Tag: Drama

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Arts

Nomadland: A solemn tale of poverty in the United States

Chloé Zhao’s third feature film spans a year-long quest by a woman who has lost everything

The United States is broken. With affordable housing being unwaveringly difficult to find in cities like San Francisco and New York, some people have settled on leading nomadic lifestyles. Nomadland, the third feature film from Chinese-born director Chloé Zhao, is a heart wrenching tale of searching for home after one loses everything.

After the town of Empire, Nevada is shut down due to the closure of the U.S. Gypsum plant, Fern, played by the ever-astounding Frances McDormand, sets off to live in her van, effectively abandoning the notion of living a stable life in a quiet town.

Nomadland follows Fern for a full calendar year as she searches for various temporary jobs and shelters that will let her park her van for the night. The movie is plot-lite. There are no action sequences or moments that leave you wanting more. Zhao’s main goal here is to let the viewer examine and analyze the state of poverty in a country as rich and grand as the United States.

The American Dream will have you believe that it is easy to find a spouse and build a nuclear family as industrial jobs sprout left and right. In seconds, however, all of that can dissipate. Fern lost her job and her husband in such a short time that her life came crumbling down and forced her to recreate how she lives.

Fern’s year-long adventure isn’t as solemn as the plot describes, though it does come close. Her travels are tied together by several other nomads living in near-identical situations to Fern’s. Some of these people are played by tried-and-true actors like David Strathairn, who plays David, whose name is the sole characteristic shared between the actor and character. Other actors, however, are simply playing fictionalized versions of themselves like Swankie and Linda May.

It wouldn’t even be a stretch to call those playing themselves non-actors. They are simply people who lived their truths in a deeply personal fictional tale. Fern’s quest for a home turns less into a search for a place, but a search for people who make her feel like she’s at home.

Fern’s relationship with David is never romantic on-screen, but the quiet passion between the two lead us to believe that in another stable life, they could have found peace together. 

Nomadland never wallows in its sadness and morose themes, but instead acts as a 100-minute recapitulation of a woman whose life has been shattered into a million pieces, but can’t be put together like it used to be.

Chloé Zhao’s latest opus shares very similar styles to her 2017 western The Rider. Both tell the tales of midwestern/western people whose lives change in a sudden dramatic way. Each character has, in their brief moments, layers of depth that make them feel less like side pieces in Fern’s tale and more like real people who are just trying to make it.

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Opinions

The Canadian fascination with American politics

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin.

As news consumers, our obsession with entertainment precedes the need to know

President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, was indicted on Oct. 30 for 12 charges, including tax fraud, money laundering and conspiracy against the United States, according to Global News. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Even in Canada, it is difficult to find anyone who isn’t talking about this or who isn’t up to date on the drama surrounding the Trump administration. But how many people are talking about the current scandal involving Canadian finance minister Bill Morneau?

The member of Parliament (MP) from Toronto was just fined under the Conflict of Interest Act
for failing to disclose economic ties to his businesses, according to the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner’s website. While it has dominated national news for the last two weeks, all anyone seems to talk about is the dumpster fire of a government currently in place south of the border.

That shouldn’t come as any surprise. According to Abacus Data, a Canadian polling and market research firm, 26 per cent of Canadians get their news directly from social media, while another 14 per cent get theirs online. Given the president’s near constant presence on social media—seemingly more than any other head of state in office—those stories receive more coverage and have more traction online than local stories.

In fact, local media has been hurting in general. According to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), half of all local Canadian TV news stations could close by 2020. This shows a trend toward using national and international news as our source of information, especially regarding politics.

In my opinion, that is because of one simple reason: Canadian politics is boring. In theory, that’s exactly what citizens should want—a boring, stable, scandal-free government. The only problem is that regular, boring local politics now has to compete with daily Washington drama.

I believe the main reason for Canada’s relatively mundane politics is the way we elect our officials. Now this is in no way a piece about election reform, but our first-past-the-post system favours moderate candidates who appeal to the “centre” of their constituencies. That’s also why Canada has so few significantly right- or left-wing MPs. It also makes for (occasionally) bipartisan legislation and, often, a relatively boring, controversy-free House of Commons.
In the United States, however, many states often elect their representatives based solely on party rather than on a candidate’s merit or ideas. In fact, 24 states and the District of Columbia have voted for the same party since 1992, according to the fact-checking website Politifact. This means candidates can be as far-right or as far-left as they want and will likely still get elected by their loyal constituencies.

Since the distance on the political spectrum between Republicans and Democrats is much wider than the Conservative-Liberal divide, arguments and differences in opinion are much more explosive and scandal-prone.
Not to mention President Trump and his staff now give international viewers a daily dose of mishaps, blunders and general incompetence that people just cannot look away from.

We can’t blame the Canadian government for not capturing the public’s attention—our politicians are just doing their job. It does, however, say a lot about our country when our “scandalous” political news stories are about Justin Trudeau pulling someone by the arm or MP Michelle Rempel saying the word “fart” in the House of Commons.

With this contrast in mind, why wouldn’t Canadians prefer to read about the craziness happening in Washington and the Trump administration’s absurdities rather than hear about their own boring local government? It’s like C-SPAN trying to compete with MTV—at the end of the day, people just cannot get enough drama and scandal.

Graphic by Zeze Le Lin

 

Categories
Arts

Players’ Theatre takes on exploration of existence

Player’s Theatre interpretation of Pirandello’s original play uses limited décor elements and creative shadow and light play.

Six Characters in Search of an Author balances the highly intellectual with the stylish

Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author is an extremely self-aware meta-theatrical drama whose success relies heavily upon the calibre of several key actors.

The complex cerebral drama, being staged at the McGill Players’ Theatre Nov. 12-15 and 19-22, explores the relationship between authors and art, players and characters.

Written in 1921, this pre-absurdist play uses the “play within a play” structure to blend the real with the imagined in a way that makes us question our own perception of reality.

Player’s Theatre interpretation of Pirandello’s original play uses limited décor elements and creative shadow and light play.

The rough plot involves actors and technicians at a theatre company who are interrupted in the middle of a rehearsal by the entrance of six strange people, claiming to be unfinished characters. The visitors insist on staging their own dramatic narrative and plead with the director to help them realize their story.

This blended family, lead by a patriarch who is filled with remorse and has a tendency to wax philosophical, is set apart from the others by their ‘20s-era fashion, commedia dell’arte-inspired masks and ghostly blue lips.

The Father, played by Nicholas LePage, alternates driving the action forward and going on seemingly endless tangents of existential thought. LePage shines bright in this role, doing a superb job of holding the play’s illogical and verbose fabric together.

Mal Cleary, as the character of the Director, in turn balances the Father’s preaching monologues with his energetic performance and practical, somewhat skeptical approach to the unusual situation.

As the six characters relive their dramatic tale onstage, the actors from the rehearsal become spectators, taking places in the audience and engaging in the action less and less.

While the leads are given plenty of opportunities to show off their acting chops, the script doesn’t allow for much development of the supporting cast who ultimately fade into the background.

The staging is simple and makes use of four large screens that are lit from behind with colourful LEDs to allow for innovative shadow play and easy change of scenery.

While this use of lighting is very creative, the overall design leaves something to be desired. Much of the action takes place in low lighting to the point where key exchanges happen in semi-darkness, while other areas of the stage are needlessly bright.

The play delves into several key questions concerning the creation of art and theatre, the role of actors and the ownership of performance. The intellectual nature of the show may not be suited to every audience’s tastes, but for fans of Pirandello or those interested in existential philosophy, Six Characters in Search of an Author makes for a truly thought-provoking presentation.

Six Characters in Search of an Author runs at the Players’ Theatre Nov. 19 to 22, at 8 p.m. Tickets for students are $6, and $10 for adults. For more information, visit playerstheatre.ca.

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