Page Two THE MICHIGAN DAILY Saturday, February 26, 1972 , . From boxes to bathtub -.a- - - - - ll%.O w mv -%-- -%.w - LISA GOODMAN and Randall Forte in a scene from Last Respects. CO NTINUE Cinma eekend By MARCIA ABRAMSON Last Respects has its moments, sometimes of laughter, n o w and then of meaning. But, in so heralded a production, the stu-. dent play of the season, by the "prestigious" Professional Thea- tre Program, those good mom- ents are not enough. Danny Lipman is very much a student playwright. He has built. and with, some success, on Brecht, Pirandello, theatre of the absurd, mime - as you would expect. Perhaps most promising is Lipman's attempt to use these sources in a social comedy, to blend parody, fan- tasy, farce, theatrical tricks and games into a study of contem- porary life that has a serious impact as well. Unfortunately, Lipman devel- ops problems in handling t h i s type of social comedy because of his heavy reliance on Neil Si- mon - New York theatre. That's all right for Neil Simon, w h o churns it out, but hopefully 21- year-old Shubert Fellowship win- ners can do better than stumble over tired psychiatrist-taxi pric- es - middle age - paranoia ines. There is dramatic potential in the conception of Last Re- spects. On his 21st birthday, the son of a middle class maker of paper boxes (get it-boxes?) commits suicide, drowning mun- danely in the bathtub. Throughout the play, Joel sits on the stage in his bathrobe, en- tering the minds of people who knew him and sometimes con- ing right into the action as they relive their involvement - or lack of it - with him. J o e 1 ' s alienation comes alive in t h e vaudeville signs he uses to an- nounce the "acts" of his fam- iliars. Unfortunately, most of these acts are neither funny nor tell- ing. Lipman depends too much u on stereotype situations a n d characters. Joel's father is a bourgeoise businessman, that all-purpose butt; his mother is of course scatterbrained from years of uselessness. T h e i r friends drink too much a n d play adult games like "therapy," and they all go to psychiatrists. The catch phrase of Last Re- pects is "I know what you mean." Everyone says it, all the time, but there is no under- standing. The guests cannot con- sole the parents; father a n d sons cannot communicate at all. So Joel is alienated. Under- standable. He does not want to be forced into his father's busi- mess or into bed withhthe girl next door. What does he want? He doesn't know, or doesn't say. But one of the serious weaknesses in the play is Joel's - lack of development - he just sulks, except for the final scene in which he shows some feeling for his fallen father and for a brief moment with his mother. What does Joel mean? The aud- ience never knows. Lipman becomes too distract- ed with minor characters - the nymphomaniac type girl next door, the cop on the case, the neighbors. The use of a circle of characterizations to reveal Joel's world could work, but in this play becomes too diffuse. We never know enough to feel or understand more than a little of Joel's and his father's anguish. All the words - and there are a lot of them - get us nothing. Directory Harvey Medlinsky, a Mike Nichols' associate, keeps a good pace. The acting gener- ally is adequate for roles that are really not particularly de- manding. Lipman is best at writing his "Acts," breaking the play into a Busby Berkeley rou- tine, a calypso song, a ganie of "Face the Music" (if you loved the Firesign Theater's "Beat the Reaper" you'll like "Face the Music.") Perhaps the best thing Lipman does give us is Ian Stulberg as Scruffy the Wonder Dog. Stul- berg is an excellent actor, and his realistic Scuffy is the fun- niest bit in this play. Stulberg stretches, begs, stalks, barks, carries his bone - and gets to Circle-K Club 01 JonPRESENTSO Director of Housing DISCUSSION: HOUSING PROBLEMS SUN., 7:30 P.M. ^3rd floor S.A.B. SAVE $200; on any new TOYOTA with FACTORY AI R TONIGHT ONLY CLUNY BROWN Dir. Ernst Lubitsch, 1946 with Charles Boyer and SUNDAY NIGHT DESIGN FOR IVING 1933. with Gary Cooper and Frederic March. " MONDAY NIGHT Shop Around The Corner U I Ernst Lubilsch Festival pre-season SALE Editor's Note: The following review by Richard Glatzer and movie calendar were omitted from yesterday's Cinema Week- end due to space limitations. DESIGN FOR LIVING Cinema Guild Sunday ' Based on a Noel Coward play, Design for Living sounds totally cynical. The plot revolves around a commercial artist (Miriam Hopkins) and her libertine ad- ventures with a playwright (Frederic March), an artist (iGary Cooper), and an advertis- ing executive . (Edward Everett Horton). Though reportedly a comedy (and a funny one), An- drew Sarris has recently at- tempted some revisionist critic- ism claiming Design is a more serious film than people give it credit for. And with a screen- play by Ben Hecht and a sur- prisingly unromantic story 1:nc, that sounds very possible. This film not seen at press time. -R.G. ALSO.*.. HOLY OUTLAW - Sunday, Conspiracy. ON T H E WATERFRONT and THE FROZEN NORTH- Monday, Tenants Union THE DAMNED - Tuesday, Ann Arbor Film Coop THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE D A M E and THE HAUNTED HOUSE-Tuesday, Tenants Union THE LOST MAN-Wed-Fri- day, -Conspiracy THE TRIP-Thursday, Ann Arbor Film Coop dea Geh .het o pice o bul t Check ivf STANLEY KRAMER'S "SHIP OF FOOLS" STOCKWELL HALL 9 P.M. FRI., SAT. 75c I ____.__ _ _ _e ._ -FREE FEATURE FILM- 3:30 SUNDAY FEB. 27 8 :00 -HOLY OUTLAW- Cinema verite documentary of Harrisbury conspiracy "ringleader" Daniel Berrigan underground before his capture by the FBI. II coffeehouse DIAL 5-6290 conspiracy 330 Maynard theater I "Dustin Hoffman's performance since night Cowboy' " finest 'Mid- Elizabeth McAlister U of M Faculty{ Students, and Staff BAHAMAS- NASSAU 5DAYS/4 NIGHTS MARCH 6 to 10 $129.00 or- FREEPORT 8 DAYS/7 NIGHTS MARCH 5 to 12 $159.00 ALL TRIPS INCLUDE; " Round trip non-stop jet transportation " Open bar and meal service en route * Accommodations for s e v e n nights at the Flogler Inn (Nassau). FOR DETAILS CALL: Owen Perlman--663-2044 Larry Kaufman-764-7692 Steven Eder--763-2790 Carol Klau-663-8227 or Steven Zacks-Studentours 483-4850 DUSTIN HUFFMAN i. .M PCKWAWS IfETRA D®G:r" AUSTIN DIAMOND SHOWS AT 1, 3,5,7,9P.M. Q~ 129 9S. University 663-7151 I I i I lmmwmmuummmmw STARTING MARCH '72 "BUREAU OF ASSOCIATED SERVICES" Providing Engineering and General Consulting Services INCLUDES: * Mechanical and Plumbing Design " Interior Environmental Design ® Civil-Structural Design * Cost Estimating Business Phone 668-8865 1700 Murfin Avenue, Ann Arbor I Feb. TODAY 26 4:00 p.m. 8:00 p.m. 10:00 p.m. Sister McAlister, whose Active Opposition to the War and the Draft has earned her a Federal Indictment for "conspiracy" is on trial now in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She is in Ann Arbor today for a series of conversations with interested people I COME LISTE infoC 668-9578 tickets $2 at the door N QUESTION onspiracy 336 Maynard CONVERSE info 761-7849 legal defense benefit-UM Film Soc. 1 mmmmmmmm cINCEMA I ONE NIGHT ONLY! THIS SUNDAY ; ONE NIGHT ONLY! this Kewl $1.50 830 the GOLDEN THE ANN ARBOR PREMIERE OF CHA PPAQUA Directed by Conrad Rooks; 1966 RI with Ed & Penny Tric- kett, George & Gerry Armstrong, S a n d y & Caroline Paton, R u t h Meyer, Joe Hickerson & Barry O'Neill. The plot of CHAPPAQUA can be summed up in a few words. An evi- dently wealthy young addict flies from New York to Paris, where, at a private clinic in the suburbs, he takes a cure that may or may not prove permanent. But the real settings are not the Central Park Res- ervoir, or a plane high over the Atlantic, or a steep-roofed nineteenth- century chateau that houses the clinic, but the wild and terrible moon country of an exploding mind, and the real action of the movie con- sists of a disorientated mingling of recollection and fantasy. Mr. Rooks and his gifted director of photography, Robert Frank, have managed to find convincing pictorial equivalents for an extraordinary range of mental states. Like a flung top, the movie seems to spin headlong in widening circles, with nothing but velocity to give it the erect posture emergence into the single metaphor of a helicopter spiralling upward over the chateau; at that moment the hero is simultaneously a figure in the helicopter, waving a cheerful goodbye to his former keepers, and a white-jacketed figure madly mounting the topmost stony pinnacles of the chateau. The cast of CHAPPAQUA is surely one of the most diverse in movie history. It contains, among many others, Jean-Louis Barrault (the gentle doctor in charge of the clinic), William S. Burroughs (a splendid villain), Allen Ginsberg, Ravi Shankar, Paula Pritchett, Ornette Cole- man, Swami Satchidananda, and the Fugs. The brilliant editing of CHAPPAQUA is by Kenout Peltier, and much of the beautiful score was comnnpe b v ~ii Shanr,'Ttiv rema,,ins fto, addthatf the titter I I h\R1