracted murals for the Mexican Ministry of Education and on a mural for the National College of Agriculture at Chapingo, while also doing preliminary work at the National Palace. He then quit his assistantship so he could focus on his own murals and printmaking. After splitting from Rivera, O'Higgins co-founded the political printmaking workshop Taller de Grafica Popular—People's Graphic Workshop—in 1937, an organization that hoped to serve Mexico's progressive labor-rights movement by creating prints that would allow them to communicate with illiterate workers who otherwise might have been ignorant of the political process. The TGP was later labeled a subversive organization by the U.S. State Department, effectively barring members of the group from entering the United States. O'Higgins died in Mexico City in 1983. The Utah Museum of Fine Art's exhibit "Pablo O'Higgins: Works On Paper," presents 28 of O'Higgins' prints, taken primarily from local collections. O'Higgins work was heralded for the love it showed to the Mexican people, so it should come as no surprise that the images in the exhibition are almost entirely of working-class Mexicans. Former Mexican President Vicente Fox said to a group of people about to be naturalized as citizens of Mexico, "Love Mexico always, with tenderness and passion, as before you Pablo O'Higgins or Luis Bufluel did (translated from Spanish)." Vogel said O'Higgins didn't just love the Mexican people, "he desperately wanted to be accepted as a Mexican. He would get angry if he went into a restaurant and was offered potatoes instead of rice and beans." Vogel said biographers speculate that O'Higgins' progressive politics were influenced by the injustice he witnessed in Utah. His father was the judge who sentenced labor organizer Joe Hill to death, as well as a lawyer who represented mining companies opposed to union organization. Hill's trial for murder was viewed by the labor movement as a travesty of justice, and he became a powerful martyr, memorialized in countless folk songs. Vogel theorizes that O'Higgins never spoke of his childhood in Utah, partly because he didn't want people to draw the Joe Hill connection. "Pablo O'Higgins: Works On Paper," is the first of four exhibits of Mexican art and culture coming to the UMFA, a series that is highlighted by the historyspanning "Las Artes de Mexico," arriving from the Gilcrease Museum in May. [e-mail] STAFF WRITER A raunchy group has arrived from the deep, dark and wet land of Transsexual Transylvania, and its devious plots are about to be revealed at the Babcock Theatre in the U theater department's performance of "The Rocky Horror Show." Richard O'Brien wrote the show in the early 197os as a homage to classic science fiction and horror films and put an emphasis on sexuality that has hardly been topped by any works of mainstream media created since then. The plot follows Brad Majors and Janet Weiss, played by Aaron Kramer and Summer Spence, respectively, who must seek help in a foreboding castle after their car breaks down on the way to inform an old professor of their engagement. Things take a turn for the worse when the castle's inhabitants turn out to be servants of the mad scientist nymphomaniac Dr. Frank N. Furter. Majors and Weiss are soon trapped and seduced by Dr. Frank N. Furter, who has been conducting experiments to create his monster—a glittery, muscle-head boy-toy. The protagonists must learn p rip The Rocky Horror Show opened Thursday. The show takes place during the 1970s and emphasizes transsexuality. the secrets of the castle's inhabitants in order to escape serving Dr. Frank N. Furter's whims forever. The show is blatantly sexual, though no nudity or sexual acts ever take place. It is often a source of controversy when it is performed and is occasionally banned from certain areas or schools. It is a good idea for those who haven't seen the film or play before—labeled "virgins" by the cast and fans—to research the content beforehand to decide whether they will be offended. "If you wouldn't be comfortable coming, then don't come," said Sarah Shippobotham, the show's director and the head of the U's Actor Training Program. "We're not trying to ram any- thing down anyone's throat." A unique aspect of "The Rocky Horror Show" is that it has become a tradition for members of the audience to shout out "call-backs" during the performance. Call-backs are replies or actions that are used by the people watching when certain lines occur in the script. For example, it is customary for the audience to yell out "slut" whenever Weiss is mentioned by name and "asshole" for Majors. Also, people often dance during the show's big musical number, "The Time Warp," which is itself an explanation of how to perform its referenced dance. twk- I "} 1 4 0"`Pc „11 3aP{ t d.richey@ chronicle. utah.edu )lte-R-Ocky Horror Show Thursday-Sunday at 7:30 p.m. +2 p.m. Saturday March 4-March 7 at 7:30 p.m. +2 p.m. on March 6 Babcock Theatre (in the basement of Pioneer Memorial Theatre) $ 1 3 general admission, $10 faculty and staff, $7 students Buy at kingtix.com or at the door Prop sets $3 at the door A fine state of 'Affair' Alexander Bala STAFF WRITER This weekend at the Studio 115 Theatre, U student and playwright Phil Smith will see two years of hard work and creativity realized in the production of his sidesplitting farcical play, "The Affair." First penned in a playwriting class in the theater department in fall 2008, the play was then workshopped the following semester with the help of fellow students and faculty. Formerly, students had a slot to produce one-act plays in Studio 115's annual event "Experiments in Ink," which came to a halt in 2007. Based on the strength of the work, the theater department decided to give Smith a full production of his piece. The U's theater department has two theaters in which it produces shows. The Babcock Theatre, located below Pioneer Memorial Theatre, is home to the department's more extravagantly produced shows. Studio 115 is a black box theater in the Performing Arts Building, which usually hosts less-funded, more experimental productions. But the absence of a budget does not necessarily translate into a lesser product. In his seminal work, The Music choice can offer important clues about personality types eople are like films. An eye-catching cover might cue a worthy rental, but a great soundtrack can make it an instant favorite. We evaluate people like we scour a Blockbuster—like a movie cover, someone's fashion might signal similarities in personality, but we bond over the music that defines us. In "(500) Days of Summer," the protagonist, Tom, played by Joseph GordonLevitt, is smitten with Summer, played by Zooey Deschanel, long before a chance meeting in the office elevator. During the encounter, Tom's dress shirt, tie, sweater and shoulder bag clearly signal compatibility with Summer's oh-so-fashionable high-waisted pants, but ultimately it's the music that seals it. A compliment on his taste in music and a short sing-a-long to The Smiths' "There Is A Light That Never RICHARD PAYSON/The Daily Utah Chronicle Goes Out," and what follows is instant chemistry. What is it about music that so heavily influences our personality and our preferences? I once went on a date with a girl who couldn't tell me exactly what kind of music she liked, only that she liked "all kinds." The date was all but over for me at that point. It's not that I needed her to enjoy the same music I did, but I could tell by her response that she didn't want to commit to a favorite genre for fear that it might clash with my tastes. Clearly I wasn't the only one who considered music a pivotal element of personality and compatibility. ELLIOTT BUELER FULL STORY ONLINE www.dailyutahchronicle.com Junior, Mass Communication Empty Space, Peter Brook said, "A beautiful place may never bring about explosion of life... this is the mystery of the theatre." What does bring about an explosion of life is the work of the talented ensemble cast of "The Affair." Tom, played by Ward Chapman, is a grammarian and an author. His books, including The Communication of Commas, hysterically inspire women to want to sleep with him. His wife, Debra, played by Anna Schovaers, becomes sick of her husband constantly correcting her sentence structure. The two have—without the other's knowledge—arranged to have an affair on the same day. The play contains all of the classic mishaps of misunderstandings, mistaken identities and close calls. Debra's prospective love interest, Kyle, played by Chase Taylor, is a sex-obsessed sociopath who hilariously delivers lists of sexual and phallic euphemisms. Tom's prospect is his agent Karen, played by Karen Salazar, whose motto in college was, "A new guy every night." When college student Angela, played by Marin Kohler, shows up forcefully trying to sell magazine subscriptions, the frenetic buffoonery really heats up. Her wrestling match with THIEN SOK/The Daily Utah Chronicle "The Affair" is a play written by U theater student Phil Smith. The play is about a husband and wife who have separately decided to have an affair on the same day. Tom's underachieving, deluded, self-aggrandizing brother Larry, played by Drew Baker, is one of the highlights of the show. Let's not forget the 18-year-old virgin Kathy, played by Samantha Orr, who is so obsessed with Tom's books that she sneaks into his house, hoping Tom will "deflower" her. The cleverly written and charmingly delivered speech that she has prepared in anticipation of her meeting with Tom is a high point of the play. The ensemble is complete when the dim-witted Officer Wood, played by Stuart Ford, shows up to rein in the mayhem. Bob Nelson's taut direction raises the pandemonium to a fever pitch, and we learn that "an affair is harder work than a marriage." [e-mail] The Affair Thursday-Sunday at 7:30 p.m. 2 p.m. matinees on Saturday and Sunday Studio 115 is located on the first floor of the Performing Arts Building, just west of the U Campus Store. Admission is free. Website brings free humor to U Brittany Green STAFF WRITER Thursday, comedians sponsored by the website collegehumor.com will perform in the Union Ballroom at 7 p.m. College Humor, a comedy site that has more than io million readers per month, features a collection of amusing uploaded videos, written columns and pictures. Columns include confessionals about misdeeds done to roommates, complaints about ex-boyfriends and girlfriends, and mockery of non-technologically savvy parents. Comedian Dan Levy will be headlining the event. Levy, who has hosted shows on MTV and Comedy Central, is best known for his web series, including the "Ihavetogoinaminuteshow" on College Humor's website, and "My Long Distance Relationship," which has been picked up as a series on MTV. He is also set to appear in "Mardi Gras," a raunchy comedy about three friends who head to New Orleans during Mardi Gras to find an awesome party. The movie, which will be released later this year, features the everpopular Carmen Electra as well as several "American Pie" alumni. Chelsey Wilsen and Cameron Hansen from the Associated Students of the University of Utah's Presenter's Office are looking forward to the show. "We decided that College Humor would appeal to a large audience at the U," Hansen said. "Dan Levy is one of the most popular comedians from CH, and we're excited to have him as our headliner." College Humor regulars Streeter Seidell and Jeff Rubin will appear with Levy, and there will be plenty of videos and other items beyond the usual fare of stand-up comedy, so students can expect to have plenty of entertainment Thursday night. The website has also created a series of "CH Original" videos, including parodies of hits, such as "We Didn't Start the Flame War," "Brohemian Rhapsody," and "24: The Unaired 1994 Pilot." Hansen and Wilsen advise students to pick up tickets as soon as possible to avoid being stuck in standing-room only or not getting in, because the free show has been quickly running out of tickets. The event, hosted by the Presenter's Office, is free for students with a UCard and $15 for general admission. Tickets can be picked up at the Union front desk. [e-mail]