‘See me, feel me, touch me, heal me’

'Tommy' comes to life at UMD

By Allison Reitz

Tommy (Joe Boottelho), ten-year-old Tommy (Adelaide Hopkins) and four-year-old Tommy (Aaron Norcross) all tell the story of the deaf, dumb, and blind boy who became a pinball legend.

Pinball Wizard (Nick Edwards) and Cousin Kevin (Bethany Rose Loftus) look on in amazement as Tommy reigns as pinball champ.

The cast of Tommy poses.

Maybe you own the album. Perhaps you’ve seen the 1975 movie. But do you really know The Who’s deaf, dumb and blind kid, Tommy Walker?

On Thursday, May 3, the Broadway musical hit “The Who’s Tommy” storms the Angus Bailey Memorial Stage in the Main Auditorium. Produced and performed by members of UMass Dartmouth’s alternative theatre group, 20 Cent Fiction, the musical will run through May 6.

“Tommy” is the story of a young boy who witnesses a murder. When the murderer tells young Tommy that he didn’t see or hear anything and that he’s never to speak of the murder, the boy becomes psychosomatically blind, deaf and mute. As he grows older, he learns how to experience the physical world around him as music and develops an uncanny knack for pinball.

For those who have only listened to the album or watched the film version, 20 Cent’s musical production will have some interesting variations. The music will have a more distinct Broadway “show tune” sound, as opposed to the often rough and edgy tracks from the album and film.

In comparison with the better-known album and movie, the theatrical adaptation of “The Who’s Tommy” contains some variations to the plot and a slightly modernized interpretation of Tommy’s experiences. Of course, some changes needed to be made to adapt the story to the stage, just as some changes will be made to adapt the production from Broadway to UMass Dartmouth. However, other changes have been more than 30 years in the making.

Exact details of “Tommy’s” plot have been modified ever since the album’s release in 1969, up to its debut as a Broadway musical in 1993. The particulars of Tommy’s life story, as well as the song order and lyrics, have been rearranged to suit various interpretations over the years.

Because of all the changes, even the most dedicated Who fans become confused at times about the three versions of “Tommy.” Since the Broadway production is very different from the original album, written and conceived by Who guitarist Pete Townsend, let’s take a look at the changing face of “Tommy.”

When it was first released in 1969, the album was fairly ambiguous about plotline particulars and how all the puzzle pieces fit together.

Only after a number of interviews did Townsend start to clarify the story and explain the details as he imagined them and tried to convey them in the lyrics. For example, the setting was post-WWI Britain. Upon his sudden and unexpected return home from the war, Tommy’s long-missing and presumed-dead father, Captain Walker, murdered Mrs. Walker’s new lover. That was the murder that set off a chain of events effecting Tommy throughout the rest of the album and the rest of his life.

However, solid explanations of the album’s more metaphorical aspects were left largely up to listeners’ imaginations and their interpretations of the lyrics.

In order for director Ken Russell to release his 1975 film adaptation of “Tommy,” changes needed to be made for the sake of modernizing the story and clarifying the events of Tommy’s life - as well as picking up the pace of the story to better suit a film format.

Lyrics were changed, the original album’s track list was switched around, and new songs were added to fill in plot gaps. The setting was changed to post-WWII Britain, and it was the lover who murdered Captain Walker, not the other way around.

That brings us to the stage adaptation of “Tommy.” When Townsend rewrote the musical for its 1993 Broadway debut, more changes were made to lyrics, with the addition of new songs and the restoration of Captain Walker as the murderer. However, the musical retains its post-WWII setting, with the song “1921” restored but in reference to Mrs. Walker’s birthday.

“The Who’s Tommy” is co-directed by Joe Bouchard and Kevin Bates. Musical direction is by Kimberly Wilcox, with choreography by Jackie Lamontagne.

From Thursday, May 3, through Saturday, May 5, the show will begin at 8 p.m. in the Main Auditorium on the UMass Dartmouth campus. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m. On Sunday, May 6, the performance will be a 2 p.m. matinee, with doors opening at 1:30 p.m.

Tickets cost $10 for general admission, $8 for UMD faculty and alumni and $5 for UMD students. On Thursday, May 3, there will be a special $3 opening night admission for UMD students. For more ticket information, or to purchase tickets in bulk, contact 20CentTickets@gmail.com or call 774-202-4706.

Mrs. Walker (Suzanne Paquette) looks at her dead lover while four-year-old Tommy watches in the mirror.

Mrs. Walker tries to stop her lover (Gary Albert) from attackng her long lost husband.

Mrs. Walker and Mr. Walker (Bil Duchesneau) cause four year old Tommy to become psychosomatically deaf, blind and dumb.

A sneak peek at the Fine Arts BFA Exhibition

By Allison Reitz

Kory Dunton has been working on a three-dimensional painting, shown above in an unfinished state. Each cube block will be painted in black and white on the the front, with the other sides either painted in color or left bare so that the pattern of the wood grain is visible.

Ben Costa, a physics major, requested a spot in the senior painting class to pursue his love of painting.

At the end of the spring semester, when all the other students on the UMass Dartmouth campus are finishing term papers and cramming for finals, seniors within the College of Visual and Performing Arts have other priorities in mind: their senior thesis exhibitions.

This weekend, the focus will be on the graduating painting and sculpture majors, who will display the culminating efforts of their university studies.

The Fine Arts BFA Exhibition opens on Friday, May 4, with an artists reception at ArtWorks! on 384 Acushnet Ave., Downtown New Bedford. From 5 to 7 p.m., the students will mingle with family and friends and celebrate their work.

In order to get a sneak peak at the progress of a few students whose art will be on display in the exhibit, senior painting major Eric Grab led a tour through the painting majors’ studio space in the Star Store, on 715 Purchase St., New Bedford.

During their senior year, fine arts seniors are expected to develop a thesis idea to tie together their final works. For some students, the inspiration for their thesis comes naturally. For others, their final decision comes only after a long period of introspection.

For Grab, finding a thesis was not so much of a decision as it was a discovery. Initially, he mostly painted studies and self-portraits. However, after several recent museum trips, his focus began to shift.

“Masks are big for me right now. I went to the Metropolitan in New York City and saw the African masks. They have such a strong spiritual presence,” Grab explains. “It’s almost like a pilgrimage every time I go back to the Met. I spend a couple of hours in the African exhibit, letting it all soak in.”

Though he describes his previous painting style as being more habitual, Grab says he won’t completely abandon portraiture for masks.

“In portraiture, in faces, there’s always something there,” he replies. “Masks are just abstractions of faces. And with abstractions, you need to understand realism.”

All of the fine arts majors have gone through their own stylistic transformations, drawing inspiration from one another and their shared experiences.

Walking down one of the passages within the painting studio, Grab stops in front of Matt Reinke’s workspace. Recently, Reinke has been working on a series of small, Polaroid-like paintings. “He’s very prolific,” Grab says.

Grab also pauses to describe Scott Barry, saying, “He’s the darling of the fine arts department. He uses thick paint, big canvases and lots of color. Really an amazing painter.”

Though Grab praises the work of all of his peers, he finds special inspiration in the story behind Ben Costa’s work.

Costa graduated from the physics program at UMass Dartmouth last year, but enjoyed painting so much that he asked one of the CVPA professors if he could sit in on the class.

“He doesn’t have to be here; he wants to be here,” Grab said of Costa’s passion for painting.

Though all the students have been working hard over the past semesters and years, their drive has only increased in the weeks leading up to the BFA Exhibition.

“The exhibition is lighting a fire under everyone here. It’s a real push,” Grab said, explaining the pressure of getting ready for the senior show. “It’s forcing us to make progress, but it’s just another step in the process.”

He continues, “A lot of people might think about the show as ‘the end,’ but this show isn’t the end. This is just the beginning of our careers and just one show out of many.”

Keep in mind that exhibition does not only celebreate the work of student painters. CVPA sculpture students are also presenting their culminating works. The sculptors have been working hard on their thesis work, as well, and theirportion of the exhibition promises to be brimming with talent.

The Fine Arts BFA Exhibition and opening reception are free of charge and open to the public. The show will be on display in ArtWorks! through Saturday, May 26. Gallery hours run Tuesday through Saturday, 12 to 5 p.m. The gallery will be open until 9 p.m. on Thursday, May 10, for AHA! Night.

For more information about the exhibition or the gallery, contact ArtWorks! at 508-984-1588.

Senior painting major Matt Reinke experiments with interesting perspectives and vibrant colors in his paintings.

A sneak peak of Eric Grab’s workspace shows several of the pieces he’s been working on over the past semester, including two self-portraits and one of his more recent mask studies.

RECOMMENDING RHONDA

Rhonda says: Here’s one ‘Airport’ that offers some five-star food!

By Recommending Rhonda

Based on the out-of-the-way location of New Bedford’s Airport Grille Restaurant, you may expect greasy fast food with a side of heart attack. The small restaurant, which accommodates about 10 bar stools and 10 four-seater tables (and in the summer, an additional 10 patio tables for outdoor airplane viewing), may look like a hole in the wall, but the food is five-star quality.

According to southcoastdining.com “The Airport Grille is, without a doubt, the best restaurant in the Southcoast area, bar none. That is, best for food.” In their review of the restaurant, they rave about the delicate and savory dishes the Grille has to offer.

My favorite part about the restaurant is the open kitchen. You can watch anywhere from three to five chefs preparing your food, as they are separated from dining patrons by a glass window. Also, because the restaurant is so small, the chefs call out to the servers as soon as your food comes up, ensuring that it is delivered promptly and piping hot.

The menu is relatively on the small side, but the restaurant also offers about 10 specials. For an appetizer, my dinner companion and I opted for the Shrimp Amalfi, which consisted of four jumbo shrimp wrapped in smoked mozzarella and bacon and served in a delicious lemon and white wine sauce ($8.95). The mozzarella was melt-in-your-mouth delicious, and the shrimp was tender and fresh.

For dinner, my companion chose to order salmon, which was glazed with crab stuffing. I opted for a sirloin, which was cooked in sherry and topped with caramelized onions. Both entrees were served with hot dinner rolls, garlic mashed potatoes, and fresh green beans and sliced carrots in a light butter sauce.

Now, normally I’m not one to like side dishes at restaurants (unless it’s French fries), but I must say that I was quite pleasantly surprised with the taste of the vegetables and mashed potatoes. They were wonderful.

My companion’s salmon was light, flaky and buttery. I kept stealing forkfuls of it from his plate because it was so good. And my sirloin was no disappointment, either. It was perfectly blackened on the outside, pink on the inside, and the wine sauce really complimented the flavor of the meat.

After dinner was over, we realized there was no way we could go out for dinner without ordering dessert. Upon request, a tray laden with goodies ranging from key lime cheesecake to chocolate tallcake to crème brulee was dangled in front of our faces. And we took the bait.

I chose a happy helping of Tiramisu, which was about five layers thick and consisted of coffee flavored mousse, chocolate cake, fresh chocolate shavings, whipped cream and a fresh strawberry. My companion ordered the creme brulee, which I was reluctant to try, since I don’t like eggs.

Holy Mary!

The creme brulee was probably one of the best desserts I have ever had in my life. The top of the brulee was crispy and tasted like melted brown sugar, while the inside was soft and warm, like vanilla pudding. I highly recommend it.

After dinner, we walked around the small airport, which connects to the restaurant through a side door. It was pretty interesting. There are only about six flights from the airport a week, and it was neat to look around. It would have been even neater if it hadn’t been raining when we went, and we could have sat on the outside patio and watched planes take off.

Overall, I was very satisfied with my dining experience at the Grille.

To get there from campus, take a right out of campus, get on Rt. 6 East and follow it through to New York Bagel. Get in the left lane and watch for Hathaway Rd. on your left. (There will be a turn lane for you, but no signal, so be careful when crossing the intersection!) Follow Hathaway Rd. down to the light right before McDonalds (on your left). Take a left at the light and follow the road all the way to the end. The Airport is on your right. The restaurant is on the left hand side of the airport building.

THE BEER BARON

This drink is no ‘Rogue’: Dead Guy Ale

By Gary Albert

With a skeleton on the bottle this beer just calls at you. I originally saw it and was reluctant to spend the $10.50 for a six-pack (or $5.99 for a 22 oz.) but after a recommendation from a friend in Mississippi, I decided to try it.

Originally brewed by Rogue Ales Brewery in Newport, Oregon, in the early 1990s to celebrate the Mayan Day of the Dead, Dead Guy Ale is now one of Rogue’s staple beers.

It pours a brilliant light brown-amber color into my American pint glass. A large head of foam forms, but dissipates shortly and remains as a thin film on the surface of the brew. The smell is almost pure malt sweetness, with a light citrus-like hop smell. This is the smell of a good beer, and it has uniqueness to it not found in many beers of similar style.

The style of this brew is a German Maibock. Strangely, bocks are usually a lager style beer, but Dead Guy is an ale, which results in the hop flavors being much more noticeable and the malts being less overbearing in the aftertaste. The dominant part of the smell is the malts but the uniqueness of the hops really shines in the taste of Dead Guy Ale.

I sip it and immediately think of warm rain. There is something to the flavor of the hops (that I’ve seen in the other Rogue beers I’ve tasted) that I enjoy more than many other hoppy beers.

The malt is still a strong flavor that stands out even in strong hoppy presence. The sweet flavor hits first in the sip, and the bitterness to the hops leaves a lingering aftertaste. There is very slight taste of alcohol in aftertaste of the beer, but that’s not a bad thing. The mouthfeel is dry (from the unique flavor of the hops) and carbonated; it is almost breadlike and grainy. Come to think of it, that unique flavor might be more in the yeast than purely from the hops.

The flavor stays strong as the beer warms, so despite how much I thoroughly enjoy this beer, it would be hard to drink many in one night. The lower the beer gets, the more I notice the spotty foam lacing along the glass, which is always a sign of a good beer. I also feel much more light headed as the glass gets lower. At an above average 6.5 percent alcohol by volume, this makes sense.

Appearance: 4

Smell: 4

Mouthfeel: 4

Drinkability: 4

Taste: 4.75

I really enjoy this beer; it has everything that a quality brew should have. I’m going to give it a 4.25 out of 5 and recommend it to anyone that can handle the above average price.

If you have a recommendation for a beer for me to review (anything goes), want to comment on or criticize my review or just have questions regarding beer, send me an e-mail at UMDBeerBaron@gmail.com.

SCREW THE ACADEMY

‘Next’: A good plot gone awry

By Bronson Michaud

“Next” (2007)
Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violent action and some language.
Runtime: 96 min.

This movie sucked so much that I want my ten bucks back.

I can’t remember the last time a movie had such a great cast and interesting premise but completely tanked halfway through the film. The first fifteen minutes of “Next” were actually pretty cool, and Nick Cage delivered a nice bit of acting. However, it seemed that as soon as Jessica Biel’s and Julianne Moore’s characters hit the screen, the movie did a complete one-eighty into Suckville.

I know that the commercials for this movie are saying that the ending will blow your mind. Now I’m not going to give anything away, but the ending to this movie pissed me off more that the ending to “Citizen Kane,” when you find out that “rosebud” is his stupid sleigh!

Nick Cage, who I have stated before that I think is an excellent actor, did not quite hit the mark on this one. He actually seemed almost bored in this role and not the funny kind of bored he played up in “Leaving Las Vegas,” but the actual “I want to kill myself” type of boredom.

I guess in a way his feelings were aimed to reflect those of the viewers of this abomination.

Cage does give a few funny one-liners, though, so I can’t say he was the worst actor in this movie. That honor would have to go to Jessica Biel.

She just seemed too stupid to live, and in the parts where she was playing the helpless victim, I almost wanted her to die just so I wouldn’t have to hear the sound of her voice any longer.

The upside: Biel was half-naked in most of her scenes.

Julianne Moore played the badass head of an FBI division who, with her coked-out looking eyes and bitchy demeanor, made you want to reach into the screen and strangle her.

What kills me is that this movie could have been good. A guy who can see two minutes into his own future and is asked to save the world from Russian terrorists is a great idea, so perhaps you can see why it pained me so much to see this movie go horribly, horribly wrong.

To give this film some credit, the special effects were decent and a few of the action sequences were well done.

All in all: crap acting, good premise and decent action. Is it worth going to see? Hell no! I am begging you just wait a few more days for “Spiderman 3” to save us all from a lack-luster past couple of weeks at the movies.

I give this movie one out of five stars.

MOVIE REVIEW

‘Hot Fuzz’: A hilarious response to big-budget action movies

By Allison Reitz

“Hot Fuzz” (2007)
Rated R for violent content, including some graphic images, and language.
Runtime: 121 min.

Brit wit Simon Pegg has done it again. After 2004’s brilliant “Shaun of the Dead,” it’s hard to imagine that the actor-screenwriter could come close to replicating that film’s comedic glory. But the rollicking new release “Hot Fuzz” does just that.

Pegg teams up with “Shaun” co-writer and director Edgar Wright to create another hilarious romp through the world of parody. Instead of aiming their piercing wit at the stereotypes of zombie flicks, the two are now taking on the world of ultra-violent action movies with wonderful results.

“Hot Fuzz” follows top-notch London police officer Nicholas Angel (Pegg), a workaholic whose by-the-book mindset wins him countless commendations. However, he admits having a difficult time shutting off when the workday is over, a fact that interferes with his love life. Angel has sacrificed his relationship with ex-girlfriend Janine, but convinces himself that it’s for the best.

Angel’s dedication to his job becomes an even greater problem when he finds out that he is being promoted to the position of sergeant — and transferred to a small town out in the country. London’s chief inspector admits that Angel’s impressive record reflects poorly on the other less zealous officers. In order to make the rest of the unit look better, they must get rid of Angel.

Before he can protest, Angel finds himself in the sleepy town of Sandford, Gloucestershire, and partnered with the local inspector’s dimwitted son, PC Danny Butterman (Nick Frost). It’s not long, though, until a series of suspicious accidents have Angel working harder than he ever did in London — and have everyone else questioning his sanity.

Frost, who played Pegg’s best friend in “Shaun of the Dead,” is a perfect fit as the nitwit Butterman. The two certainly have their odd couple shtick worked out to a T. Frost is the perfect wide-eyed fanboy to Pegg’s sharp shooting action hero. As Butterman and Angel, the pair’s dialogue is finely tuned and filled with pop culture references, glorious one-liners and set-ups.

Though spoofing big budget Hollywood action movies, “Hot Fuzz” doesn’t use that as an excuse to skimp on character development and a truly engaging plotline filled with twists and turns. In that sense, it might actually be a better specimen of cinema than “Shaun of the Dead.”

Whereas the wide cast of characters in “Shaun” is largely comprised of zombies, the citizens of Sandford are all fully functioning and highly involved in the unfolding events of the film. For as many characters as the film introduces, most are developed in complex and absolutely hilarious ways. Even the local grocery’s inbred stock boy, Michael, is a wonderfully played part with some seriously funny moments.

Watch out for the brilliant celebrity cameos, too. Bill Nighy, for example, who portrayed Pegg’s stepdad-turned-zombie in “Shaun of the Dead,” has a charming bit role as the London chief inspector. Cate Blanchett plays the very inconspicuous Janine. And be careful not to blink or you’ll miss Peter Jackson as Santa Claus.

For diehard “Shaun of the Dead” fans, “Hot Fuzz” is definitely a must-see. But being a fan of “Shaun” isn’t a prerequisite for enjoying this movie. The abundance of fast-paced scenes, smattering of salty language, and its mixture of high- and low-brow humor are enough to make anyone a fan of “Hot Fuzz.”

“Hot Fuzz” earns five shiny gold badges out of five.