PAGE TWO

THE MICHIGAN DAILY

FRIDAY, DECEMBER. 4, 1964 1

PAGE TWO THE MICHIGAN DAILY PRIflAY. DECFMREft 4 1(~iU

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Across
Campus
Dr. Jerome W. Conn, professor
of internal medicine in the Medi-
cal School, gave the 1964 William
H. Olmsted Lecture at Washing-
ton University, St. Louis, Mo., re-
cently. His topic: "The Prediabetic
State. What Do We Know About
It?"
FRIDAY, DEC. 4
7:30 a.m.-9 p.m.-Galens medi-

'Luther' Opens Winter Bill Soviet 'Method'
In Play-of-the-Month Series Actors To Hold
Theatre Talks

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,

Anon, to sudden silence won, In friendly chat with bird or beast
In fancy they pursue And half believe it true.
To dream-child moving through a land -Lewis Carroll in
Of wonders wild and new, "Alice in Wonderland"
Carrol.,Kafka: 'Practitioners of Nonsense'

cal service honorary will collect I
funds at various spots on campus
during its annual "Tag Day." Pro-
ceeds will go to provide a Christ-
mas Party and presents for chil-
dren in University Hospital.
4 p.m.-Members of the Moscow
Art Theatre will present a sem-
inar on "Acting and the Stanis-
lavsky Method" in Lydia Mendel-
ssohn Theatre. The seminar is
sponsored by the Professional
Theatre Program and is open to
all students and faculty.

(Continued from Page 1)
"We select these attractions for
quality and diversity, bringing
the campus and community a wide
cress-section of fine contemporary
theatre to augment our Fall Fes-
tival by the APA," Schnitzer said.
In addition to the Series, the
PTP's winter season will also in-
clude performances in March of
the off-Broadway, long-run play
"In White America."
Following the success of "Child
Buyer" produced by the PTP last
year and soon to be seen in New
York, the PTP will again produce
a special play in February.
Marcella Cisney, PTP's associ-
ate director, and stage director of
the Hersey-Shyre script, will an-
nounce after the. first of the year
the play she plans to direct this
season.
ThenPTP has just completed a
record breaking season with the
Association of Producing Artists,
Schnitzer said. Subscription en-
rollment has risen 66 per cent
since 1961 and box office ticket
sales doubled over last season.
Some 56,000 saw the profession-
al American premieres of "War
and Peace," "Judith," "Man and
Superman," and "The Hostage," in
Ann Arbor and on the Michigan
tour which the University yearly
sponsors as a cultural service to
the state.
Thousands of regional high
school and college students saw
professional plays at nominal ad-
missions, while half the Festival
subscription roster was made up

By JUDY STONEHILL
Students and faculty will have
an opportunity to meet with lead-
ers from the Moscow Art Theatre
today from 4-6 p.m. in Lydia
Mendelssohn Theatre.
The discussion, "Acting and the
Stanislavsky Method," will. be the
first program in the group's four
day visit to Ann Arbor and the
only one open to the public.
In America on an exchange
mission sponsored by the Institute
of International Education and
the State Department, the Rus-
sian visitors are guests of the
University's Professional Theatre
program.
(Continued on Page 8)

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A1

ALAN BERGMAN

By BARBARA SEYFRIED
"Lewis Carroll, Frank Kafka
and Edward Lear are outstanding
professors and practioners of non-
sense," Dr. Phyllis Greenacre said
recently in a psychiatry depart-
ment sponsored lecture entitled
"On Nonsense."
Dr. Greenacre is professor of
clinical psychiatry at Cornell Uni-
versity.
"The term nonsense implies
words or actions which convey no
sense and have no meaning," she
said. "Absolute nonsense implies
the elimination of any kind of
coherence and the impossibility
of response to stimuli from other
people. A person who is absolutely
nonsensical is static, isolated and
approaching lifelessness," she said.
Dr. Greenacre went on to de-
scribe the pathological weaknesses
of these men. Such weaknesses
made it possible for them to write
their nonsense, she said.
Defense
"The communication of non-
sense is a defense against the ex-
treme destructive forces of an-
xiety and aggression. It helps an
individual maintain stability," Dr.
Greenacre explained.
She added, "Carroll discusses
the problems of growing up and
sexual identity in his works."
In "Alice in Wonderland," Alice
searches for a secret garden where
she need never grow up. Accord-
ing to Dr. Greenacre, the confu-
sion of events in the story, the
distortion of her size, the upside
down logic of the world she en-
ters, the people who behave like
animals and the animals who be-
have like people are all symbolic
of the growthCprocess.
Chess
In "Through the Looking Glass,"
another book by Carroll, a chess
board plays an important part.
Alice desires to become a queen.
She travels over the chessboard
of life in a railroad carriage in
pursuit of her aim.
Dr. Greenacre observed that,
"time and space extend and con-
tract in unusual ways in this
book. No character seems to be
able to keep track of who or what
he is. Even the words sometimes
lose their meaning, have a dual
meaning or are a combination of
parts of two words, the beginning
of one and the ending of another.
"This tampering with words is
bound up with the problems of
sexual identity," Dr. Greenacre
said. "Alice is questioning wheth-
er it is better to grow up and
have a family of her own or stay
young and take orders from adults.
"Questions prominent to Alice
in Carroll's books are: What is
meant by 'growing up'? Is it an
enviable state? What is happen-
ing to my body? Is it getting out
of hand? Is there anything I can
do about it?"
Anxiety
In both workscharacters are
faced with a constant threat of
being beheaded. But this is all in
the mind, according to Dr. Green-
acre. In these situations anxiety
compounds itself and directs it-
self toward the character until
the voice of reason steps in, she
said. In rage man loses his head,
and blind fury is close to abso-
DIAL 662-6264

lute nonsense. Beheading is mere-
ly a way of symbolizing the non-
sense of rage.
"The Cheshire cat in 'Alice in
Wonderland' is a symbol of the
superiority of the mind over the
body," Dr. Greenacre explained.
"The fact that the body of the
cat disappears first, and the head
last is highly symbolic of this."
"In his personal life, Carroll
was a clergyman. There is no evi-
dence that he had any interest
in any woman except his mother,
but a preoccupation with young
girls, as shown in the Alice stor-
ies, resulted in a denial of mas-
culine genital acts. This denial
led him to create a physical dis-
tance between himself and the
world. This is how nonsense be-
came possible to him," he said.
Nightmarish1
This is also seen in the works'
of Kafka, Dr. Greenacre pointed
out, except that his nonsense
possesses a nightmarish quality.
"His works, especially "The Trial,"
express chronic panic. Several
times in the book a character will
say "these monstrous events must
be nonsense yet the events con-
tinue indicating the senseless frus-
tration of the author," she said.
"It is Kafka's works which
come close to presenting the de-
structive effects of nonsense. His
rage and panic can reach a state
approximating Alice's nonsense,"
she said.
Detail and Terror
"The meticulous detail and ter-
ror of the cockroach attempting
to open a door in "The Trial," is

not comparable to Alice's attempt I or arms, were his favorites-and

to open the door that takes her
into wonderland," she suggested.
"It also might be the reason that
Kafka's nonsense is so much more
terrifying than Carroll's."
A third writer Dr. Greenacre
discussed was Edwad Lear, who
was famous for his nonsense lim-
ericks. His style of writing was
popular during his childhood and
the major one with which he ex-
pressed himself.
Dr. Greenacre said that "Lear's
nonsense was a method he used
to insensitize himself so that he
could get back to his real profes-
sion-painting.
Sensitive
"Lear was the next to the
youngest of 21 children. This may
be why he was extremely sensitive
to anything in the physical world
such as light, heat, and noise. In
fact his aversion to noise was so
great that it is said he could not
stand to hear a woman practice
an instrument or practice sing-
ing, she said.
This extreme sensitivity carried
over into his painting and writing,
Dr. Greenacre continued. His
limericks were mainly about old
men usually with some physical
distortion. He mentioned women
in his works only eleven times
and in these cases they almost
never were young women.
"This gallantry did not extend
to the female sex in his painting.
Frequently a woman was the sub-
ject in his painting and invariably
he painted them with some part
of the body distorted-noses, chins

seemed to imbue these characterst
with a restless energy which was1
characteristic of himself," she ob-
served.
"Lear, in the prologue of his
first book on nonsense, claimed
that there was no hidden meaning
in his limericks." Dr. Greenacre;
agreed and described them as
"nonsensical answers to ridiculous
problems."
Preoccupation
"It is possible to see a hidden
preoccupation with sex in Lear's'
works. The distortion of the parts
of the body may be symbolic of
this," Dr. Greenacre pointed out.
She went on to compare Lear's3
works with Carroll's. "The dis-
tortion of the parts of the body
is more extreme in Lear's works
than Carroli's," she said. "This
may be because he possessed a
sense of fear which resulted in
an extreme form of denial and
this in turn may be the reason
for the distortion.
"In viewing these works we must
realize that none are absolute
nonsense. The authors were gifted'
men, possibly even geniuses," Dr.
Greenacre said. "They were in-1
capable of presenting absoluteI
nonsense, that of a babbling idiot,
in their works."j

4:15 p.m.-Prof. John Ross, of
the University of Western Aus-
tralia, a visiting, professor in the
psychology department, will speak
on "Some Problems with People,
Thoughts and Numbers" in Aud.
B. The speech is part of the psy-
chology department's Colloquim.
7 p.m. and 9 p.m.-The Cinema
Guild will present "The Silent
Spring" and "The Savage Eye" in
the Architecture Aud.
8 p.m.-The University Players
will present Carl Oglesby's "The
Peacemaker" in Trueblood Aud.
8:30 p.m.-The U-M Consort of
voices, viols and other historic in-
struments will present a Collegium
Musicum concert in Rackham Lec-
ture Hall.
3 SATURDAY, DEC. 5
7 p.m. and 9 p.nm.-CinemaI
Guild will present "Los Alvidaos"
in Architecture Aud.
8 p.m.-University players pre-
sents Carl Oglesby's "The Peace-
maker" in Trueblood Aud.
8:30 p.m.-A concert of elec-
tronic music will be presented by
the School of Music in the School
of Music Recital Hall.
8:30 p.m.-The University Mu-
sical Society will present the
"Messiah" in Hill Aud. The Uni-
versity Choral Union, conducted
by Lester McCoy, will be accom-
panied by the University Sym-
phony Orchestra in the perform-
ance.

of University students, Schnitzer
said.
The University was the first in
the nation to engage a resident
repertory troupe for a long term
contract when it was established
in 1961, explained Schnitzer. The
three year cycle between the PTP
and the Phoenix Theatre in New
York has been so successful that
both the APA and the Phoenix
Theatre have requested the PTP
to renew their affiliations.
Subscriptions to "Luther," "Be-
yond the Fringe," "Spoon River,"
and "Oliver" may be reserved at
the PTP Office in Lydia Mendels-I
sohn Theatre at major discounts.

Masonic Temple, Detroit
Sunday, Dec. 6, at 7:30 P.M.
Tickets: $1.75, 2.75, 3.75, 4.75
on sale at: Grinnell's, 1515 Wood-
ward; Marwil's, Northland; Music
World, 4861 Woodward; The Retort,
8841 Woodward. For mall orders en-
close self-addressed stamped envelope


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I

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DIAL

CAMPUS
THEATRE

8-6416

FRIDAY


DIAL 5-6290
STARTS
TODAY

c4m

I

NOTE
This Show
Will Not
Play Matinees
Saturday or
Sunday

4-6 p.m. Mendelssohn Theatre

some
women
can't help
themselves ..3

MOSCOW ART
THEATRE
LEADERS
Lecture-Discussion:

I

ENDING TODAY
Shown at 1:00-2:35-4:40
6:50 & 9:00
411p..,i&ulm

F

PAUL EMAN
EAURCE HATUYCLAIRE BOM,
EDWRDIODINgUN u'sr
SATURDAY

mere would always be men in her life...
all kinds of men...and always Philip to
come back to...to degrade and despise.
||: |s
t... N
X "."
p ia

"The Stanislavski Method
of Acting and Directing"
OPEN TO ALL STUDENTS
AND FACULTY

Sponsored by the Dept. of State,

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LIB

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