A arts & entertainment Small faults mar 'Anita Bryant' The Michigan Daily--Saturday, March 24, 1979-Page 5 1 By JOSHUA PECK When I left the Canterbury Loft Wed- nesday night after the opening of The Anita Bryant Follies, I found myself in an unusual frame of mind. I didn't know what the hell to say about it. Original theater is so rare in Ann Arbor that I find myself loath to say anything which might discourage playgoers from sam- pling what fesw homegrown offerings; there are. So I endeavored to overlook some of the more minor drawbacks that beset the show in favor of its overall worth and entertainment value. But what is one to do when minor problems loom and become major ones? There are good moments in Anita Bryant, but they cannot sustain a show The Anita Bryant Follies Tom Simonds Ctanterbury I ort March 21-24 (8p.m) Anita ..............................Galen Davis Her Son .......................Larry Finkel Her Daughter..................Kirk Davis David ..............................David W ick Frankie........................Tom Simmonds Tom Simonds, director; Cynthia Dunitz, lights that is marred by too little preparation, a faulty political premise, and a hackneyed featured character. PERHAPS IT is unfair to indulge in a political critique of a production whose aim is to satirize gently and amuse,,but on the other hand, Anita Bryant is not quite just a popular music figure any more. Satirical treatment of a woman who has appeared on the cover of Newsweek in a news-story context ought to be a little more carefully worked out than that playwright Simonds has penned. In one first act scene, for instance, a television broadcast on the night of the infamous Dade County vote is enacted. Simonds explains away the gay loss as being caused by a combination of voter apathy and ignorance on the part of the voters about how they ought to have voted to support gay rights. The sketch 'THE CHINA SYNDROME' A hot core, thriller By ERIC ZORN The China Syndrome, a taut, bold thriller which could be subtitled "Fear and Loathing at the Nuclear Reactor," might easily have wasted itself by put- ting the figurative black hats on the Establishment bad guys and letting the forces of Justice and Right chip at the hardened plinth of the corrupt elite. What makes this recent Columbia release so riveting as it comes to its Andromeda Strain style suspense en- ding is that the characters have won you over after your initial reservations. As dippy, Southern California television news personality Kimberly \Tells, Jane Fonda observes a curious moment of panic in the control room of a Los Angeles area nuclear power plant. Though her affable tour guide in- sists that the disturbance is simply routine, Fonda and her radical-lib caiheraman, Michael Douglas, find that by means of surruptitious camera work, they have captured more than routine distress on the faces of control room personnel. UNAUTHORIZED filming of gover- nment installations is a felony, and the television station news director refuses to air the evidence which would also pose a threat to the future of nuclear power in the area. Douglas, who plays a thoroughly convincing hothead, swears and-rants, calling everyone unpleasant names and generally comning off as the sort of hoarse voiced activist we ignore when walking through the Fishbowl. Organized opponents of nuclear energy, shown at a hearing for a proposed reactor site, are also scathingly lampooned. They hold up pictures of children and wear mouth gags as part of an almost purely emotional attempt to tell the governing board what they have heard ten thousand times before. Fonda, who begins by insisting that "this is coverage, not controversy," fares little better in our eyes as she lives the idea that blue eyes and a brown nose will better serve her am- bitions of success than will shaking up WAKE UP!1 to ;ai1g the power structure, so to speak. Jack Lemmon, as shift foreman Jack Godell at the control of the reactor when the alarming incident takes place, emerges from the host of silly people to play the role which finally wins our affections and sets the ball rolling. -I love that plant, it's my whole life," he explains, and his insistence to Fonda that "the system works" is ex- tremely sincere and practically con- vincing. "NUCLEAR PHYSICS ain't so new, and it ain't so clear," as the owl once said in Pogo, and for those of us with only a rude knowledge of reactor technology, seemingly elaborate safety precautions added to the Mission Con- trol ambience of the central room lulls us into a sense of security. Lemmon, who knows these matters a million times better than the rather flakey Fonda, ought to know what is safe and what isn't, right? Once the veteran engineer gets a took at some corner cutting done in safety precautions taken at the plant plus an entire set of forged inspection x-rays, the film cranks into high gear. Though it will cost the company for which he works millions of dollars, Lemmon in- sists that the plant shut down until comprehensive tests can be run ,and trie safety established.° When no one will listen to himi, the anguished controller attempts to take his case to the public. The power com- pany's mob style violent techniques to thwart his valiant efforts along with the brave muckraking done by the now- converted Fonda drive the story to a tense final scene inside the control room. This surge of high intrigue and suspense is powerful, and all of a sud- - den, no matter what persuasion on nuclear energy, the viewer finds him- self hyping the uranium merchants suf- fer'the immediate and summary wrath of the Lord. L EMMON PLAYS with searing emotion and good taste which is light years away from the mugging which he has been doing for years as a Neil Simon stock actor. This performance is a tour-de-force which puts Fonda and the supporting cast in the background. His facial expressions alone reveal more of the horror, agony and gutty suspense which all the characters un- dergo than all the righteous rhetoric of those shocked guardians of the public weal. Perhaps The China Syndrome doesn't give nuclear power a fair shake, and perhaps the likelihood of failure is ex- tremely small, but the film poses the difficult questions surrounding this issue in a way which makes your respond on a frighteningly emotional level. It is much easier to walk down the other side of the street when the Arbor Alliance is proferring their logic on a streetcorner, but not so easy to turn away when Jack Lemmon, your main man, i- fighting time, the police, and the grotesque corporate structure to let everyone in on the secret which you know! Jaws may have caused a pang of terror every time you went swimming, but China Syndrome will get your every time the light goes on. is funny in parts,,but fails to examine or satirize the elements which really had the most to do with the defeat, and which are, therefore, most deserving of satirical treatment: The faet is that Dade County voters, and for that mat- ter, most Middle Americans, are quite backward about gay rights, terrified of homosexuals, and disgusted with gay and quasi-gay culture. Simonds owes it to his audience, yes, even in a light revue, to look at that issue. Of the music, words, and book trium- virate, Simonds is most gifted at creat ing the first. The musical highlight is a wittily arranged trio at the end of the news show, with Anita and company singing the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's Ninth (to represent the conservative establishment, I guess.), the gay election workers chattering on confidently centerstage, and a lone soprano vigorously intoning, "Assholes . ..News commentators are inevit- ably assholes," in front of the piano. ON THE WHOLE, though, Simonds is better with the slow numbers, love ballads and the like. Admittedly, he could have done with less borrowing, e.g. the bit he pilfered from Burt Bacharach in "The Blues Song." The comedy was generally base, too obvious and road to be funny, but once in a while, a sketch did emerge from the mediocrity. In one, an ultra-straight talk show host interviewed a professor about the academician's theory that homosexuality is a myth, "perpetrated by the Communists." Off to stage left, two other guests See FOIBLES, Page 8 RED Tukd The? re18 ROSES Tickets $2at PT.P. Office O in The Michiga n0e ME 76.4-0450 a-- tr I I 1 March 28-31 Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre mush a ws by Stephen Sondheim Hugh Wheeler ,*upetssbysibby tngmsr Ber~m presented by ANN ARBOR CIVIC THEATRE- CURTAIN EVES 8 p.m. MATINEE 2 p.m. Use Daily Classifieds m I OMMONOW 11 if V4 I'1stoig--, -I'IW Ar" i-U-fij ILli- [L- WEDNESDAY IS MONDAY IS "BARGAIN DAY" I"GUEST NIGHT" $1.50 until 5:30 2 Adults For5.$300 Except Wayside& State ExceptWayside ADULTS FR{., SAT., SUN. EYE. t HOL4IDAYS $3.14 MON.-TgURS. 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