THE MICHIGAN DAILY Wednesday, March 26, 1969 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Wednesday, March 26, 1969 theatre 0 Alchemists 16th century slam at Madison Ave. By MICHAEL ALLEN The Stratford production of Ben Jonson's The Alchemist is both excellent and amazingly depraved. Not only is every bit of verbal lead turned into sensual gold but even the crotches of female statues are cozened into obscei- ity. Indeed the courting of Doll by Mammon, interlarded as it is by drib- bling references to 'lobsters and pea- cocks' tails, is so overplayed that the lewdness is transmuted into a kind of violence. It is a violence that uhder- scores the play at every turn-in the overflowing riot of the language; in the quick alternation of scenes; in the en- ergy of invention shown by Sutble and Face. Indeed, this play is directed by Jean Gascon in such a way that it is hardly a comedy at all; though we were all con- stantly guffawing. Under the humour is a savagery, both cruel and frightening and from which nobody is spared. All our life energies are shown to be corrupt and self-destructive, and what is left in our imaginations are menstruous rags and clap and ochreous colors and smoke and gold. The plot is simple and consists of scenes with the sundry gulls coming and going and being gulled each time. The producer brought off each one of these episodes by sheer wealth of invention. There's the puffing dragon-machine; the spinning wheel gadget; the huge skull that oozed out wiffs of incense through its eye sockets; and that baroque organ peeling out every now, and again. And of course there's the whole set with its fiery, seedy, smoky coloring and its two, stairways coming down like Subtle's arms. Indeed the impression of this whole production consists of a host of vividly remembered details--details that attest to the vital- ity and fertility of Jonson's rage. In addition this production has pace; nothing is allowed to lag, nobody is allowed to leave without some gesture or movement which catapults us into the next sequence. Each scene follows. hard on the other. The result is exciting but also irritating. Sometimes one was blunted a little by a sense of over- excitement and overstressing. Nothing wasdlettalone to work by itself, and to- wards the end this constant heighten- ing became even a bit tiring. Perhaps Jonson intended this however. Having enchanted us by a display of roguery's energy, he presses on to deliberately make us tire of it. We are made aware of the deep down pointlessness of the vitality of evil. What are Jonson's targets? They are advertising and all its gimmicks (Drug- ger's shop-sign); the hosts of jargon users who pretend to meaningfulness behind the polysyllabics; the who1e world- of high pressure salesmanship; bigots; rat-racers; voluptuaries; fools; the dollar; sex. The two arch rogues Face (Bernard Behrens) and Subtle (Powys Thomas) were neatly paired and underwent their transformations into magician, holy father, and "Lungs" with wonderful speed and composure. Doll (Jane Cas- son) with her full bosom and her red shoes and her flaming hair was also ef- fective, oscillating as she did from nun to whore to fairy to thief with expert timing. Against these three are measur- ed the tribe of gulls led by Sir Epicure Mammon (William Hutt). Mammon has some of the greatest lines in the lang- uage - "walking naked between my succubi"; "oh my voluptouous mind" - and no competent actor can fail to bring the house down in the great speech in which words become the vehicle for a megalomanic vision that is both won- derful and absurd and utterly depraved. William Hutt indeed had his applause but the speech was woefully mishandled. Superb lines were thrown away and that great fabric of sensuality was pointlessly dissolved into breathless- ness. The poor sow and her paps could hardly be disentangled from the mess. Perhaps the only time in the evening., this happened was due to a pace that was too forced. Mammor needs all the time in the world for this speech. Each phrase is a gem and the whole builds to a controlled if fantastic climax. You cannot afford to get the laughs too early by going into top gear from the start. But it would be grossly unfair to leave it at this. For most of the time Mammon is good and so are the puritans and Kastril with his Scots whine and poor dreamy Dapper and flustered Drugger andiDamne Pliant and the rest. The Stratford company is to be con. gratulated for an 'evening that has an abundance of verbal and visual energy \I A A 04 that is funny. both cruel and obscene and I .1 poetry and prose SRandall: A publisher By LARRY RUSS Dudley Randall, publisher ,anthologist, and poet, gave a reading yesterday at the UGLL His books from Broadside Press are Poem Counterpoem ,(with Margaret Dann6), Cities Burning, and an anthology he co-edited, For Malcolm. As a publisher he has been. very important in printing young black poets but, I am sorry to say, is not a very good poet himself. Some of his poems are satiric, clever. But some of these are terribly facile and/or simplistically condemnatory: "Analysands" - jerks with heavy-handed violence, without understanding or com- passion; the poems on "Intellectuals" are immature and wrong- headed-e.g., he tells us that resolutions are not the affairs of intellectuals, ignoring Lenin, Voltaire and so on. We miss the real bite, the anger in, say Leroi Jones' best work. Other poems of his are awfully melodramatic, like "Ballad of Birmingham" and "Dressed All in Pink." In these and others the poet is content with the cliches like "rose petal sweet" and "delicate as roses," and with archaic syntax such as "spirits gay" and "a deep, deep red is dyed." In both the mertrical and free verse the rhythm is flat; there is no forceful matching of sound and sense. There are some good poems ("Old Witherington," "George," "Legacy: My South") but they need revising: "Legacy" is stilted, with lines like "To tread again where buried feet have trod"; "Old Witherington" should be cut in half. Most of Randall's poems die into clicheisch abstractions, failing to find the evocative image, the concrete world. On occasions he makes it, but they are rare: "A naked plowman falls Famished upon the plow, and overhead A lean bird circles." 4harsh/syllables/drag like/dogs with/crushed/backs." As a publisher, though, Randall is very important. The Broad- side Press, which he founded in 1965, has brought out the poetry of young black poets, such as Etheridge Knight, whose work might not otheriwse have made print. He has also been energetic and, successful in, seeing that blacks get to read their poets' work; selling inexpensive books in black book stores. For these things Dudley Randall should be thanked. music ,,r f Help By JOE PEHRSON Last night's concert Variations on a Theme, presented by The International Center as a bene- fit, was less than spectacular. In fact, from a purely musical standpoint, it was unbelievably poor. A part of the talent-show gendre,,it consisted of E d g a r Taylor, a part-time night man- ager at the Center, attempting a vocal rendition of works rang-; ing from Verdi and Schubert to The Doors. At least Mr. Taylor was consistent - all was equally bad. This is not to say he has no potential as a singer. The weak, powerless upper range could be strengthened; so could his prob- lems with intonation and pitch. Still, considering his present ability, the International Center had considerable nerve to open this concert to the entire com- munity. The lack of professionality of this presentation could best be gave the International Center - STARTS TOMORROW ca& ,.A. seen at those times when M r. Taylor forgot what he was going to sing, or made arbitrary changes in the program. He omitted the scheduled Befreit by Strauss simply because, in h i s words, "The composer and I don't see eye to eye". One won-. ders why it was put on the program in the first place. The contemporary part of the pro- gram consisted of a weakly tied piano, guitar, drums, bass combo that couldn't possibly have play- ed through the material more than twice before performance. The bass player was superbly poor - I seriously doubt he hit one right note during the con- cert. And yet, he was given solos! That was the final insult added to the original injury - the fact that the audience felt obliged to applaud and sit quietly sim- ply because they approved of the International Center. As a person, Edgar Taylor evokes both praise and admira- tion. As night manager of the Center, he goes out of his way to give help and information to people who could feel quite lost at the University, simply be- cause they are from another country. He is currently a stu- dent of anthropology here, and from comments made by foreign students at the concert, one of the nicest people you're likely to run across. How can anyone write any- thing bad about a guy like that? The original intentions of the concert were unusual. The con- temporary pieces were compar- ed to the classical works ac- cording to message, or theme, hence Variations on a Theme. Mr. Taylor was clear in his ex- planation of music as means for expression which varies f r o m culture to culture and age to age. The idea, the message, is the same, and no one has the right to judge someone else's music by his own standards. Un- fortunately, the parallels were not as clear as might be ex- pected by the title. For exam- ple, Die Post by Schiubert w a s compared to "Come Rain or Come Shine because the idea of mail delivery had connotations of pony-express-type c o n - stant service which indeed would come rain or shine. Sure- ly this is stretching it a bit. Even if the ideas are similar, the topic is trivial enough to have virtually no meaning. Perhaps the most amusing in- stance off the evneing was when Mr.. Taylor compared "Sunny" by Bobby Hebb to the intermis- sion simply because there was no suitable classical selection. No doubt every person in the audience would' be glad to con- tribute to an excellent Inter- national Center. There is no reason, though, for dressing a contribution in the form of a distastefully amateur produc- tion. WED., MARCH 26 ST. VALENTINE'S DAY' MASSACRE Dir. ROGER CORMAN Jason Robards Jr. George Segal s I' SANY DN S X RDUILE ANNE RY WOD MM INnUR.IAWREN0ES ALSO.. WAIT UNTIL DARK -RESTRICTED. Persona under 16 not admitted unless accompanied by a 'parent HAVE or Guardian WE HEATERS "in 'Colour" 7&9 4A 662-8871 P. Dreyfuss ARCHITECTURE AUDITORIUM m t I FOX EASTERN TEATRES FOH VILL6E 375 No. MAPLE RD.-"769-1300 NOW SHOWING. MON. THRU FRI. 7:00-9:00 SAT.-SUN. 1:00-3:00-5:007:00-9:00 SAM HELD OVER-3rd BIG WEEK "Right on Target With Some Keen Potshots at Pertinent and 1Imnpertinent Sub jecs-Vitnam, Smut Peddling, Nymphomania, Underground Newspapers, Pop Art and Sex and the Single N ot Blooded Young /Man." COLUMBIA PICTURES AN IRVING ALIEN Da M Dean Mar ..an te emliio is delicious! Seating Extremely Xcceptable! I I rAf announces petitions for CENTRAL COMMITTEE Now that we have your undivided attention ... TURN IN YOUR BLOCK TICKET ORDERS NOW Due in MICHIGRAS Office March 28th-5:00 P.M. -Bob GEreetings n "I t R7EASE" IN COLOR * :30-9:40 Sa moggi no one under I8 SNEAK PREVIEWTI 8:05 SHOW Homecoming '69 Petitions available Students Offices, 2nd floor Union. Due March 31 1I I I Mat~di~The Wrecking Crew THEATRE CLEARED AFTER 7 P.M. SHOW FRI.-SAT. PROFESSIONAL THEATRE PROGRAM presents Festival Theatre of Canada "A MILESTONE MOVIE!" 3rd'Floor League --Judith Crist. Come at 6:30 or 8:05,and see 2 complete features p Rw1N I- I LAST TIMES TODAYTHUNDERBALL & FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE TODAY LADIES UNTIL 75c 6 P.M. Program Information 2L6264 ' '/ E, HAVE YOUR NEXI AFFAIR JUST ONE I THE IN I ALCHEMIST with William Hutt, Powys Thomas, Bernard Behrens Directed by JEAN GASCON NEW YORK via United Airlines I w E E S S l am Master Sergeant Albert Callan, and 1; have n fears "-'. MAR. 26, 27, APR. 3, 4, 5, 6 1' IAT W !V \.0604 have ~ no, fec lo 4 9 * * 0 HAMLET 2r5. 4i Win the MICHIGRAS Carnival Just One ! with Kenneth Welsh, Lec Ciceri, Angela Wood Directed by JOHN HIRSCH . DOOR PRIZE MAR. 28, 29, 30, Y 1 a 4.jAPR. 1, 2 w Um-mimm DolI SERGiEANT I I I a I I I I R,,% I I od i 1 10 1 1 1 1 WU