A4 | A&E
PACK N THE EVENTS THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR THIS WEEK By Joey Thyne
NOT MY LIFE DATE: Tuesday TIME: 7:00 p.m. LOCATION: Knowledge
Center 107 INFO: This week is Shut Out Trafficking Week hosted by Students against Sex Slavery (SASS) in coordintation with UNICEF on campus. On Tuesday, they will be showing the documentary “Not My Life” about sex trafficking and comtemporary slavery. Afterwards there will be a panel of global and local experts.
FAIR TRADE FAIR DATE: Wednesday TIME: 10:00 a.m. LOCATION: Knowledge
Center Lawn INFO: This is yet another stellar event hosted by SASS for Shut Out Trafficking Week. There will be vendors and samples of fair trade products to educate students about how they can use their purchasing power to end demand for labor trafficking products.
THE HITMAN’S BODYGUARD DATE: Thursday TIME: 6 p.m. LOCATION: JCSU Theatre INFO: Did you completely
forget that the movie “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” existed? Don’t worry, everyone did. Thankfully you have a second chance to see it right here at UNR. It is also being shown Thursday night at 9 p.m. and Friday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Admission to students is FREE. Complimentary snacks and beverages will be provided.
MARCH FROM THE ARCH DATE: Saturday TIME: 7 p.m. LOCATION: ReTrac Plaza INFO: To kick off UNR’s
homecoming week, come celebrate March from the Arch. At 7 p.m. there will be a dunk contest, a skills competition and a 3-point contest featuring the Men’s and Women’s 2017-2018 Basketballs Teams. At 8 p.m. there will be a parade from the arch to the UNR quad. At 8:45 there is a rally on the quad with fireworks. Come out and show your pack pride.
GIRLPOOL DATE: Saturday TIME: 7 p.m. LOCATION: Holland Project INFO: Hot off one of the
best indie releases with “Powerplant,” Girlpool is returning to the Holland Project. After two years, they come bearing a fuller sound but still maintain their DIY spirit. Holland Project is always all ages. Tickets cost $10 in advance and $12 at the door. Palm and Gina Rose will open. Joey Thyne can be reached jthyne@sagebrush.unr.edu and on Twitter @joey_thyne
@NevadaSagebrush | nevadasagebrush.com
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2017
The Flick
A play about the movies By Charis Nixon Watching a scene from “The Flick” is like walking in on a private conversation. The dialogue is deliberately sprinkled with “um”s, “like”s and profanity, and the tiny cast makes for an incredibly intimate setting. Annie Baker’s Pulitzer Prizewinning play centers around three main characters: Rose, Avery and Sam. Avery is a 20-year-old African-American film aficionado who struggles with his mental health. Rose is a prickly, 24-year-old projectionist who unapologetically speaks her mind. Sam is a melodramatic 35-year-old man who is frustrated with his minimum-wage job, yet is too apathetic to do anything about it. All three work at an old-fashioned movie theater named “The Flick” which projects movies on film but is switching to digital projectors. “By extension, it is a play about how we are all making the transition to life in a digital world,” said Rob Gander, an assistant professor of theatre and the production’s director. “We’re very good at being social through media now, but we have a difficult time connecting to other human beings, and that’s what the play’s about.” Gander said he discovered the playwright, Annie Baker, after spending 20 years searching for the next great playwright. “[I] read all of her plays … in a matter of days,” Gander said, “and was astounded by her ability to sort of capture the world that we live in and how it’s changing, and how that change is impacting us.” In Annie Baker’s naturalistic style, the characters are written to resemble real people as closely as possible. Each carries around his or her own emotional baggage that gets in the way of navigating their relationships. Gander describes junior Jelani Best’s acting as “hugely vulnerable”, a quality that
comes in handy for playing the role of Avery. In the show, the audience watches Avery speak to his therapist on the phone about his social anxieties, before attempting to actually reach out and connect with his co-workers. These interactions serve as a glimpse into Avery’s mind, showing his struggles with anxiety and depression. Best said his approach included an exercise he learned from Gander in a class last semester. He wrote from Avery’s perspective, imagining every detail of his life. “It felt important to make Avery more of a person and give him a real, mundane life onstage,” Best said, “Like, be able to say, ‘this is how he would just look at an empty movie theater,’ ‘this is how he would sweep,’ ‘this is how he would mop,’ ‘this is how he would try to approach a conversation.’” Senior Karlyn Puccinelli plays Rose, a sarcastic 24-yearold described in Annie Baker’s notes as “sexually magnetic, despite the fact that (or partly because?) her clothes are baggy, she never wears makeup and her hair is dyed forest green”. Although Puccinelli feels that she is very different from Rose, she said she has felt drawn to the character ever since she first read the play. “I fell in love with Rose because she’s outspoken and not afraid to be herself,” Puccinelli said, “I wish I was able to be more straightforward with people like she is.” Despite the differences between Puccinelli and her character, Gander said she plays the role “oddly perfectly”.
Charis Nixon/Nevada Sagebrush
1. Jelani Best and Jason Pitack rehearse for their production of “The Flick. 2. Assistant professor of theatre Rob Gander directs “The Flick” which premieres Oct. 13.
Senior Jason Pitak plays Sam, an older employee of the movie theater who is frustrated to be stuck in a minimum wage job at his age. According to Gander, Pitak “may have the most difficult task in the show” by playing Sam, due to the character’s unwillingness to express his feelings outwardly. “Sam is probably the character least able to articulate his love, least able to articulate his frustrations with life, and so a lot takes place internally for Sam,” Gander said. The character is difficult for a few reasons, including the fact that he is in his midthirties and Pitak is only 21. However, Pitak said his main challenge comes from tackling Sam’s tendency to be “overly dramatic.”
“If something doesn’t go his way, it usually just turns right on its head, and he has this really big response that almost feels unnatural,” Pitak said. “He has a lot of sulking moments that seem a little much, and sometimes that can be a little hard to get in the right mindset.” These three characters struggle throughout the play to connect and establish relationships with each other that go deeper than the surface level. According to Puccinelli, their struggles serve as a statement about “the negative impact technology has on society.” “In a world where we can talk to anyone in a matter of seconds, how do we respond to people who are right in front of us?” Pitak said. “How do we connect face-to-face, personto-person?”
After four weeks of rehearsal, the cast looks forward to finally sharing this story with an audience. However, the cast is not entirely sure what kind of response to expect, since the play is originally meant to be three hours long and isn’t filled with action and drama. “It’s a slow burn,” Pitak said. “but it’s going to be worth it in the end.” “The very audience that it’s meant to impact may have attention spans that make it difficult to receive the message,” Gander added. “I love Annie Baker for doing that, but the irony of it is not lost on me.” “The Flick” will play Oct. 13-14 and 18-21 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 15 at 1:30 p.m. in the Redfield Studio Theatre. Tickets will be available at Lawlor Event Center. Limited student tickets are $5 with student I.D. Charis Nixon can be reached at jthyne@sagebrush@unr.edu or on twitter @joey_thyne
To be or not to be Reno as F*ck
By Joey Thyne
On Sunday, Oct. 8, Reno as F*ck hosted a cocktail competition at Pignic Pub & Patio in partnership with Rawbry cold press juice bar. Bartenders from Pignic, 1984 and the Saint competed for glory. The Eddy was originally slated to participate but bowed out at the last second. There were three rounds: best bloody mary, best summer drink (frozen/blended/rocks) and best classic cocktail twist. Each drink had to incorporate a Rawbry juice blend. Attendees were given tickets and asked to vote for their favorite cocktails each round. As patrons filtered in they were greeted with a complimentary welcome shot of either gin or whiskey from the Depot. The Reno as F*ck cocktail competition also had a taco bar. In advertising with this event, Reno as F*ck ran into some issues with censorship. Pignic was unhappy with the original branding of the event, which was originally deemed “too loud.” “We were just going back and forth on what the poster design would be,” said Reno as F*ck co-founder Anthony Lee. “It ended up working out. We found a common ground. That’s what business is about. Making a compromise so every facet of the event itself wins.” The relationship between Rawbry and Reno as F*ck began when Rawbry founder Brianna Bullentini was at a concert and saw a Reno as F*ck sticker, which inspired her to reach out. The rest is history. When asked what it means to be Reno as F*ck, Bullentini said, “Authentically yourself. Ev-
erybody in Reno, that I know, has this pioneer spirit and [is] independent.” Regarding whether or not the Pignic cocktail competition was, in fact, Reno as f*ck, who’s to say? But drinking in the middle of the day, grown adults giggling over the F-word, football fans stomping on floorboards, smokers ashing wherever or on whomever they please, eating chicken wings that had been laying in the sun for three hours and people yelling at each other about cultural appropriation on the patio all sounds authentically Reno to me. So without further ado, I will review all of the cocktails from the Reno as F*ck cocktail competition according to my expertise. My expertise? I love drinking.
BLOODY MARY 1864 (WINNER/MY VOTE) 1864 put a Korean spin on their bloody mary by including kimchi, fish oil and soy sauce. Then they said screw it and added a bunch of sriracha. I usually abhor bloody marys but this one was tolerable. The Saint Bonus points for having a cherry tomato and basil. However, not even this adorable furnishing couldn’t save this pathetic excuse for a bloody mary. It tasted like pure vodka with a hint of lemon and red food coloring. Also, the rim was coated with an excess of cayenne pepper seasoning. No thanks. DPignic This one came topped with a thick cut of hickory-sweet ba-
con. Right on. That was probably the highlight of my day. Unfortunately, the bloody mary was essentially tomato soup on ice cubes. It would have gone good with a frozen grilled cheese. Sidebar: the Pignic bartenders kept blasting air horn noises on a speaker. This went through several cycles of being obnoxious and hilarious.
SUMMER DRINK 1864 This came from a watermelon blender, which was endearing, but the drink was too alcohol-ey. What is a watermelon even supposed to taste like? The Saint (WON) This one was called the Ernest Hemingway daiquiri, which would make sense if Ernest Hemingway loved to drink terrible daiquiris. A Farewell to Arms? More like, a farewell to my lunch. For Whom the Bell Tolls? More like, for whom this drink sucks. If this really is what Ernest Hemingway drank, no wonder he was a violent, misogynistic, suicidal anti-semite. This drink won by the way, which either means I have no discernible taste or everyone else was wrong. I choose to believe the latter. DPignic (MY VOTE) This drink didn’t really taste like anything, but I guess that’s better than it tasting bad. It came with whipped cream which I guess is cool. The drink was blue, which I am a huge fan of, because then someone tells you your mouth is blue, and when you look in the
Joey Thyne/Nevada Sagebrush
Bartenders from Pignic compete in the Reno as F*ck cocktail competition on Sunday, Oct. 8.
mirror, sure enough, your mouth is blue. This drink also came with a complimentary condom because apparently charcoal water can mess with your birth control. I could have gone my whole life without knowing that but here we are.
CLASSIC COCKTAIL TWIST 1864 This drink was racistly named the Poor Man’s Paloma so I’m not going to review it. The Saint This drink was called the “Black Mamba” which was a detoxifying drink. The drink was
good but for some reason once again they put that cayenne pepper seasoning around the rim again. You reckless maniacs. How could you? You ruined a perfectly good drink. DPignic (WINNER/MY VOTE) I don’t really remember this cocktail but I voted for it because I was tired of walking around and drinking and nodding politely when people talked to me. Joey Thyne can be reached at jthyne@sagebrush@unr.edu or on twitter @joey_thyne