The Michigan Daily-Wednesday, October 18, 1978-Page 5 Taut acting inte By CHRISTOPHER POTTER jackals. She is perpetually obsessed In the Boom Boom Room, the current with a passion for self-improvement, production of Detroit's Attic Theatre, is yet the only goal she can conceptualize ,Rabe's is to someday jump from the sleazy commonly known as David RaesPhiladelphia discotheque where she ~"non-Vietnam play." Such a tag is ilaepi icteu hr h mislein:Thoughtis playwrghtg s abors, up to the "big time" go-go scene misleading: Though it is playwright ofNew York. Raes only drama tnat adoes not use the war either as a prelude (Streamers), direct setting The Basic Training of Pavlo Hummel) or postmortem (Sticks and Bones), the Viet Nam presence hangs oppressively over this play like a silent guillotine, unseen but always in- tensely, perversely felt. In the Boom Boom Room carries a, In the Boom Boom Room By David Rabe Attic Theatre Chrissy........... .. .......Beth Taylor Susan............... Jacqueline Flannery Harold... ........................Joe Albini Guy . .......................Jeff Nahan Eric ...................... Robert Coyle Al............ Randy Gianetti Ralphie.................... Ramon Ramos Helen ................... Monika Zeigler Eve Pruden, director; Jeff Nahan, choregraphy; Donna DiSante, costumedesign; Charles Chriss- man, lighting design decidedly palpatating, history. It was premiered by Joseph Papp's Lincoln Center Company in 1973, a production reportedly wracked by stormy onstage and backstage disputes throughout rehearsal and even beyond opening night. The play received wildly mixed notices from the New York critics, was swiftly shelved and rewritten by Rabe, tthen was given a revamped second premiere a year later. By then the show's behind-the-scenes notoriety had simmered down, and the critical recep- tion was generally more favorable the second time around. THE MOST notable impression one takes away from the Attic Theatre's production is how much better In the Boom Boom Room plays when seen in- stead of merely read (many dramas elicit just the opposite effect). The set- ting is the mid-1960's, the protagonist a young woman named Chrissy - a would-be go-go star but more importan- tly a child of scorn, a transcendent vic- tim of the age. Though pretty and energetic, she is agonizingly trapped in moral and aesthetic blindness toward herself. Unwanted at birth, thwarted by a minimal education and squalid en- vironment, Chrissy wanders endlessly through a surrealistic Hell on earth, preyed upon at every turn by human Chrissy longs desperately for love, yet hasn't the slightest idea how ti find it: Surely not from the mother who tried to abort her, the father who raped her as a child, the homosexual in her apartment building who first adores, then scorns her, the sultry, cynical Disco housemother who casually seduces, her, or the dismal parade of male lovers who bring her less than even momentary comfort. IN RABE'S WORLD, Chrissy is born dead. She knows her own agony, writhes in it, yet can verbalize it only in pathetically stunted form. She cries again and again that she's afraid she's "gonna go nuts", yet can receive no solace from the melancholy fellow suf- ferers around her. When she finally, desperately flings herself into a marriag with a brutal psychotic, she seals her own doom. For Rabe's vic- tims there is no salvation, in anything orsanybody. Thus goes Boom Boom Room's shell- shock message. When reading the play, one can practically hear Rabe in the background shouting "False values, false values! !" throughout. Chrissy is of course merely a symbol of a nation which has lost its sense of self; as the far-off war disintegrated into a moral abyss, so back home did we plunge into distortion and dissipation of our own values. . All of which seems not only politically disputable but also decidedly heavy- handed literary material to simply sit down and read. It's Rabe the moral polemicist on the loose again, and when couched in dramatic terms, his message seems ethically ,and struc- turally fragmented and above all, numbingly unpleasant enough to defeat its own purpose. YET IT'S AMAZING what the currently first-rate Attic Theatre production does for the play. For one thing, the tiny, back-basement in- timacy of the stage and the audience seating lends a scary veracity to the show's low-level discotheque which serves as Rabe's .constant visual metaphor for America's moral decay. The setting also illuminates the play's profound overtones of sex, a subject Rabe clearly regards as a form of war- fare. In an especially chilling speech, Chrissy says, "Sometimes I'm on the street walking and a car goes by and it's dark and all men in it, and I can hardly hear the car out of which one of them is looking and I don't know why he hates me, but he does, I know, and I choke for fear he'll hurt me in some terrible way, I don't know why." At moments like this, the audience's physical closeness makes the protagonists's terror almost touchable. The Attic's cast - with one exception - does wondrous things with Rabe's dialogue, bringing out the author's sur- prising gift for the sudden insertion of hysterically funny repartee, which con- tinually crops up amidst the most unrelenting misery. This relieving element (which shows up negligibly in; book form) makes Boom Boom Room not only easier on the viewer's psyche, but lends it a kind .of schizo quality which ironically makes for much better drama - there is indeed humor in Hell. EVE PRUDEN'S taut, no-nonsense direction corrals and solidifies Rabe's rambling scenario into an intense, often quite lyrical tableau of the dark side of society. She has, as best I could tell, cut only one short scene and has also added an exquisite slow-motion ballet in which the people of Chrissy's world act out their cruel predilections in half- light, with disco music throbbing satanically in the background. But the primary puissance in this production is provided by Beth Taylor in the role of Chrissy. A strikingly lovely actress who combines her thespian talents with a tremendous physical energy, Taylor projects her character's yearnings and anguished insecurities with such an all-out dynamism that she leaves the audience as drained as she herself must feel by show's end. The sheer force of her character (Chrissy is onstage throughout the play) inevitably overshadows a mostly excellent sgpporting cast, including Jacqueline Flannery as the disco men- tor who lusts after Chrissy, Robert Coyle as an uptight milquetoast lover who wants to reform her, and Randy Cianetti as the erratic conman who finally marries her. The only false ac- ting notes are registered by Joe Albini as Chrissy's father; clad in a long- haired fright wig (or perhaps it's his own hair - either way it looks ludicrous), Albini converts his blue collar character into a kind of prissy, mealy-mouthed kook who seems nsifies 'Room' stylistically to belong in The Wizard of Oz rather than in the stark surroun- dings of Rabe's world. In the Boom Boom Room marks the second superlative Attic production in as many years of a Rabe drama. Last season's staging of Streamers again brought out qualities one might overlook if reading the play straight. It's evident that so long as Rabe's work continues to be graced by presentations as good as the Attic's, he will remain a prime force in contemporary American theater. What remains to be judged is whether Rabe's moral rage is matched by a talent that can eventually transcend his single-subject fury and move on to fur- ther ranges. This is an awfully big, diverse world, and the war did end six years ago. A good laugh P.T.P. GUEST-Artist-In-Residence William Leach, left, and Kathy Eacker Badgerow, right, will appear in P.T.P.'s "She Stoops to Conquer," Oliver Goldsmith's 18th century English comedy, tonight through Oct. 22 at the Power Center. Coryell strums By ANNE SHARP titles I have ever run across), then ned up the amp for an air-raid s Larry Coryell, in his heyday the fusion of "The Funky Waltz". In "Professor of fusion guitar," came to Earle's intimate setting, one could t the Earle Monday night. the strings of one of the aband A slight, gray-curled man with big acoustics buzzing in response to glasses, a perpetual smile of quiet and cranked-un sound. deep pleasure, and no underwear "God dayim," remarked Coryell, (grotesquely obvious each time he bent ting down the offending instrument down in his sheer white slacks to pick down on its strings, giving us ano up an instrument), the distinguished peek through his slacks. jazz-rock artist opened with a few riffs DURING THE second set, Cor on a mother-of-pearl inlaid acoustic played music by some old friends guitar. As the evening progressed, one Shankar of John McLaughlin, Ca got the impression that Coryell was not Santana, Chick Corea. For Shank so much performing as letting the "Spiritual Dance", he cunningly m audience in on a little private jam his 12-string acoustic sound like a session. Whatever polish the perfor- dian sitar. "Europa", by Sant; sounded quite like traditional p jazz, while Corea's "Spain': emerg refreshingly un-Spanish. Perhap honor of the new Pope, Coryell brok to "Roderigo Reflections" with his Beggal Octobe TICKETS AVAILABLE: Or By mail from Comic Opera Guild, 432 S e deIld1 ffor tur- version of t iren sonifies "( the Heaven" a hear Davis, John ones and ending the disco." The[ Coryell ph set- (he had as face 10:30, and t ther fashion, his (but never ryell R&B, 'samba : Al roll. arlos Near the kar's turned up th nade a riff from J n In- from the Su ana, media-hype iano with fear. T ed as he's hard to s in musical cat( .e in- just call it ai own fun with a gu fun. he Pater Noster, which per- Our Father, who art in as Duke Ellington, Miles Coltrane and Jimi Hendrix, with "And lead us not into house agreed emphatically. ayed for two 40-minute sets second show that night at wo more on Tuesday) in this style at times approaching exactly reaching) jazz, a, and heavy metal rock 'n' end of the show, he again e speakers, and roared into imi Hendrix's "Third Stone un'' that would make any rock guitar virtuoso quake 'he man has talent, though pigeonhole in a convenient egory. Jazz? Fusion? Let's man having a hell of a lot of uitar. r"SS Opera 'r 21 2 pm - $300 8pm - $4.00 T I X - I N F O JACOBSON'S "J" SHOP 11:00 to 3:00 outh Fourth Ave Ann Arbor, 48104 8ohn 7hcat F . c fMcride1~ Dreyfuss hot in 'fix" By RICH LORANGER Spirited comedy, acute emotion, ten- der expression and intense drama all congeal in Richard Dreyfuss' wonder- ful performance in The Big Fix. Moses Wine is an extraordinary character, by far Dreyfuss' most finely-played role since American Graffiti. This un- wielding grasp on the role is absolutely essential, for the movie attempts to look inside the head of Moses Wine, as the opening suggests by gazing back at him through a pair of binoculars he is using.Dreyfuss' handling of the role is tested as the film prods and tears at Wine, but he perseveres and the character is full. Moses is a self-made private eye, an ex-radical from Berkeley back in the feverish late-60's. His ex-wife Suzanne is also an ex-radical from the same days. He is unexpectedly visited by Lila, an ex-girlfriend, and still another ex-radical who offers him an in- vestigation job, and thus begins the plot. LILA IS campaigning for a California gubernatorial candidate, and someone is dirtying the campaign with leaflets connecting the candidate with a fren- zied (and indicted) Berkeley radical, Howard Eppis. Wine is commissioned to uncover who is behind this and why. Campaign manager Sam Sebastian can give him no clue, and from there he is muddled by dead ends and false leads (some of which are not so false). Moses falls in love with Lila, who has sparked his life with new direction and solid footing. With unanticipated shock, Lila becomes an ex-Lila, and Moses stumbles upon the freshly-plugged cor- pse. Sam fires Wine to avoid any cam- paign connection with the murder, but the case soon becomes a personal mat- ter for Wine. He is accused, chased, kidnapped, and shot at as the puzzle unveils many intricacies and in- volvements he had never suspected. He discovers that another infamous radical was present at Lila's murder, but the man has vanished. x Finally, Moses comes upon a mad- man's scheme to explode an L.A. freeway during rush hour, but can say nothing because his suspicions are un- verified. IN EVERY SITUATION into which Moses Wine falls, Richard Dreyfuss the smae, but he knows why. His ex- wife complains that he does not see where his life is going, but cannot even tell when he finds direction. Humor, too, is never lost upon Richard Dreyfuss. Very few actors can ram a finger up their noses and escape without harming the film's propriety, but Dreyfuss is unquestionably one to do it. Moses Wine overflows with wit of every sort, wit that charms from mere propensity. He is even outrageous in his lying, and the question remains to the end: How did Moses really break his arm? Wine's character overwhelms prac- tically every other in the film, leaving only one other worthy of note. This is Aunt Sonya, played beautifully by Rita Karin, a. parody of the radicals with whom the movie deals. She is a great, loud woman, originally a Russian Jew. Sonya seems to spend most of her time at a center for elderly Jews discussing politics with anyone willing to debate her. She stands for freedom for all and claims distrust of the government in typical radical fashion; and yet she remains the ever-Jewish aunt. The paradox of the character is h in place by Karin, and the p generated is a great succ Sonya is as vivid as Moses,a pleasing.. If The Big Fix is about M then it also concerns itself, the man is - an ex-radical endeavors to illustrate wher radicals of '68 have fallen,a found their causes wortht As the decade ended, How almost mournfully explains,r fell out of fashion and lost support, and the fighters wer turn elsewhere. So, where turn? Some looked from wor] to their own egos in medi haughty self-searching. Thos sought worthy causes found without meaning, like polit paigns. The Big Fix is a movie th you into it before you can ob spark of fantastic, uplifting ment in the grey mediocril modern films. You should w this movie - maybe twice. mance lacked was made up for by the sheer personality of Coryell's music; and while that is not particularly for- held firmly mal (a former Coryell buff remarked to personality me that it all sounded like scales to ces.nty him) it has, as Dr. Frankenfurter would aess. Aunt say, its own naive charm. and just as CORYELL DOES NOT simply play .i, the guitar, he plays with it, gently oses Wne, twanking off notes like Harpo in a The wfilm reverie, yanking a string sidewise with . the grem a fret finger, slackening or tightening e the great the lower E in mid-chord. Moving from thd if they the mother-of-pearl acoustic to a baby the effort, grand piano for "A Song for Jimmy yard Eppis Webb", Coryell drifted into an amor- radicalism phous Twilight Zone-like melody, its public playing off high, tinkling keys against e forced to low, ominous ones, banging on the did they keyboard like an angry child, quickly Idly causes rising up and popping over to stroke the tation and piano's inner strings, finally returning se who still to his seat to play a series of heartwar- only ones ming chords. tical cam- Closing "the acoustic portion of my set," as Coryell periodically remarked hat sweeps just before plugging in his electric ject. It's a guitar, he played a lovely "My Funny entertain- Valentine" (one of the stupidest song ty of most vant to see "Jarrett's Solo Concerts: The word incredible is an understatement here.. DOWNBEAT "Jarrett transcends jazz or any other pigeonhole; he has redefined the role of the piano in contemporary music. .." LEONARD FEA THER, LA TIMES Orchestra $95 - 80; $alcony 95 - 85 - 7s0 Tickets available at: FORD AUDITORIUM BOX OFFICE and all I L. HUDSON Ticket Centers. Mail orders, send certified check or money order to: Civic Center Ticket Service 20 E. Jefferson, Detroit, rich 48226 ___ nufue e t e~re ie, a e nviq Department of Journalism presents Louis Filler Antioch University Whiskey Rings and Watergates: Dynamics in Muckraking and Social Reform Thursday, Oct. 19-3:10p.m. * Natural Science Aud. SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER A t_61Coiny by ( lierG)I(11 11 Opens Tonight!, Tickets on Sale! Wed.Sat.,ct.18-21, 8 PM Jules and the polar bears. playfully disruptive, like all of nature's clever tricks.