Page Two

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

Thursday, December 4, 1969

Page wo TE MICIGANDAIL


Spiro should

be so

hilarious....

BATTLE of the BANDS

By JOHN ALLEN
If you haven't had a good
belly laugh since the last time
Spiro gave a speech, run-don't
walk-down to your neighbor-
hood Lydia Mendelssohn The-
atre and see the Gilbert and
Sullivan Society's current pro-
duction of H.M.S. Pinafore.
Fortunately, the supply is not
limited. The supply of laughs,
that is. Tickets, on the other
hand, may be hard to get after
the word gets out.
Without a doubt the funniest
villain that ever foiled a hero's
plans is Don Cameron as Dick
Deadeye. His face appears to be
modelled in silly putty-after a
design by Heironymous Bosch.
Spiro should be so hilarious .. .
About a zillionth of an inch
behind him in the har-de-har-
department is Susan Morris as
Cousin Hebe. As the antique
sidekick of Sir Joseph, admiral
of the Royal Navy, she looks
like Jonathan Winters in drag
imitating a chipmunk. But old
Maude Frickett never had it so
good .. .
Charlie Sutherland as Sir
Joseph is pompous, fragile, gray
about the temples, and delight-
fully mistreated by everyone on
stage, especially in the multiply-
encored Bell trio, Never Mind
the Why or Wherefore.
Michael Reinhart as Bill Bob-
stay, the Boatswain's Mate, has
all the charm, misanthropy, and
disdain of Winnie-the Pooh's
old friend, Eeyore. His gum-
chewing sneer keep his corner
of the stage warm throughout
the evening, and his singing
sends heat all the way to the
back row of the house.
Equally strong vocally are
Nancy Jaynes Bloom as Jose-
phine and Jerald Wigsdortz as
her father, the Captain of the

Pinafore. Like James Bryan,
who sang icely in his role as
hero, Ralph Rackstraw, there
was a little less to cheer about
in the acting department, but
r e a 11 y nothing to complain
about.
And of course, Buttercup-
Julia Lacy: not exactly plump
as the lines call for, but im-
mensely pleasing, particularly in
her duet with the Captain,
Things Are Seldom What They
Seem.
The chorus seemed a bit too
busy at times but had their
Savoyard hand motions down to
perfectionhand their voices up
to par-which is pretty up with
the G & S Society.
And what have I left out?
Well, there's Tom Ault's set and
Ann Correll's costumes-the for-
mer, especially, being among the
finest trimmings ever provided
for the high-flying nonsense of
Messrs. Gilbert and Sullivan, at
least in the past eight years here
in Ann Arbor.
Basic credit, however goes to
those star performers mentioned
at first who seemed to be hav-
ing a generous jolly time and
were all too happy to share it
with a delighted audience-
which included the eminent Dr.
Cranston of Omaha (or some
place like that). Hearing his
r o t u n d, piercing, unabashed
laughter again made it seem like
old times. Long live tradition,
say I, and Gilbert and Sullivan
Society-offering the campus its
fiftieth production this week-
deserves a whole house full of
such appreciative doctors. As I
said, run-don't walk.
Bach Club
Invites you to
a Musical
HAPPENING
Entitled Second Chance
Conducted by
KURT CARPENTER
EXPERIMENT IN
INDEFERENTIAL MUSIC;
audience participation
in case you play an instrument,
no matter how badly, bring it!
THURS., DEC. 4
8:00 P.M.
1236 Washtenaw (at S. Forest)
Refreshments and Fun
afterwards
Everyone Welcome
(no musical knowledge needed)
for transportation or
further information
769-2003 663-6221 761-7356

"The Best of Ann

Arbor"

SATURDAY, DEC. 6
2-4 P.M.

YOU Are the Final Judge
UAC and WOIA
U-

SUBSCRIBE NOW!

MM


PROFESSIONAL THEATRE PROGRAM

presents

-Daily-Richard Lee

5 GREAT PLAYS!
2 Performances Each
FRI..SAT., JAN. 23.24
"A REAL TRIUMPEIF
BST PLAi\
\niwm mwa
aulldeN p
WED-THURS. FEB. 4-5
"A STUNNING MUSICAL BRILUANTLY CONCEVED"
-KlRR K. 1' LM[5
BES MUICA196-67,pn
II.IIAIACRECII II

TUES-WED, FE. 24.25
- MLLER

cinema
i btine': I th patois of th por biz

By GORMAN BEAUCTIAMP
I 1ve never hIad much use
for ta grouchy group known as
Women' Liberation, but since
S il p)obably be around
for a while making nuisances
of me.nelves, they might as
wvell turn their noisy attention
to their real enemies - the
French.
i1 of th (urrtly fahion-
able thes of the Frnco liter-
_ry-ci,emati: establishment is
th;it I woman, ceep down
and c lwants to be beaten.
And :icked. And chained. And
wel. modesty forbids that
I go on but you get the pie-
imn (. 01 yo( do ii you've seen
Belle de Jour or La Prisonniere
Or ad Story of 0 or The
PTP schedIle
Fi top Broadway and Off-
Broadway successes with out-
standig New York casts were
lk it an oincdfor tie Ui-
iestoI Aichiga Professional
Tea :tre',Progi am's .1970 Play
of the MYont Trits by Robert
, PTP executive
Susrpt alsofeig
il iiug this seris of New
YorkEhts in mHill Auditorium
Jan. 23-24 is Rosencrantz and
Guild st e Are Dead." which
Nhe ork T imes critic Clive
aesaied sm, "a most re-
inarkable andlirilling play!..
very funiy m very brilliant.-
very chillin
Sub ion 7sales offering
spia)'Itl dc(ounts f o r reserved
sea ing,, for these two-perform-
aceoly smash touring pro-
duct ins'b e g i nMonday (Nov.
24) ati the PTP ticket office in
the lobby of Lydia Mendelssohn
Theatre, f. 'Thec tic'ket office is 01)-
en weekdays from 10 am. to 1
pmn. wand 2 to 5 p.m. Subscrib-
ers; can~ obtain information by
ca ll iiig-t1) 764-0450.
375 No. MAPLE RD..769-13 OO
HURRY! ENDS SOON
MON.-WED.-7:10-9.20
THURS.-SUN.--I :00-3:05-
5:10-7.15-9:30
BUTCH CA SSIDY AND
THE SUNDANCE KID
When in California Visit
Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Image. In the patois of the porn
biz, chicks want to be DOMI-
NATED.
Now I have never been able
to take this idea seriously, part-
ly because I'm not French, part-
ly because mother told me it
wasn't nice to hit girls, and
partly because the girls I know
hit back. Certain serious peo-
ple, however, do take the idea
seriously. Susan Sontag in an
excellent essay, "The Porno-
graphic Imagination," argues
that pornography can be serious
art (which, of course, it can)
and that The Story of 4 and
The Image are.
Likewise Belle de Jour was a
much acclaimed, discussed and
enjoyed film, the first of Luis
Bunuel's fetish fests to extend in
popularity b e y o n d hardcore
cinemaphiles. E v e n Cluzot's
nasty La Prisonniere has its de-
votees-oddly enough, or so it
seemed at the time, mostly fe-
male. Two of them, both quite
knowledgable about film, dis-
missed my objections with the
same crushing retort, "Well, it
was a film women like." Who
knows. maybe those French-
men know where it's at after
all.
At any rate the theme is
being bodied forth again, this
time in a film called The Liber-
tine, showing at the Fifth
Forum. And this time aroun(J I
enjoyed it, mainly because it
was being played for laughs. One
of the stodgy myths about por-
nography is that, being a parody
of reality, it can't parody itself.
Like Candy, it becomes what it
spoofs.
But The Libertine explodes
this myth, showing that a lot
of good, dirty fun can be got
from exploiting a pornographic
situation. That situation, if you
will bear wtih a bit of plot sum-
mary, begins thus: a pretty

young widow (Catherine Spaak)
finds that her recently deceased
had kept a secret apartment.
Going there to investigate, she
discovers films of him doing all
sorts of perverted, fun things
with other women. She is ter-
ribly upset: why didn't he ever
do that with me? Why should
the whores get all the--you'll
pardon the pun-kicks?
(I should point out that this
porno-genre reverses the tradi-
tional convention: in the older
stories all the tramps wanted
to be wives; in these, all the
wives want to be tramps. Also
"innocent" looking blondes are
usually cast----Spaak or Deneuve
types - presumably because
blondes are purer and thus more
fun to violate.)
So, buying a book entitled
something like Abnormal Sex
Practices, the widow sets about
trying them all. The results,
while fairly predictable, are still
fun. "You didn't seduce me,"
she tells one trick afterwards,
"I seduced you." Now that's a
The University of Michigan
Gilbert and Sullivan Society
Presents
H.M.S.
PINAFORE
TONIGHT through
SATUR DAY
Performances at: 8:00 P.M.
Thursday and Saturday
7 and 9:30 Friday

liberated woman! The story is
less liberated though as it moves
toward a traditional commit-
ting-of-marriage denounement.
But for all her "submission" our
girl has a streak of the Wife of
Bath in her, insisting that her
wooer accept her as she is-or
has become-fetishes and all.
The Libertine is not a great
film, barely a good one, but it
is a thoroughly enjoyable one,
a classy put-on. Indeed any film
whose director pretends to be
named Pasquale Festa-Cam-
panile must be put on. Be that
as it may, he keeps things mov-
ing at a slick, jazzy pace, now
and again showing just enough
of Miss Spaak's fetching nude-
ness to bring out the sweaty
voyeur in each of us. But then
the next minute we are laugh-
ing at our own prurience. All in
all the sound of chains and
chuckles mingles nicely.
NEW MAGAZINE NEEDS
POETRY, SHORT STORIES, ES-
SAYS. $5.00 per printed page or
part thereof. Manuscripts will not
be ret'd. unless accompanied by
self-addressed, stamped envelope.
Mail to KEN GAERTNER, 605 E.
William.

WED. THUJRS., MARCH 18-19IL
BEST MUSCAL'
NEW YORK
DRAMA CRITICS U
(CIRCLE AWARD 1 98
"A CHEERFUL, JOYFUL & r ~
BLISSFULLY IRREVERENT
MUSICAL ... AS MODERN
ASTODAYrI THE
Hi"


F,

Il

Saturday matinee sold out
Tickets $2.50
Lydia Mendelssohn
Theatre
663-6800


has come to
Paul's Rathskeller
3 5'z E. Front St., Monroe

Go Ro
BAHAMAS
Dec. 27-Jan. 3
8 FABULOUS DAYS
7 GLORIOUS NIGHTS
CHOICE OF:
$219 at Freeport Inn
Includes:
r Round Trip Jet Air Fa
0 7 Nights Accommoda
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SING OUT
and
PLAY ALONG

with ELAINE
classical and
folk guitar

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0-

Read (11(nd Use
Paily Class ifieds

EVERY THURSDAY NITE-so come on over!

RAMBLIN' JACK ELLIOTT
RETURN OF THE FREAKED OUT COWBOY

0 7 Great Happy Hours
0 Gala New Year's Party
PLUS, PLUS, PLUS
Sludonlou rs'
located at:
APOLLO
MUSIC CENTER
322 S. Main
Ann Arbor, Michigan

i

11

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