T
LOUISIANA CAJUN BAND
Aces Cin
The Michigan Daily-Saturday, February 24, 1979-Page 5
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Uaily -Photo by CYRENA CHANG
I know why the Cajuns sing
Albee evaluates the arts
By JOSHUA PECK
Edward Albee, American playwright, took command of the
Mendelssohn Theater stage Thursday night to give a lecture
entitled "The Playwright-vs. the Theater." As the author
pointed out, the title was vague enough to allow him the
freedom to "talk about pretty much anything.I want," and
that he did. He moved from an amusingly self-deprecatory
segment of autobiography, to bold spouting of some stern,
well-considered notions on the importance of the arts today,
to a handful of vitriolic shots at theater critics as a class,
beginning early on with the observation that "the only good
critic is a dead critic."
Albee is thought by many to be one of the best living
American playwrights, having penned such scripts as Zoo
Story, The American Dream, Seascape, and Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf (this last'most famous, owing to the Burton-
Taylor screen version). His lecture showed him to be a fine
wit as well, and, perhaps, something of a humanist.
IN A SONOROUS, slightly New-England-accented voice,
Albee offered a foreshadowing of the self-derision that was to
follow when he came to the podium following a brief but
laudatory introduction by Professional Theater Program
manager Joe Wilson with the observation: "It's a dark
period (artistically). It doesn't help much to be foremost in
it."
The playwright's recollections of his unillustrious
adolescence and young manhood (he was 29 when he wrote
his first well-known play) serve to show him as a rather or-
dinary, if fortunate, individual. Simultaneously, though,
there were flashes of prodigiousness in the young Albee. Told
of the two novels, totalling 2000 pages, that Albee wrote bet-
ween the ages of 14 and 16, one is sufficiently impressed that
his description of the books as "the worst two novels ever
written by an American teenager" scarcely dulls the effect.
'Scholars or masochists" curious enough to read the scar-
cely-distributed volumes, Albee notes, can find two of the
very few copies in the New York Public Library.
Failure-bound students in attendance at thevlecture must
have been comforted by the playwright's discussion of his
non-achievements in the academic world: thrown out of
iore than a few academies at an early age, young Albee set-
tled for a time at the Choate School in Connecticut. There, he
found himself involved in such extracurricular activities as
riting classical music pieces for the school newspaper. He
Femembers one of his less graceful sentences, wherein he
expostulated on the brilliance of composers Mozart, Haydn,
1'and other genii," which he imagined to be the plural form of
"genius."
ALBEE WENT ON to tell of the writing of what he calls his
first "real play," Zoo Story. Actually, though, his first effort
was a three-act sex farce, penned when he was twelve. Its
nain difficulty was its author's unfamiliarity with his sub-
ject, as Albee's sexual experiences then had all been
... eerrr. .-. singular," as he abashedly recalled.
Having concluded his personal memoirs, the playwright
moved on to the state of the arts, and their abiding importan-
ce. He observed that the arts are the only aspect of human
life that irrefutably set, humans off from the rest of the
animal kingdom. Other elements of Humankind's makeup
have, one by one, proved not to be so unique as we had once
thought, e.g., human emotion, social organization, use of
tools, and language ability have all been observed in animals
to some degree.
But humans are "the only animals that create art ... the
only animals that look to metaphor for understanding."
ALBEE THEN MOVED into a brief discourse outlining
just what the arts can and should do for us, and decrying the
way we fall short of our creative potential as a society. "It is
the function of the creative arts to hold up the mirror and say
to the people, 'This is how you are. If you don't like it, change
it'.''
To the playwright's dismay, though, the masses seem to
fear artistic pieces that are all they should be: "People don't
By ERIC ZORN
One hopes that authentic, traditional
Cajun music survives long enough that
it makes another appearance in Ann
Arbor one day. "It's all slipping away,"
sighed Mark Savory, personable accor-
dion player for the Louisiana Aces
Cajun band which delighted a generous
Thursday night concert crowd at the
Ark.
"The younger generation is influen-
ced a lot by television which tells them
how they should be," continued Savoy.
He later compared all of American
culture to a swift river rushing toward a
waterfall: "The individual cultures like
Tex-Mex, American Indian, Ap-
palachian, and Cajun are in that river,
but pretty soon it's all going to go over
the edge, be mixed together, and
everyone will be the same."
THE CAJUNS (a linguistic derivative
of "Arcadians") were originally a
French-Canadian people who were for-
ced from their homeland by English-
Canadians in 1755 and settled in the
bayou regions of southern Louisiana.
Their brand of music is something most
of us have never heard, but, in a
measure, have been hearing all of our
lives: A guitar, fiddle, and accordion
provide the backup fir ballads, two
steps, waltzes, and other spirited songs
which are at times reminiscent of
everything from Irish reels to Western
Swing to Old Time Country music.
With D.L. Menard playing backup
guitar and belting out a melancholy
baritone which sounded more like Hank
Williams than Hank Wiiliams ever did,
Mark Savoy on the accordion, and Doc
Guidry on the fiddle, the Aces were
sharp and stirring throughout their two
and a half hour performance. In-
strumentally, Savoy destroyed the
"Lawrence Welk" shivers that many of
us get when we see an accordion, and
Guidry (no relation, miserabile dictu,
to Yankee fireballer Ron Guidry)
displayed versatiality, generally
precise intonation, and unerring good
taste~as he sawed-away on the accom-
paniments.
"The music is helping to keep the
culture alive," said Savoy who runs a
music shop for a living. "The children
learn the words to the songs, and even-
tually pick up our special dialect of
French as opposed to the. Parisian
French they learn in school. Our
l4nguage is a very old dialect with dif-
ferent accents and sentence structures,
but over a million people in the United
States speak it."
INDEED, THOUGH there were few
notebooks in evidence, the evening was
as much an educational experience as
an entertainment event. Throughout
the performance, the talkative Savoy
answered questions and told stories
about his people, piecing together the
fascinating saga of a culture fighting to
stay alive against the ravaging and
homogenizing influences of 70's culture
and the media.
"Nobody plays traditional music
CORRECTION
Yesterday's. Daily incorrectly
reported that the "Detroit Jazz Ar-
tists on Tour 1979" would be at Hill
Auditorium. The performance is
tonight at 7:30 at the Power Center
for the Performing arts.
down home anymore hardly," Savoy
shrugged. "It's'getting commercialized
to the point that people are listening to
Country and Western hits translated in-
to Cajun French. There is no market for
our music in Lousiana, as people won't
just sit down and listen. Folks these
days aren't interested in their own
culture, much less that of the Cajun
people."
While touching on the current police
strike in New Orleans, Savoy, who, like
all the Aces,speaks with an interesting
combination of southern and French
accents, scorned the commer-
cialization of the Mardi Gras
celebration. "That holiday has now lost
all it's meaning," he said. The
traditional celebration involved
revellers from individual communities
riding horses through the countryside,
going up to farmhouses and asking for
bits of food. The food was then taken
back to a central location, thrown into a
pot "for a good gumbo." This whiff of
the past was background for "The
Mardi Gras Ball," possibly the only
song around with just one chord in it."
THE EVIDENCE of a myriad of in-
fluences on the music is no surprise
considering regional history. The Ger-
mans moved into the territory years
and years ago and introduced' the ac-
cordion which soon acquired dominan-
ce, "because it could be heard." Then,
around the turn of the century, the
promise of oil brought the Texans and
Western Swing to the bayou, and the
ceaseless transformations of ritual and
tradition continued.
"All these songs come from our an-
cestors and our family: Not one of us
can read a word of music," said Savoy.
"Also, we are not used to playing for
people who sit down. Back home they
dance: Polkas, waltzes, two steps, han-
dkerchief dances ... all of that."
TONIGHT ONLY!
Confounding
Sherlock Holmes meets
~ Sigmund Freud
past
But Savoy stressed that the Louisiana
Aces are out to have a good time, and
nothing else. "We are not especially in-
terested in promoting this music. It'd
ruin it if we had to tour for a living and
depended on our popularity." As it is,
they play on back porches down home,
cut an occasional record, and once in
awhile venture North for a short series
of concerts when the season feels right.
If and when they do come back to Ann
Arbor, if the Cajun spirit still lives,
Savoy promosed the rather
knowledgable audience which had
deluged the band with appropriate
requests all evening, "we'll all of us get
together and h ve one hellacious jam
session!"
'tN
t
"
THE SEVEN-PER- CENT
SOLUTION
From the =1 Best-Selling Novel
Sherlock Holmes is unraveling the
clues and Sigmund Freud is unravel-
ing the motives. They get together to
solve the mysterious disappearance
of pop French actress, played by
VANESSA REDGRAVE and Freud ends
up delving into Holmes' dreams, drug
addiction and obsessive hatred of
Professor Moriority. In the tradition
of Lubitsh, Cukor and Minelli, Her-
bert Ross is establishing himselt as
the new master of literate, sophisti-
cated entertainment.
OLUS SHORT-THE SCARLETT PUM-
PERNICKEL-Chuck Jones' tour-de
farce send-up of the Errol Flynn
swashbucklers, with an all-Warners-
cartoon-star cast including Daffy,
Sylvester,,- Melissa Duck, Porky,
Elmer, and others.
Angell Hall, Aud. "A"
$1.50 7:00 & 9:00
SUN: "Rocky"
& "Fonzie" in
LORDS OF
- FLATBUSH
/7
W s
want that. They want the arts to be easy . . Look at the state
of commercial television." To a smaller group of students af-
ter the lecture, Albee added, "When so many Americans find
their lives so.dreary, it seems shocking that so few want to
escape (into honestly creative art):" He assailed theater that
seeks solely to entertain, smirkingly calling it "mind-
numbing."
Several theater students found Albee's comments on the
arts to be unoriginal sentiments, too often stated by cultural
personages. Still, as the playwright observed, the
professional theater is faltering, as exemplified by the fact
that scarcely any shows of intellectual merit are running on
Broadway, theater's supposed bastion. With th'e situation like
that, can the call for a more highly developed aesthetic be
sounded too often? One is inclined to think not.
Late in his talk, Albee returned to the subject of theater
criticism and its practitioners: "Critics are supposed to be
conduits and educators." He complained that "Many
publications think that critics should be no more
knowledgeable than the average reader."
His feelings about critics on a more emotional level came
through clearly when an audience member noted that
Albee's most recent work, All Over, was greeted with mixed
reviews. The playwright replied, "That the way it always is.
My plays split the criticstrightbdown the middle. .. which,
come to think of it, is not a bad idea." The actos in the
audience laughed and applauded.
MANN THEATRES
ADMI*SION
FwV L .E ..Aduits: $4.00
MAPLE VILLAGE SHOPPING CENTER
769.1300 -
SHE STARRING
Robert
DeNiro
10 Academy
Award
Nominations
SHOWTIMES
Sat-Sun
'04:30,
8:0
Mon-Fri
1:00, 8:00
Nominated for
Best Director, Best Actor
Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor
YOU'LL BELIEVE SHOWTIMES
A MAN CAN FLY Sat-Sun
ERN1:30, 4:15
GEESUACKMAN 7:00, 9:45
MARLON BRANDO P Mon-Fri 1:30,
ryGENE HACKMAN 7:00, 9:45
rrnV
Second City speaks out
loin the
ffrts Staff
By DIANE HAITHMAN
Amid the fancy ruins of a pre-
performance buffet in a crowded back
dressing-room in Power Center, the
wildly charming and slightly crazed
members of Second City talked about
comedy. Basking in the glow of a show
well done, the colorful cast of one of this
country's hottest young comedy groups
was eager to expound'on the secret of
what makes their audacious brand of
humor click with young-adult audien-
ces nationwide. And it does - even
from the lobby one could hear echoes.
"You should have seen the show: We
were funny," commented Mike
Haggerty, the matter-of-fact "resident
one-liner" of Second City. Only after
the remark is out does one notice the
proud and delighted smile Haggerty
tries sternly to hide. "We were funny."
SECOND CITY makes its home in
Chicago, and its current stock of
comedy material represents the cream
of twenty years of hard improvisational'
work. Workshops under director Del
Close develop the craft, but, says the
enthusiastic Sandra Bogars, "The real
work takes place in front of an audien-
ce." The performers agree that Second
City offers a rare opportunity to create,
write, perform, and experience ensem-
ble work.
"WE DON'T HAVE a bank of writers
to fall back on the way they do on
Saturday Night Live," continues
Bogars. "We can't call'up Joan Rivers
to write another gag. We have to rely on
ourselves; we're all we've got." "We
call it playing the moment. . . we're
writing on our feet," says George
Davenport. Things are always
changing, always challenging; that's
why Bogars chose Second City as her
first professional work. "It's the best
place to be!"
"The audience. tells us when it's
right: We get a laugh," says Bogars.
The curly-haired Davenport believes
that Second City grabs the youth
market because. . . "They see them-
selves. They want to see themselves."
Haggerty takes this opportunity to plug
an upcoming Chicago performance.
"Come see us. Improvisational work is
the most important thing happening in
comedy today. It's a kind of theatre
more and more people are becoming
aware of." Haggerty cites the trend in
both stagework and T.V. situation
comedy. "Like Altman and Scorsese,"
adds John Kapelos. "Or Mork and Min-
dy. . . but that's bad improvisation.
We don't play straight to one man's
work."
"Comedy is a funny thing,"
See THE, Page 8
'
......11' Ga "
>Mediatrics
Presents:
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(Rod Amateau, 1978) A fun movie that is likeable, fast-moving entertainment.
It's a movie-within-a-movie, DISASTER 1976, showing at the Alamo theatre
on the wildest Friday night of the year. While a mid-air collision, a tidal
wave, a blazing skyscraper and a beserk shark compete for attention on
the big screen, there's even more fun and action in the audience.
Sat., Feb. 24 Not. SCI. Aud. 7:00, 8:30, 10:00
edipse
JAZZ ARTISTS ON TOUR!
GRIOT GALAXY
SAM SANDERS & VISIONS
THE PARADISE THEATRE ORCHESTRA
Featuring
ALLEN BARNES
MARCUS BELGRAVE
KENY GRRETT
ED GOOCH
LaMONTE HAMILTON
)OC HOLLADAY
RON JACKSON
LEONARD KING
$3.50 DON MAYBERRY
4.50 KEITHVREELAND
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A
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William
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TICKETS ON SALE aft
6pm at the Pow
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63-
PAUL-SCHRADER'S
1973
P A U rCR D E ' 1978i t ,