s playing e blues number, "Best to Go It Alone." '"THAT PINTO Pony" gave us a whiff of swanky Western ragtime as Siebel's guitar and Macellas's bass repeatedly interchanged melody and harmony. The tune got more beautiful as they twisted it between them, but the per- formance lacked guts. It was precise and uninvolved for the most part, removing the audience from the music. The texture of the evening remained fairly constant. "Going Downtown," a new ballad by Siebel, had a number of" memorable bass solos featuringsimple tones and tight rhythms. Marcellas's instrumentation picked up the tune with a deep blues quality thit greatly enhanced the ragged vibrancy of Siebel's voice. The theme of the day was "Losing you," and Siebel filled the evening with a generous complement of love songs, ballads, western swing, bluegrass, and especially city blues on that subject. The music was uniformly laid-back, and the audience never got through to the heart of the emotion. Folk music at its best becomes an intensely personal experience between performer and listener, especially when the songs deal with love, loneliness, and adventure. Siebel had the songs, the accom- painment, and the voice to bang out a soulful and moving performance. Yes, the music was there, but the magic was missing.! PTP'S 'CALIFORNIA SUITE': Let them ea By ERIC ZORN I do not share Neil Simon's fascination with kooky, neurotic, yet lovable New Yorkers, and twisted my program anxiously as the first of the three playlets which compose Simon's California Suite began Friday at the Power Center. Carolyn Jones, best known as the fey Mor- ticia on TV's Addams Family, stars as Hannah Warren, a precious New York bitch on a mission to California to recover her runaway daughter from an ex-husband. Bill Warren (James Drury, of The Virginian) is the ex- patriate New Yorker who has been living the mod CaliforT nia lifestyle for nine years after his divorce from Hannah, and the two start in with abrasive antithetical chit-chat as soon as they meet in her hotel suite.. California Suite By Neil Simon Professional Theatre Program .Power Center "visitors from New York" Hannah Warren.............Carolyn Jones William Warren.............James Drury "Visitors from London" Sidney Nichols......... Peter Bailey-Britton Diana Nichols.............. Carolyn Jones "Visitors from Philadelphia" Marvin Michaels................. James Drury Bunny .. ........ .....Aurelia De Felice Millie Michaels................ Carolyn Jones Jerry Adler, director; William Ritman, scenery; Jane Greenwood, costumes; Tharon Musser, lighting Obligatory gags about health foods, jogging, and the ever-warm climate prod along this first playlet, "A Visitor From New York," which never progresses from anything more than a dramatized conversation between estranged parties. DURING THE desultory argument over the custody of seventeen-year-old Jenny, Simon wrestles with the question of which environment, Manhattan penthouse or Hollywood rancho, is the best place for an intelligent mind to prosper. He yea-says and nay-says, finally impaling himself on the fence by having these two unfortunate characters shrug their shoulders in stalemate and resign themselves to accepting the girl's preference for Daddy. Since we in the audience never meet the girl in question, and there is little to make us side with either of the odious parents, "Visitor" becomes a test of how long we can en- joy the harsh bandinage. It wears. Hannah has most of the good lines. "Yes, I was nervous on our wedding night," she confesses, "though unfortuan- tely it was after we had sex." Carolyn Jones plays it a bit stiff, as does James Drury, and a lot of the barbed repar- tee comes off too slick and rehearsed. Simon's penchant for glib one-liners makes the scene unconvincing. EVERYONE IS more relaxed for "Visitors From London," the second playlet, and there is no longer the sense that we are watching famous actors playing married couples. Carolyn Jones is back as Diana Nichols, a middle-aged English movie-star staying in that same Hollywood Hotel suite as she attends the Academy Awar- ds festivities. The first scene is a fast-paced and funny ex- change between Diana and her husband Sidney (Peter t one-liners Bailery-Britton) concerning the upcoming awards and the pursuant anxiety. The second scene takes places later that night, after the awards, when the couple, having failed to win an Oscar, stumbles into the suite three-sheets-in-the-wind drunk, arguing about their respective ill-behaviour that evening. "Who was that girl you threw up on?" demands Sidney in order to make conversation; "If I kept track of every girl I threw up on," she answers, "I wouldn't have time to do my shopping." Both Jones and Bailey-Britton are thoroughly convincing as drunks, but not so convincing as upper-class Britishers. When Jones says "Asshole," it comes out "Asshoe," nore like Jimmy Carter had said it, and Bailey-Warren discouragingly lapses into an Eastern European dialect before rescuing himself. Both actors are otherwise excellent, but the material they must perform leaves something to be desired. THE TRAGI-COMEDY of the completely drunken and depressed couple leaps out as a full scale tragedy when it comes to the audience's attention that Diana's husband is actually a "homosexual bisexual," and their marriage is more or less just for convenience and companionship,,"a refuge," in Sidney's words, "for all our disappointments out there." We've not been dramatically prepared for the stark lives of these two Hollywood products, and are left unsure of whether we are supposed to giggle at the parody or gnash our teeth and wail. Everything is just right in "Visitor From Philadelphia," the closing playlet of California Suite. Simon never loses the light touch, and Jones and Drury seem much more at home in this lively vignette concer- ning the unfortunate travails of a drunken married man. Drury's Marvin Michaels wakes up in his Hollywood Hotel suite with a furious katzenjammer, and to com- pound his agony there is an unconscious leggy blonde in the kip with him and only moments until his wife arrives from Philadelphia. THE ADDLED Marvin can barely remember where the woman came from, let alone what he did with her, but easily realizes that dear Millie Michaels won't find his confusion a sufficient excuse. The subsequent Chaplinesque shennanigans before Millie's realization are well-played light comedy and the highpoint of the evening. Jones' Millie is top quality, her whiney East Coast Jewish accent never letting her down and her pert, con- trolled body movements suitably piquant for a woman whose plumage has been so ruffled. Drury is believably schleppish as the man who sins once in fifteen years, and is dumb enough to get caught at it. Once the secret is out in the open and Millie discovers the young woman sleeping under the covers, Simon allows his characters to wax a tad philosophical on marriage and the solidity of their commitment to each other before lightening up the material. AURELIA DE FELICE is given a lot of program space and curtain call attention as Bunny, the woman under the bedclothing whom Michaels is so anxious to hide. California Suite shows that Neil Simon can be a funny man if only he doesn't stumble over a tendency to burden his comedy with pathos. , S e -11 BEST OF BROADWAY SERIES CAROLYN JONES JAMES DRURY ('I 1, starring in * NEIL SIMON' SCALIFORNIA SUITE' * li (- also starring i-aye Kioknosway--Nov. I V PETERBAILEY-BRITTON Pendleton arts center, TODA~st 2:00 MICH.UNION 662-4431 POWER CENTER P.T.P. Box Office Hours in Power Center 12-5 pm and 6-8 pm 763-3333 'WrIVESITY MUSICALClSOCET Y presen.t. . re arm ow AOEABOUT LOVE University of Michigan Gilbert and Sullivan Society Directors and designers needed for Winter Term production April 4-14, 1979'(Two weekends). Petitioning meeting to select stage director, music (vocal and/or orchestral) director and set designer/technical director will be held Nov. 13. Persons interested in these positions should contact John Meyer (995-4770) or the U. of M. Gilbert and Sullivan Society, Michigan League. Shows being considered are IOLANTHE, HMS PINAFORE, UTOPIA LIMITED and TRIAL BY JURY. Vipont eCfture$ presents: SIDNEY LENS "The Nuclear Arms Race" MONDAY, NOV. 6 at 8 pm SCHORLING AUD. ADMISSION FREE For more information call 763-1453 V r . jtllY . 4 I Join the Arts Page i . Here's a blend of new and old that will delight every -member of the family-love song favorites sung in the classical Waring choral style and those with the zest of today's music. Features Fred Waring and 30 singers, dancers and musicians. Tickets are from $3 to $8 at Burton Tower, 9-4:30. Box office opens at 7 on Thurs. Phone 665-3717. Thursday, November 9 at 8:50 Hill Auditorium GUITAR MASTER in a special p E erformance at the SECOND CHANCE Ann Arbor -- z~l>wr #wlu.