A modern variation of a classic love story

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Obbini Tumbao shakes up Brandeis with Latin grooves

Romeo Juliet

BY MAX PRICEStaff

BY SAMANTHA SHOKINEditor

O HAPPY DAGGER: Top: Jonathan Plesser ‘12 sits on stage during a monologue in Act III of the play. Above: Jordie Goodman ‘12 engages in an on-stage battle during Act III.

Some stories are good, and some good stories are classics. But only a handful of classics are truly timeless.

Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” is the ‘classic’ example. Despite having over-analyzed it to exhaustion in our English Lit courses and having seen numerous modern-day conversions of it for television, stage, and film, this tragic tale of two young lovers held together by passion and torn apart by a clash between families is univer-sally beautiful in any medium. It has stood the test of time. It is a juicy love story, ridden with (emo)tional young romance, fist fights, and suicide, and has all the elements of a block-buster teen movie with a bit of retro jargon thrown in. It is sheer proof that along with classic literature, teen angst is relevant to any day and age.

Elana Friedland, director of Hold Thy Peace (HTP)’s production of “Ro-meo and Juliet,” seems to agree. That’s why her take on 16th century Europe is one giant anachronism, incorpo-rating everything from cell phones to police sirens to sneakers on an un-conventionally modern Shakespear-ean stage. After looking over the play this past summer, Friedland felt that the plotline was all-too-familiar, even by 21st century standards. Familiar

for a teen drama, that is—like some-thing out of a “Gossip Girl” novel. To quote the Director’s Note: “I was able to find a lot of similarities between this play and current popular media in which the lives of the powerful and wealthy are put on display for the consumption of ordinary folk.”

The opening scene of Friedland’s version of the play had me taken aback by the choice of wardrobe. I was expecting medieval robes and flowy gowns; instead I was met by tee shirts and sneakers. Yet the dia-logue was in the same Old English I was expecting, and the script had been, to my knowledge, virtually un-touched. The disjunction here was obviously intended, and only after a few scenes of being genuinely per-plexed did I get the chance to speak with Friedland and understand why.

The costume design wasn’t the only unorthodox element of this rendi-tion. Friedland made use of gender-neutral casting, which was a bit of a surprise, but only added to the effect she was trying to create: that regard-less of whatever variant factors are involved, love is always uncondition-ally defiant. (And for the record, Frances Kimpel and Liza Baessler made a very convincing Tybalt and Mercutio, gender notwithstanding).

As I walked out of Slosberg last Satur-day night, one distinct impression sur-faced my mind: “Damn, Brandeis can dance.”

For those of you who weren’t showing off your salsa skills that evening, you missed out on Ob-bini Tumbao, a wildly envigorating Afro-Cu-ban jazz ensemble. This concert was part of the World Music Series in conjunction with the Music Unites Us program, one of the crown-ing jewels of the Brandeis Music department.

The program includes an Intercultural Resi-dency series, which brings musicians to cam-pus for several days of engaging academic and cross-cultural interaction. Students and profes-sors from across disciplines are invited to expe-rience the music and spark dialogue about the role of music in our artistically globalized world.

Music Unites Us also includes a Public School Education Program that brings over 1,000 Waltham public school students to Brandeis. One faculty member confided that she loves to stick her head into Slosberg when the undeniably cute kids are there, reacting to the power of music. After watch-ing dozens of these students dash across the lawn in front of the music building, I can see why.

But audience members on Saturday weren’t pondering the anthropological or historical ques-tions of hybrid musical culture. They weren’t even thinking about the importance of transmit-ting artistic appreciation to the next generation.

In fact, if they were thinking at all, it was ei-ther about the infections rhythms that were pulsing through their veins or the delicious smell of Cuban food wafting in from the lobby.

Obbini Tumbao is a nonet established by pianist Rebecca Cline and percussionist Anita Quinto. It shouldn’t be surprising that a band led by two percussion-based instrumentalists would explode with such rhythmic intensity, but for people like me who had never heard the band before, it was exhilarating. To say that Cline and Quinto were the band leaders obscures the cooperative en-semble dynamic of the group. These were world- class musicians, and they possessed intuitive powers of musical communication such that the whole band coalesced as one living organism.

My personal favorite number was “Que Cosa Tan Linda,” by Venezuela salsa maestro Oscar de León. OT’s interpretation featured a rousing conga beat and a repeated vocal hook from Quinto and Cline that had me whistling for days. Upbeat and life-affirm-ing, this showed the band at the height of its powers.

On the other side of the spectrum was the slow, heart-wrenching ballad, “Dos Gardenias,” by bo-lero Isolina Carillo and recently popularized by the Buena Vista Social Club. It begins with a haunting, legato trumpet solo followed by a flow-ing vocal interpretation amidst tumultuous piano chords. It was a testament to the band’s dexter-ity that it can go from one style to another in the blink of an eye while infusing each with soul.

An orignal Anita Quinto composition, Parece Pero No Lo Es” also integrated nicely into the set. Borrowing from mainstream Latin pop conventions and their characteristic rhythmic interplay, the song incorporated some of the band’s disparate influences.

About half way through the set, Quinto ac-knowledged, “The applause is nice, but we’re a dance band!” A few dozen brave souls took the hint and jumped into aisles, shaking their hips ec-statically. Let me just say that any band capable of bringing out the inner salsa-dancing party animal from the average Brandeisian is worth my money.

2.0

PHOTOS BY Max Shay/The Hoot

VERSION

See SHAKESPEARE p. 12

October 30, 2009 Diverse City 11

VISIONS

A HalloweenTradition

Photos and Carvingsby Ariel Wittenberg

12 Diverse City

CHORUSOctober 30, 2009

The term “white collar” gets a whole new meaning with the help of the newest show from the USA network of the same name. No longer just a description for mundane paper-pushing office jobs, “White Collar,” which made its debut last Friday, now stands for one of the sexiest and wittiest hours on TV this fall.

The show begins with Neal Caffrey, a white collar criminal convicted on bond forgery (but suspected of art theft, counterfeit-ing, racketeering and securities fraud, nonetheless), busting out of prison with only three months left to serve.

However, it turns out that the con man has a soft side, making a run for it in hopes of catching up with his ex-girlfriend before she disappears from his radar for-ever. However, his efforts come to nothing in the first episode. Peter Burke, the FBI agent who had originally arrested Neal, finds him, melancholy and alone in an abandoned apartment sentimen-tally contemplating a wine bottle. To avoid landing in prison for another four years, Neal strikes a deal with Peter to help him solve the crimes he used to commit—

think “Ocean’s Eleven” if George Clooney’s character started work-ing for the Feds.

Newcomer Matt Bomer leads the show as Neal and is every bit as suave and dashing as an actual conman should be. Despite his boyish good looks, Bomer is still able to play Neal with an air of cunning that makes an audi-ence believe that even without his smoldering eyes, he would be able to talk a widow into allowing him to live in her mansion in upper Manhattan.

Balancing out Bomer is Tim DeKay as Peter Burke, who has a hint of a father-son relation-ship with Caffrey. DeKay plays Burke in such a way that the audience empathizes with him without pitying him and portrays his character in such a way that he is worth noting even next to the magnetic Bomer. DeKay has a bit more television drama experience behind him than his younger co-star, but it is nice to see a show headed by relative unknowns off to such a smooth start.

However, the most enjoy-able thing about the interaction between these two characters is that it does not utilize the old dynamic of a super genius and a bumbling idiot. Burke and Caffrey appear to find their

match in each other. Sure, Caffrey gives the insight of a criminal, but Burke more than proves that he can beat Caffrey at his own game.

Following the two male leads, there are some slightly familiar faces among the female char-acters. Burke’s sassy underling, Diana, is played by Marsha Thomason, last seen in an 11-epi-

sode stint of “Lost” and on “Las Vegas.” A later blast from the past is Tiffani Thiessen, best known for her roles on “Saved by the Bell” and “Beverly Hills, 90210.” Rather than being the attractive co-ed, she is Burke’s supportive wife, who in the first episode, at least blends into the background. However, hopefully the writers

will make more use of her in the future and add some spice to her role.

“White Collar” is definitely a show to follow, in spite of its unfortunate scheduling on Friday nights. It provides the perfect blend of wit, personality, and plot twists to keep viewers on Caffrey’s trail.

Boring ‘White Collar’ stigma broken with USA’s sexy new show

PHOTO from Internet Source

PERSONALITY AND PLOT TWISTS: The cast of USA’s newest show give white collar crime a sexy new face on Friday nights.

BY SRI KUEHNLENZEditor

The play as a whole was well-staged and acted, but I am not sure the stage and costume design nec-essarily added much to it. The mes-sage rang through loud and clear, but the stark contrast between set-ting and dialogue seemed to me as a bit of a distraction. Unlike other modern adaptations of “Romeo and Juliet” that revamp the script into some contemporary counter-parts, this seemed like a slightly awkward juxtaposition. Granted, Friedland was not aiming for “West Side Story” in her depiction and she had every right not to do so—I just find any notion of high-fiving and/or converse sneakers in the Middle Ages to be slightly unset-tling. But the fact that this rendi-tion was just as powerful and heart- wrenching as the original goes to show that a true classic is not only timeless, but boundless as well.

The thing about having a happy childhood is that no matter how well-adjusted, privileged, and otherwise positively-thinking I was as a child, I can still recall the most minor of slights from parents, siblings, and friends. It seems that Spike Jonze and Dave Eggers had the same recollec-tions in creating “Where the Wild Things Are.” The movie isn’t so much a children’s movie as it is a movie about childhood, but its examination of childhood comes from a very adult perspective.

Centering around a little boy Max (Max Records) who flees home after a confrontation with his mother and finds himself in the land of the wild things, the movie rockets between sheer joy and bombastic visuals and a core of loneliness and anxiety that appears to underlie Max’s word-less distress.

Max is alienated by his older sister’s refusal to engage with him and upset by his mother’s unwillingness to focus solely on him instead of her new boy-friend. Complete with all the selfishness of a nine-year-old, Records’ expressive face captures the nuance of a lonely boy who lives out his desires in his imagi-nation. When Max leaves home, he winds up on a boat, crosses a body of water, and arrives at the land where the wild things live.

Jonze was clearly having fun with this segment of the film; watching the monsters run, play,

‘Wild Things’ makes my heart sing

and topple trees and roughhouse with each other recalls his work as a skateboard video director early in his career. In addition, the choice to film the wild things as live action characters, played by actors in suits, rather than create them wholesale out of CGI, gives the characters a certain sense of solidity that adds to the realism of Max’s fanciful world.

Nonetheless, the visual joy of the wild rumpus quickly gives way to a plodding melancholy that isn’t unexpected from Eggers. The wild things aren’t just wild; they’re projections of Max’s inse-curities and fears about his home life. There’s quite a few glanc-ing allusions to the arguments of divorce, and lead wild thing Carol (voiced by James Gandolfini) is

Max’s wildness writ large (and hairy).

There’s a set of interactions and relationships between the wild things that might rival the com-plexity of a nine-year-old’s social world, but are certainly not easily comprehended by one. There’s a niggling sense that you want to find out more of their relation-ships, but the movie, in perhaps its most daring choice, chooses not to satisfy that desire. Instead we see them reenacting the mov-ie’s opening snowball fight with dirt clods, and the wild things are even more sulky and resentful than Max, their ersatz king who has promised to keep the sadness out.

In the end, Max realizes that just like all the adults he knows, he is just as powerless as all the grown-up figures in his life to prevent hurt feelings, melan-choly, and exclusion. The ador-able Records captures that sense of disappointment and disillu-sionment that comes with the realization that parents aren’t all-powerful or perfect. And when Max returns home, still in those wolf pajamas, the almost world-less scene between him and his mother (Catherine Keener) is a testament to the tolerance and love of family.

The meandering of the meat of the movie’s plot does drag a bit, but for the most part it’s delight-fully resonant, and deeply emo-tional, though it’s most certainly not cheerful. In spite of that, “Where the Wild Things Are” is a delight worth seeing.

Shakespeare with cell phones

SHAKESPEARE (from p. 10) BY DANIELLE GEWURZ

Editor

PHOTO from Internet Source

1. Disassemble a box (find one in the mail-room).2. Buy a 24pack of Solo cups at the C-Store3. Glue The cups to the cardboard4. Attach a string or rope and fashion a necklace to hold up the “table”.5. Carry around a ping pong ball and challenge people to a game of Beirut.

1. Find a sheet, prefer-ably white if you can

borrow one. 2. Try different ways of wrapping it around

your body. 3. Steal some shrubbery from lower Usdan to wrap around your head.

4. For girls-- putting a belt around your waist will make costume more form-fitting.5. If you have gladiator shoes or sandals, wear them, and you’re done!

1. If you have a baseball cap, put it on. If not, bor-row one. 2. Find a solid colored polo to wear. 3. Find some short shorts to wear, prefer-ably white if available. 4. Borrow a tennis racket and carry it around. 5. Easy as that.

1. Find knee-length white socks and heels to wear. 2. Pu ton a tight white shirt, button down if pos-sible.3. Find a plaid skirt or any solid colored skirt.4. Tie a tie and wear it around your neck, under-neath your shirt.5. Make your hair obnox-iously styled, and wear a headband.

1. Get a black gar-bage bag and cut a hole on the bottom to stuff your head through. 2. Buy purple or green balloons and tape them all around the bag.3. If you have a green hat or can borrow one, wear it as the stem.4. Try to wear as much black as possible so that the only colors most visible are the balloons and stem. 5.Voila, you’re done.

Beer Pong tableSchoolgirl

Greek toga

Bunch of Grapes

Tennis player

END-NOTEOctober 30, 2009 Diverse City 13