Page Two
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Sunday, April 6, 1969
Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Sunda...... A 7 ri.h.. . 1969 .
theatre
*
Much Ado': A resplendent royal pageant
By DEBORAH LINDERMAN
The Royal Shakespeare Com-
papy of England is, happily, in
Detroit, with two offerings. One
is Dr.' Faustus and the other
Much Ado About Nothing. Beat-
rice and Benedick of the latter
being what they are, I was al-
ready laughing -to myself before
they came on stage. The sight
of. someone laughing at an
empty stage with a single piece
of set on it made the people in
C-1 and C-3 next to me look
sidelong pointedly. Once the play
*as well and crisply launched,
however, everybody around be-
gan. to laugh. But I, to my sur-
prise, found my hugely raised
spirits begin to taper off. The
reason for this was, oddly. that
the production was too profes-
sioial.
,A professional production is
a thing one sees rarely in these
parts. Its being professional
means that no mistakes show
through, that talent does exude
not only when the actor hits it
right, but always has skill and
stamina as its guarantor. The
company's being on tour ap-
parently demands no economy
of either talent or energy, to say
nothing of money. There are
five different set changes in
Much Ado, and several costume
changes among (not between)
the principals. Claudius is the
only one of these who, appear-
ing from beginning to end, re-
mains in the ,same suit. The ef-
fect of this, with all the others
having wardrobes, is to make'
one suppose that he needs a;
change, that his old clothes are
getting stinky. Since there are
no rough edges at all, the per-
formance is amazingly polished,
but also well-methodized so that
vigor gets removed from its
source. Having no built-in scale
to show off the moments of
spontaneity and flair, one is left
perversely wondering what it
must be, like to do a matinee
and evening performance of the
same play the same day and
whether the players weren't ab-
solutely haggard with the toils
of road touring.
This is a subjective reaction
and probably an unfair grabber,
especially if it turns a positive
into a negative. The man in his
mansion, however, predictably
comes to ,long for the ,modest
cottage (wherefor the current
vogue of beamed ceilings and
distressed wood) suffering a
nostalgia for the look of a thing
in its rawer structures. The pro-
duction, however stylish, seems
a little overdressed. To "make
do" with a couple sets, one cos-
tume a person, and less hammy
business, would throw the real
facility of some of the company
into sharper focus. The point is
that the best spots in the per-
formance are the least "tech-
nical."
The baton of the director,
Trevor Nunn, is evident every-
where. No one acts but he is
reacted to, every jape and ges-
ture counts. The result is a
stage in perpetual, motion,
which never has any still corn-
ers. The set changes are all'
done by the actors moving
things on and off in open view
between scenes. The scene
changes are always punctuated
by interesting sounds suggest-
ing the Italian Renaissance town
-clock-tower chimes, lute and
mandolin harmonies. The per-
iod sets, plentiful as they are,
are- quite light, the two m o s t
engaging of which are a big
stone-like round bench for a
town place, and some metal
chairs cut to look like thrones
on which the court people
lounge casually in the first two
acts as they enjoy Beatrice, now
Benedick, holding nimbly forth.
To watch these two play to
each other is a pleasure. T h e
parts are difficult because each
part is so clever that the lines
could easily upstage the actors.
The trick is to make it drama-
tically clear that all this word
play is really sex play. Though
they sound vicious, the frightful,
anti-erotic tiffs are only "merry
war". For example:
Beatrice: I wonder that you
will still be talking Signior
Benedick. Nobody marks
you..
Benedick: What, my dar Lady
Disdain! Are you yet living?
This flirtation of put-downs,
in which each preserves some of
his defenses, goes on till the
end and the players (Janet Suz-
man and Allan Howard) never
let it get stale. For they do it
with all good relish and seem
to be thinking, not mouthing.
In this game of getting' the last
word, they become lovers only
by having themselves talked
about.
Of the two, Beatrice is better.
She manages to be genial and
womanly, and with all the re-
partee, never seems a feminist
or a bitch. Benedick is dashing
and it is funny to watch him
fall with rueful insouciance
("When I said I should die a
bachelor, I did not think I
should live until I were mar-
ried.") But he makes too much
of looking uncomfortable and
too often appears to be playing
for a laugh. He over drama-
tizes his lines by punching them
with little jokes of face and
body, like curling his lip and
double-taking at his own words.
Thus he turns into him who
plays buffoon, instead of him
comically helpless before na-
ture's rule that the "world must
be peopled."
The heros of the play talk all
the time, so the villain Don John
(Terrience Hardiman) is "not
of many words." But he is well-
played by being well-planted
and well-dressed (not in black).
With no remitting of the melo-
drama, his costume is red and
magenta, his hair a kind of car-
rot orange, his delivery affect-
less and his face pasty with the
look of a man that has enjoyed
many funless hours. He broods
over most gay scenes with a
morose delectation. Borachio,
his tool, is by contrast, florid
and unabashed. With an extra-
ordinary handlebar moustache,
he nudges and back-slaps-a
real trouble-maker.
Anothercounterpoint to the
generous teasing of the heros is
the Dogberry crew. They ai e
scruffy, dressed in greys, and
hold themselves earnestly to
high moral uprightness ("They
that touch pitch will be de-
filed"). Their scenes are very
good. Ralph Cotterill plays Dog-
berry as a decent, humorless,
self-loving philosopher. The
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commoners that he is training
to police concentrate doggedly
on his "profoundities" and Ver-
ges with pointed crown and
white pallor, echos everything
he does and says. In the scene
when these apprehend the
rogues Conrade and Borachio,
they crawl up on them like
beatles, and their - being more
scared of the "criminals" than
the criminals are of justice, is
very funny. The scene also has
its deeper dramatic rightness-
the confrontation of "vigitance"
(sic) and license forecasts that
the comedy, threatened by the
Hero-Claudius affair, can't fail.
These "officials" indeed keep
possibility of enriching the script
the comic peace.
Probably Director Nunn is the
star of the play. If you like
professionalism - i. e. don't
tire of it - then it is a virtue
of the production that there is
not the faintest clanking of
machinery to betray it. The di-
rector has mastered the art of
bringing together functionally
on the stage, a large number of
people. No possibility of enrich-
ing the script goes unfulfilled-
there is dance, song, drum-rolls
and bugles, and gratuitous pa-
geantry, all of which tell you
that this is nothing if it is not
on stage. No exchange is left
unaccented. When for example
Claudius and Hero are f i r s t
united, their speechlessness in
the script is dramatized by em-
barrassment on the stage. They
sigh, laugh, shrug, and finally
clasp hands as Beatrice, impa-
tient with Claudius' silly lover's
apology - "Silence is the per-
fectest herald of joy" - orders
them to "speak." The scenes in
the orchard are arrangements
in themselves, especially the
men's scene: Leonato, D o n
Pedro, and Claudius talk to
each other but look at Bene-
dick's hiding place, all of them
breaking up in fits at their own
double entendre.
All of the company know how
to sit, stand, and turn. Though
there are too many costumes,
they are authentic (the design-
er, Christopher Morley, has not
been looking for new ways to
perform Shakespeare) and at-
tractive. The motif is Renais-
sance - ruffs, cavalier boots,
bodices, capes. The colors are
worked so that there are either
matches or complements among
any group on stage at the same
time, a feat both artful and un-!
obstrusive. The music is nice,
and though the Fisher Theater
itself is fairly garrish, there are
times when you cap feel you are
enjoying a crackerjack evening
in it.
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IMP14F
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Program Information: 662-6264
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Shows at 1, 3,57, 9
Feature 20 Minutes Later
Also "WET & WILD"
:I
I I
THIS SHERIFF IS HUMAN
-TOO HUMAN-
.:
tit)
-
mmmmoommmo"
ca.i...1 0 by mail ,
cinema
Joanna': ice spare, parts
_F-'
; , !
I,
PETITIONING
for two vacant seats on
By GORMAN BEAUCHAMP
Joanna is not a very good
film, yet despite (or more ac-
curately because of) its short-
comings, I enjoyed it. It is much
too shallow, much too slick, and
much too eclectic - almost
everything 'in it is borrowed
from someone else. Imagine a
film with the tempo of Godard,
the camera work of Lalouce, the
script of Tony Richardson, the
playing around with time se-
quences of Renais, and a sing-
ing finale out of Jacques Demy.
You will then begin to see what
Joanna is like. Perhaps a really
good director might be able to
combine such promiscuous bor-
rowings into a unified-and per-
sonal-whole. However, Michael'
Sarne is not that director. It is
tempting to believe that he is
really parodying other directors
-a funeral out o f 'Bergman, a'
Jeanne .Moreau a la Antonioni
walk through the city-but I
fear that he was serious.
The filmis just a lot 'of bits,
some ' funny, some anot, some
more effective, some less. Yet,
in the end, 'Joanna is less than
the' sum of its parts. One is ,,t
a loss to say exactly what sent
the middlebrow -movie establish-
ment-Judith Crist, Hollis Al-
pert, -Time-into such parox-
ysms of ecstasy. It would have
to be a year of pretty slim pick-
ings for Joana to be on any-
one's Top .Ten..
Yet, for all this "collectiig,"
it was a film I enjoyed. It was
irreverent, offbeat, wacky-and
seldom boring. Although it tries
too hard, it often succeeds in
being funny. Joanna herself
(Genevieve Waite) grows on
you; that horrible squeaky voice
of her takes on a curious charm.
When the wife of a man with
whom she is sleeping turns up
one morning, suitcase in hand
and children in tow, Joanna
lifts ,her frazzled head from the
pillow and pipes, "Oh-been
away?"
The acting is, on the whole,
just right for this type of film -
more caricatures than charac-
ters-the whole Swinging Mod
Generation bit. Glenna Foster-
Jones, as Beryl, Joanna's friend,
is enjoyable as a good time girl,
repleat with two Afgans and a
knack for living offuthe fat of
the man.- Donald Sutherland,
Beryl's brother and Joanna's
lover, Gordon, comes on strong,
sexy and strange. To talk about
their affair as an inter-racial
one seems irrelevant, although
the film itself plays up the ra-
cial angle forlaughs: in a fan-
tasay sequence (lesbian) Beryl
appears in an outlandish maid's
uniform; or Joanna says to Gor-
don, "I wish you were white. I
think I'm falling in love with
you." The film has some fun
with the cliches of black-white
relationships, but it is far too
concerned with sex to take any-
thing else seriously.
The message of Joanna-de-
livered with embarassing ex-
plicitness in a 'Moroccan sunset
--is live, live, live. You know,
eat, drink, and be merry, for to-
morrow. Have babies, not abor-
tions. That sort of thing. With-
out quarreling with his view of
life, one may still regret having
it hammered on so hard. It's
more fun to watch-or do-
than to talk about. Joanna is
better when it is doing than
when it is talking. But even the
doing seems too effortful at
times.
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SG C
Applications are available at
1546
SAB. Sign up for interviews and return
applications by Wednesday, April 9, 5
P.M.
M
it
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HELP FINb WART!
Lost Tues. morn., vicinity
Huron and Thayer.
Information, please call
Grace, 769-1280 or Dave,
665-4780-REWARD
The American Friends Service Committee*
(*a Quaker-founded group for service and social change)
WILL HOLD ON-CAMPUS INTERVIEWS
THURSDAY, APRIL 10, 9-5
at the SUMMER PLACEMENT OFFICE
212 SAB (downstairs), for:
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CHANGE IN SCHEDULE
ANN ARBOR RESISTANCE presents:
Pasolini (Italian Marxist)
The Gospel According to St. Matthew
TUESDAY, APRIL 8 Canterbury House
7 P.M., 9 P.M., 1 1 P.M.
(NO ADMISSION: contribute what you can)
1
NOTICE
NON-NATIVE SPEAKERS OF ENGLISH
All speakers of English as a second language* are
invited to take part in an experimental test of English
language proficiency to be given in AUDITORIUM
A, ANGELL. HALL AT 7:15 P.M. ON THE 9th OF
APRIL. You will receive $5.00 for approximately
1 1/2 to 2 hours of Vour time. If you are interested
you must call and register at thie following number
764-2416 on or before April 8th.
SUMMER,
PEACE & COMMUNITY
RELATIONS WORK{
(caravans, group projects, placements)
COMMUNITY SERVICE IN LATIN AMERICA
OVERSEAS (E. & W. EUROPE, etc.) WORKCAMPS
Some aid available for projects that cost. Applications welcomed
from everyone, Those interested may register with Mrs. Cooper
at the Placement Service (764-7460) or just drop by. Jnforma-
tiQn and applications also available weekdays at the AFSC office
(1414 Hill; 761-8283)
*
1
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* ;,s
Ui:::'.
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"NO ELI STUDENTS CURRENTLY
TENSIVE ENGLISH COURSES ARE
AT THIS TIME.
ENROLLED IN THE IN-
ELIGIBLE FOR THE TEST
NOW SHOWING
FEATURE TIMES
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Winter Lecture'Series, and Individual Programs, and,
Campus Coordnator.
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