I MUSIC SCHOOL 'S 'FIGARO': The Michigan Daily-Saturday, November 18, 1978-Page 7 A 'Marriage' that stays together By JOSHUA PECK The nice thing about opera in Ann Ar- bor is that there's so damned little of it. That's not the derisive statement it seems to be. It simply means that if a gifted performer (e.g., Michael Maguire in the current Marriage of Figaro) develops the itch to perform, he is unlikely to wait for long to audition. If he misses a production, he will probably have to wait at least four months for his next chance. This prin- ciple seems to hold through most facets of production. Thus, the scarcity of the art in the area brings high quality with regard to performance, musicianship, and sheer exuberance to each and every production. This is not to say that there are no sore spots in Figaro. Even the deity of American opera hoises, the Metropolitan in New York, throws a shrieker or whiner up on stage every now and then, so our own School of Music is certainly entitled to:But what one carries away from this rendition of Ralph Herbert, stage director for the Music School's current production of "The Marriage of Figaro" at the Lydia Mendelssohn Theater, is pictured above in rehearsal offering some dramatic tips to Kathleen Segar, who plays Cherubino in the production. eople are living there, but it 's still a very dull place. The Marriage of Figaro Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart English translation by Ruth and Thomas Martin School of Music Opera Theatre Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre Figaro..................Michael E. Doll Susanna ..................... Julia A. Broxholm Dr. Bartolo ......,............... John A. Dalke Marcellina................Maureen Born Cherubino................. Carol M. Madalin Count Almaviva..........Michael L. Maguire Basilio...............Lawrence P. Vincent Countess Almaviva ........Jacqueline Green Antonio ..............James A. Patterson Don Curzio .. ............... Jeffrey F. Allyn Barbarina..............Donna Grunewald Gustav Meier, music director and conductor; Ralph Herbert, stage director; Dick Block, sets; Richmond C. Frielund, lighting; Ann Correll, costumes; Mark Lamadue,-choreographer Mozart's comic opera overall is the joy that somewhere on this campus, at least, there is a mechanism with a nearly constant eduction: excellence. MICHAEL MAGUIRE as Count Almaviva, a nobleman with the world's farthest-wandering eye, is a marvel. His voice is rich and seems to float out, simply filling Mendelssohn. The part calls for colors ranging from boisterousness to delicacy. Maguire handles both, and makes it look (sound?) easy. The lovely Julia Broxholm, too, is a delight. As Susanna, Figaro's intended, Broxholm captures the hearts of her audience as well as those of several male characters in the opera. She delivers her arias lightly, even liltingly, but never airily. The only problem with Broxholm is not really her problem. It is the mystery of why such a feminine treasure would fall in love with a clod like her leading man. Michael (Figaro) Doll's voice is not bad, but it has a curious something missing that I think can be described as "vocal overbite." His vocalization has the structure, or frame, of a decent operatic one, but its musicality is inadequate to fill that frame. What we are left with is a fair performance that pales to poor in the company of Broxholm and Maguire. UNDER THE direction of Gustav Meier, the orchestra does an admirable job. In the overture, the violins sound a bit sloppy on some of the faster runs, and the brass suffered from a case of scattered attacks in the introduction to the second act; but that these were the only conspicuous errors is to Meier and company's credit. Figaro's score is anything but easy. Questions about acting in opera have. always led buffs to a sort of quandary. In a comic opera, should the actors take themselves seriously, whatever sort of preposterousness they find themselves involved in? If the plot is looked at as nothing more than a tool for putting the misic before the public, then it scar- cely even matters what the singers do as actors. But the characters are an element of the total aesthetic im- pression of the opera. Ergo, they mat- ter. Two attitudes about dramatic per- formance, different, perhaps, only in degree, are executed in this Figaro. Oddly, one works, and the other doesn't. Maguire wraps himself in his role for the most part, and convincingly, but occasionally departs from his, count/self to share a joke with us, the onlookers. It may be something as sim- ple as wiggling his eyebrows at the audience over his licentious intentions (a gesture, incidentally, which reads very well on Maguire), but we see at these points that director Herbert, too, recognizes the absurdity of all the goings on. JOHN DALKE and Lawrence Vin- cent, though, take the notion a step or two, or three, too far. They think the libretto and their own characters so terribly amusing that their genuine humor is suffocated. The program reads "comic opera," not "farcical." The Contessa, Jacqueline Green, was a great crowd pleaser, but had problems with articulation. At times she' seemed to be reverting to the opera's original Italian. Still, Green sang this difficult role with majesty, and was impressive on her tricky trills and grace notes. Maureen Born and Carol Madalin, in. the roles of Marcellina and Cherubino, added charm and grace to the produc- tion. Born comes across as devious in- deed, while Madalin is all youthful zest as the page boy. MADALIN WAS an odd choice physically for her role, and costumer Ann Correll looks to have had a dif- ficult time rendering Madalin's figure boyish. Otherwise, the costumes are splendid. It is to the company's credit that the worst thing about this production is the putrid set. Different parts of it were designed with different levels of reality in mind, producing a vague mishmash. There are also too few set pieces on stage at all times to motivate movement and, for that matter, the audience's interest. The Marriage of Figaro is to be direc- tor Ralph Herbert's final effort- at Michigan, and so the cast dedicated the production to him as a farewell gift. Herbert appeared before the overture to thank his colleagues and students for the honor. And I can understand why. There could scarcely be a finer devotion. There are about 7,000 museums in the United States, the American Association of Museums in Washington, D.C., estimates. By OWEN GLEIBERMAN Like its four wayward characters, eopie Are Living There wheezes, hines, and blows fuses when it tries to e11 us what it's about. Although the lay ensues during a single day and ever leaves the'confines of a shabby living room, the limited setting is not lone a disadvantage. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? which takes place in a iimilar situation, is a dramatic tour de' orce, a feverish descent into the depths n hell-on-earth. The problem with eople Are Living There is that it People Are Living There By Athol Fugard University Showcase Productions Trueblood Auditorium Milly ...................Rebecca Stucki Don ....................... Terry Caza Shorty . ............F........... Pat Garner Sissy ...................Ilene Moskowitz Kathryn Long, director; Anne E. Mueller, settings; Ruth A. Brown; costumes; Anthony B. Eldis, lighting rarely even scratches the surface of the ayaged territory Albee's play explores, o. exquisitely, let alone worksup one- tenth the emotional power. This is really quite a shame, because he - current University Showcase roduction is not without its merits: of the four characters, two - Milly (Rebecca Stucki), the irate, middle- ged landlord of a grungy flat in Johan- esburg, South Africa, and Don (Terry paa, who, incidentally, really did anage to break a leg), a cranky okkeeper with a philosophical bent - re ,ortrayed with great vitality and reasonable subtlety; director Kathryn ong, who staged Michigan Reper- tory's marvelous production of ravesties this summer, has done her est to inject playwright Athol ugard's flabby dialogue with some cod-spirited comedy, and is wonder- tlly adept at controlling the changing rhythms of the dialogue. THE PLAY takes place during a eemingly hum-drum day in the lives of our rather uninteresting characters, aU low-income whites living in South Arica. Unless the use of Coca-Cola in he second act is some comment on the Steve Biko affair that escaped my iimited political grasp, the play has no political subtext. The characters are all caught in the same (and, when you think about it, almost ridiculously universal), bind: laboring under free- floating anxiety and fear of(rejection, they seek nothing more than a little love nd comeraderie from their fellows, Only to find that ours can be a cold, cruel world, that life just ain't a bowl of cherries. L Milly's husband, who we never see, thinks she's "not a woman anymore" nowthat she's reached menopause, and Milly spends her days in a state of chronic bitchiness, snapping at everyone within earshot. The other characters are all tenants in her house. Shorty (Pat Garner), a sexually passive young man married to an un- sensitive woman (Ilene Moskowitz) who not only won't sleep with him but openly flaunts her promiscuity, is such an inept person he even manages to flub up his job as a postman. He figures into the play's comic scheme as a dumb'n'wacky Howard Borden-type neighbor, forever spewing out inadver- tently inane asides. Don is a morose but ,amiable individual with a quietly ob- sessive fear of rejection. The role of Shorty's wife is a small one, and the play takes the form of a mammoth group therapy session between the other three. UNFORTUNATELY, even the most valiant efforts of the company rarely spark this wretched play up to the level of enjoyable situation comedy. The work employs what is, I suppose, a tragi-comic view of human experience, without ever satisfyingly resolvingthis duality. At moments it seems a paean to human folly, while at others it shamelessly wallows in cliches of third- hand existentialism. An overblown metaphor at the end about humans aimlessly discarded by society like moths after converting from silkwor- ms, is like something out of a morality play put on by a group of concerned senior citizens. The only moving moments in this production are not these "heavy" revelations (like Don admitting he can feel next to nothing, and express none of what he feels), but the quirkier nuan- ces: Shorty stupidly buying a slab-cake instead of a round one for Milly's birth- day party; Milly speaking wistfully of hundreds of cars all traveling to where the fun is, and wondering why she can't go there, too. Perhaps if this play had shucked its armchair philosophizing far the simplicity of Our Town, it might have been an effective little drama. AS IT STANDS, this is simply a very dull show, especially in the first half, in which the dialogue is not only gratingly repetitive but focused in about eight dif- ferent directions. The second half lends some continuity and shape to the play's theme, and there is, finally, some reason to care about the characters. The performances are adequate, but not splendid enough to transcend the material. The most convincing of the lot is Terry Caza's Don, who appears despairing without resorting to drippy displays of miserable confession. Rebecca Stucki puts tremendous energy into the role of Milly, but she overplays it, yelling three out of every four lines, The few scenes in which she utilizes a more understated delivery are indicative of what this performance could have been had her screeching harshness been used a bit more sparingly. - AT GARNER, as Shorty, gives the only poor performance. Garner does not have the comic talents to do justice to the character's yuk-yuk stupidity, and he comes across as dull and super- ficial. Such Aa characterization goes against the grain of what the play seems to pontificate. Perhaps the single most impressive feature of this production is the set, an elaborately tacky room with chipped- plaster walls and rows of bottles and cans lining the grimy shelves. But as People Are Living There rolls onward such embellishments are forgotten and one can feel director Long struggling under the ponderous weight of her material. Perhaps next time, this same group should try Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Things generally go better with the Real Thing. POETRY CONTEST $100, $50, $25, five $10 prizes Submit any number of original unpublished poems. $2 entry fee for each-under 26 lines-any style or subject-none returned. Best used in Register-News and poetry book if you sign permission. Enclose self-addressed stamped envelope. Closes Dec. 31, 1978. Poetry Haven Contest, Box 57, Mt. Vernon, Illinois 62864. Dunham Growth Center sponsors.