Page Two
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Wednesday, October 15, 1969
Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Wednesday, October 1 5, 1 969
--_- --theatre--
flippant hour or two!
_-poetry and prose
The only bigger drag than poetry
By MIClAEL ALLEN
Intimate comedy may not be
ihe order of this particular day.
but it does offer an escape to
t hose in love, the non-conmit-
ted and the weary. In the APA's
production of Noel Coward's
Private Lives, directed by Step-
hen Porter, we have a flippant
hour or two of well made indul-
_ence in the private comedies of
love and its
Private Lives is well made. It
has neat inversions, parallel
scenes, unexpected climaxes,
comic surprises, wild exits,
sneaky exits - all intelligently
orchestrated. It glitters w i t h
repartee and nastinesses and
aphorisms like - "certain
women should be struck regu-
larly like gongs." For all i t s
superficiality too it maintains
suspense with its rapid varia-
Briningvocal
- --- -
By JI11 PETE'ERS
I suppose moost people
pleased with Sunday m
concert at Rackham, b
doubt if many realized the
ber of the musical event
wit nessed. The Roma i an
ale, in its first American
brought vocal talent and
try to Ann Arbor, r a r e
among pjrofessional grou
musicians.
The music uould have
enough, but they added
effects as well. The first h
the program featured the
rale in Spanish Renaissanc
tume, satin and velvet in
and black. And their musi
rich too.
Displaying precision in
formance and interpret
this Madrigal group from
harest performed first a
%Brevis of Palestrina.
voices were bright with sta
sharpness, the mixed polyj
moved like finLy wrought
stops, clear and hollow,
light.
The Chorale's portatif
was best in the lush Ber
tus, where all four voice
through the melodic line
tight-woven perfection.
Conductor Marin Const
knowledge of Renaissance
was obvious; the smooth el
of tempo on "Et Resurrex
the Gloria, the ease with
the choir handtled the sy
pated rhythms sucht
are not easily achieved.
The madigals by Pales
wvhich followed, continued
fine style. The s o n g s fl
downwards, and would ris
brilliant tension to the bo
"Fire, Fire" closed the firs
:spiritedly.
After a change to their na-
tional f o 1 k costumes, amid
eightesgreen and yellow and white lin-
ight s en splashed with sequins, the
calI- Chorale used their classical
athey training in a program of Ro-
Chor- manian folk and contemporary
tour, music.
artis-' Although the printed program
artis differed considerably from the
even group's actual selections, it
ps o mattered little. The triptych by
Arvinte combined Slavic melo-
been dies with Moslem-influenced
visual chants. Marin's group present-
alf of ed Christmas songs, folk instru-
Cho- ments, and rustic melodies, cul-
e cos- ninating in a Ritual Rain
white Dance by a contemporary Ro-
c was manian composer.
It is not necessary to discuss
per- h e r e Communist influence on
ation, the arts: the piece combines tra-
Buc- ditional Romanian motifs with
Missa modern accents. The troupe di-
Their vided into two parts, carrying
accato instruments to the rear of the
phony auditorium, amid groans a n d
organ wailings for rain from the per-
a n d formers on stage, soon breaking
into chants.
sound For a first America tour. it
nedic- is, perhaps, allowable for such
s ran a magnificient company to de-
with vote so much time to intrigu-
ing but rather simple folk tunes.
atin's But I am sure they do not per-
nusio form such in concert at Bucha-
hange rest.
it" in When they return, hopefully
which in the near future, I trust The
ncho- Romanian Chorale will devote
lhings its startingly pure technique to
music a little more worthy.
tions on the fidelities of divorce.
The first act opens with the
ex-husband, Elyot (Brian Bed-
ford) and his new, silly, pla-
tinum blonde wife, Sibyl (Su-
zanne Grossman) honeymooning
in the same French hotel, in
adjacent rooms as the ex-wife
Amanda, (Tammy Grimes) and
her new, tweedy, blustering hus-
hand, Victor (David Glover).
This all went a little stiffly un-
til the recognition scene between
Elyot and Amanda. They are
sitting back to back to the bal-
cony, Elyot flicking fluff off his
tuxedo and Amanda powdering
her nose while Victor takes his
bath. Suddenly she notices Elyot
reflected in her hand mirror.
After her intial shock her first
characteristic gesture is to
cheekily, provocatively drop her
shoulder strap. The whole scene
develops into a light-weight
gem.
From then on, we are treated
to line after acid line of talk,
like Amanda's "Very flat, Nor-
folk"; and her insolent accent-
ing of' the last syllable of
"thankyou." In between the two
exes of course have a wicked
reunion that goes from the
ecstatic to the Solomon-and-
Isaacs romantic, to the brandy
bickering, to a good row where
Elyot has a gramaphone record
broken over his head, to outright
jungle fighting with the furni-
ture rolling all over the place.
Not very shocking to our curi-
ously yellow sensibilities, but
fun.
Tammy Grimes dominates the
stage with her husky liquid frog-
in-the-throat patter and her
tigerish profile. Her Elyot, how-
ever, comes into his own in Act
2, when he's balancing the ash-
tray on Amanda's stomach and
fussily arranging his purple
dressing gown before trying to
seduce her; all aborted by, "It's
too soon after supper." I also
liked his falling back on the
prescribed etiquette of flip-
pancy in the final scene. Sibyl
and Victor, too, were good in
their minor ways.
The evening can be recom-
mended to those in need of
light-very light-relief amid
the impending gloom and the
APA production as a whole
satisfies. One or two more per-
formances will make it quib-
blingly complete.
By WILLIAM SHEARS
I can only think of one thing
that is a bigger drag than hav-
ing to write a review of a poetry
reading. And that's trying to
answer some of the letters that
I get from this old school-chum
of mine. You understand, my
friend isn't just a little bit mix-
ed-up, he's completely gone. He
used to be a pretty normal guy,
at least he was the last time I
saw him, but that was a couple
years back when we both had
steady gigs over in England.
Well, now this friend is liv-
ing down in Argentina and I
guess that that Southern heat
has gotten the better of him.
In fact, if you can believe it,
he's flipped-out into that mes-
siah bag, he really and truly
think that he's the Son of God.
Actually I knew even a few years
back that it all was going to
come to this sorry state.
You see, I think it was in '67,
my friend Paul had just got up
anu quit his gig with his band,
thev'r- the Beatles. So anyhow
this dude named Alan Alridge
didn't know Paul had quit, so
Alan, he's a writer, came over to
my pad, at that time Paul was
staying with me, and he wanted
to get an interview with Paul--
Paul said O.K., even though he
wasn't with the band anymore,
he was always playing jokes on
people like that. He was pretty
freaky even in those days.
If you feel like it you can read
the interview that took place
word for word in the new book
The Age of Rock by Jonathan
Eisen. The things Paul laid
down in that rap were a real
gas, wow he was really far out,
at the time I thought he was
just pulling the man's leg -
talking about songs on the
For all of you who have been
trying to find copies of yes-
terday's Daily in order to read
Fred LaBour's incredible ex-
pose of the death of Paul Mc-
Cartney, The Daily has printed
up extra copies which are now
available at the Student Pub-
lications Building, 420 May-
nard Street, upstairs for only
ten cents a shot. For those of
you still skeptical, The Daily is
busily securing an interview
with Mr. LaBour which will be
printed when it all works out.
"Sgt. Pepper" record that he
hadn't even heard let alone
written. But now I know the
truth, I know that that was just
the beginning, the beginning of
Paul's complete freak-out.
Now if you don't want to be-
lieve me, you can always read
the dialogue, it's right on page
143 in that book. It says Alridge
asked Paul: "People have told
me that "Fixing a Hole" is all
about junk, you know, this guy,
sitting there fixing a hole in his
arm." And Paul said: "This song
is just about the hole in the
road where the rain gets in; a
good old analogy-the hole in
your make-up which lets the
rain in and stops your mind
frohi going where it will. It's you
interfering with things as when
someone walks up to you and
says I am the Son of God,' And
you say, 'No you're not; I'll
crucify you,' and you crucify
him. Well that's life, but it is
not fixing a hole." At the time
I thought it was a big joke like
I said, but you know now I think
that that freak John Lennon
really messed-up old Paul's
mind, I kind of think that Paul
was afraid that he was going to
get crucified, like get the same
deal that Epstein got, so he took
off--to Argentina, far out.
Ya, so as I was saying this
friend of mine's letters are real-
ly hard to answer, kind of like
trying to write a review on thU
poet Ted Berrigan, he's also
pretty far-out. I got more to say
on Paul, but let me fit Ted into
the scene.
Well, I first met Ted just this
past summer when I went back
to England and met him there
at a London bash, William Bur-
roughs was there too, but that s
another story. Anyhow, Ted and
I became pretty good £re.ds so
I decided to come back to the
States and just dig Ted's scenes.
he came to Ann Arbor to teach
and I came along too. That's
just what I've been doing for
the last month --digging Ted's
poems and his classes.
Yesterday he gave a residing
at the UGLI and a Tot of pe.-
ple showed up and most of
them enjoyed themselves I
think.
But you sure aren't going to
enjoy listening to me rehash
all the good lines that he read.
If you really want to get into
Ted's poetry, then go buy his
new book Many Happy Returns.
But let me tell you a little bit
about the man anyhow.
First of all he teaches English
231, but this isn't the first time
that he's taught. Last semester
he was at the Creative Writers'
Workshop of the University of
Iowa. That was somewhat of a
down since the student-poets in
his workshop were tripped-out
on their own poems and spent
most of the class time putting-
down the other guys' poems.
The myth of Frank O'Hara,
who attended Michigan, is the
main reason why Ted came here
this semester. But Ted is staying
"on the road" and next se-
mester he's moving on to Yale.
Anyway in his class here we
talk mostly about Dylan, Gins-
berg, and the Beatles and hard-
ly ever about "those old creeps"
as Berrigan calls almost any-
thing that's pre-Ferlinghetti.
One lay in class I read some of
my more recent letters from
Paul, they're pretty pathetic.
You know a lot of the kids in
the class really think that the
other Beatles were after him -
"It's the best
picture about
young people
I have seen!"
-JeinTc.e.AC TV
Emanuel L oli presents
AN ALLIE ARTISTS FILM
A Frank Perry-AlsidProductios
'MPOMS
DIALS 6416
ET
ATTENTION
that they wanted to put him
six feet under-where his weird,
messianic thoughts would be
safe. I kind of think they're
right, with all this business
about the omens on the records
made after Paul split--like the
grave on the "Sgt. Pepper"
cover and the new record with
the cemetery scene.
That's it for now, I've got to
be heading back to my real
home in Alabama, but if you
ever feel like asking me some-
think, just ring me up on the
telly, my number is one the
back of the "Sgt. Pepper" album.
It's easy to figure out, just take
the 2 and the 0 f'om "It was
twenty years ago today," and
the 5 from "Wednesday morn-
ing at five o'clock." and you've
already got the area code.
Proqrom Information 662-6264
Wed., Oct. 15
KATCHANYUNGA
dir. Sutyajit Ray
(1962)
The greatest director in
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"Tired of fighting for
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AND
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MON.-FRI .7:20-9:30
SAT. and SUN-i :00-3:05-
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In support of
the MORATORIUM,
the Ark will remain closed tonite.
There will be a soup kitchen be-
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The Hoot normally held tonite will
be postponed 'til Sunday at 8:30 P.M.
THURS.-6 week Intermediate T. Lab
RADICAL FILM SERIES
presents
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This feature film classic depicts the long and bitter struggle of
Mexican-American zinc miners in New Mexico for better
working and living conditions. In semi-documentary fashion,
it portrays the integrity and courage of the miners as they
strike for equality with Anglo-Americans. Simultaneously, it
follows the struggle of the women for equality with the men
in the context of the hardships of their lives.
Among other awards, it won the International Grand Prize
for Best Film Exhibited in France in 1955. Due to controver-
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mercial showings.
"Vigorous art . . . rich with passion of social anger"-Time
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8 P.M.
FRI. & SAT.-Barry O'Neill
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ADMISSION 75c
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OCTOBER 24-26
BRIAN BEDFORD
delicious happy comedy."
-Judith Crist
"A funny picture.
Impudent and
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"Probably one of the
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TAMMY GRIMES
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