Page Two
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Satur&ay, March 27, 19 1
drama
i-
New
By WILLIAM TATE
Edward Albee has provided the
contemporary American theatre
with some of its most exciting
moments. A new play by Mr. Al-
bee is an occasion. One hopes
that the play will demonstrate
the quality of which Mr. Albee is
capable. All Over at the Martin
Beck is unfortunately a disap-
pointment.
The performance was a pre-
view and it was a matinee. These
two factors, however, do not ac-
count for the production'3 ex-
cruciating lack of commitment
and pace. Cues were dropped all
over the afternoon.
The theatre itself was no help.
The Martin Beck is a great cur-
licued barn of a place. The audi-
torium runs parallel to the street;
sirens, the roar of cars and
trucks interceded all afternoon.
The curtain rises on a steeply
raked stage set with two large
pieces of overstuffed furniture
and a chaise lounge. At the cen-
ter back is a hospital screen
that hides a bed. We soon learn
that a man lies dying. He must
be a famous man because, we
are told, the occasion of his dy-
ing is well attended by the press.
This unheard, unseen man, the
Husband, becomes the most
powerful personage in the play
His presence pervades all that
happens. His ambivalence lends
him a kind of stature that in the
other characters comes across
as merely muddled ambiguity.
In the death room there are the
Nurse and the old family Doctor,
who by his own admission should
have retired 20 years before, the
dying man's wife, Daughter, Son,
Best Friend, and Mistress.
The Husband's slow demise is
the modus operandi of the play.
His imminent death has brought
these people together and wait-
ing for it to happen keeps them
there. They while away the time
trading anecdotes of life, of dy-
ing, of living deaths. The Wife at-
tacks the Daughter and the Son.
She is in turn attacked by the
Daughter. The Mistress )s at-
tacked by the Daughter and de-
fended by the ife. The Son is
defended by the Daughter. The
Best Friend 'and the Mistress
join forces against the Wife in
her obstinacy about the eventual
disposition of the corpse. But t he
director, Sir John ~ielgud, has
not succeeded in welding any of
- this to an :effective, readily ap-
prehensible dramatic purpose.
The central action of the play
is remembrance of past actions.
rThere are some good moments
of confrontation and relational
interplay. But the drama iacks
the structure necessry to make
the various elements relate.
None of the perfornances, ex-
cepting that of Coleen Dewurst
(the Mistress), are in any way
outstanding. George Voskovec
(the Best Friend) speaks every
York stage: A great place
to visit
line slowly and deliberately as
though he were only concerned
with being heard, not ,kith being
understood. Jessica Tandy (the
Mother) seems to be forcing
everything technically. Madeleine
Sherwood (the Daughter) is
downright awful. Her hours of
sensitivity training have availed
her not at all. The Son's break-
down in the Second Act, as play-
ed by James Ray, is embarrass-
ingly messy and unrealized.
Only Miss Dewhurst succeeds
in creating acharacter to whom
the audience can react with in-
terest. One suspects, and this in
no way limits her accomplish-
ment, that the Mistress is the
best written and only sympa-
thetic character.
All Over is an ineffectual and
inconsequential play, ineffectual-
ly directed by John Gielgud, and
over all poorly acted.
Paul Zindel's new play at the
Morosco, And Miss Reardon
Drinks a Little, is a palpable hit.
The play might very well be ded-
icated to the family-living teach-
er who threw herself from the
school roof onto the handball
court because she'd never lived
and knew she'd never have the
chance.
The play concerns three sis-
art
Art, market anyone?
ters. Two of them share an apart-
ment. Anna (Julie Harris) and
Catherine (Estelle Parsons) are
fast becoming old-maid school
teachers. Life has passed them
by. Catherine quietly and very
funnily accepts her condition and
turns to drink to make the world
a little less dreary. Anna has
taken to staying home from
school, immersed herself in ec-
centricity, and become a fanatic
about fur (the sight of it makes
her physically ill). She is a pa-
cifist subject to violent fits and a
rabid vegetarian. Catherine in
the interest of protein has re-
sorted to eating raw hamburger
from a Fanny Farmer candy
box.
The other sister, Ceil (Nancy
Marchand), is married and a
successful school administra-
tor. She's a pompous woman who
is determined to preserve what
she has built up for herself at
any cost. Ceil's visit to her sis-
ters' apartment, the first in a
long time, has been occasioned
by a scandal involving Anna at
school. The precise nature of
Anna's indisposition is kept from
us until the second act, i.e. a pre-
cocious youngster tampered with.
Melvin Bernhardt, the direc-
tor, demonstrates an excellent
sense of theatrical rhythm. He
lets the first act meander through
all the necessary exposition and
character delineation, mixing
comedy and accusations in just
the right proportions.
Act II introduces us to an en-
dearing vacuity of a fellow teach-
er, Fleur Stein, played to a per-
fection of social nearsightedness
by Rae Allen. Fleur is accom-
panied by her husband, Bob. Bob
Stein, the person of Bill Macy, is
used by both Zindel and Bern-
hardt to pump new vocal and
thematic energy into the show.
Again Mr. Bernhardt mixes his
ingredients so that as we are
reaching the play's comic cli-
max, the awful pressures that
have driven Anna to the brink
and beyond are delineated. An
explosion shook us at the end of
Act I, expectation of an explosion
holds us at the end of II.
The Third Act brings the
awaited outburst, and the play
turns from the blatantly funny to
the deeply serious. Mr. Zindel,
however, has skillfully kept us
aware of the serious implications
of his action in the midst of all
the funnies. At the final curtain
the sum total of the play makese
it clear that each of the Rear-
don sisters must accept responsi-
bility for who she is and for
what the others have become.
Catherine learns that she cannot
live solely in terms of what she
thinks she owes Anna.
Nancy Marchand, as Ceil, the
successful, married sister, over-
acts the littlest bit, but always
exactly in terms of Ceil. Though
her closing tirade is too much
in one key, she is outstanding.
One leaves the theatre with the
conviction that Julie Hairis may
once have had it, but no longer.
12
She seems to be coasting on her
reputation. She is present only
part of the time and her striden-
cy is almost never a part of An-
na. She is only adequate, and the
play and her fellow performers
carry her along.
Estelle Parsons, on the other
hand, has the indefinable some-
thing, presence, pazazz. A3 the
play opens she is a little drunk.
As the play continues, sh3 gets
progressively stoned. Not only
do we see her getting drunk, but
at the same time she makes us
aware what the drinking is in
response to. It's as finely deline-
ated a performance as I've ever
seen. Her performance left me
wishing she'd had even more
to do.
. .. Miss Reardon . . . is well
worth seeing. It is that rare
thing: a truly funny play Nvith a
serious intent. It seeks to stimu-
late as it entertains.
CINEMA I
"La GrandeIllusion"
FRENCH, 1937
with ERIC YON STROHEIM
directed by JEAN RENOIR
"I made 'La Grande Illusion' because I am a pacifist."
-Renoir, 1938
Friday and Saturday 7:00, 9:00 p.m.
-PLUS-
"A View From the Bridge
with Carol Lawrence, Raf Yallone, Maureen Stapleton
screenplay by ARTHUR MILLER
directed by SIDNEY LUMET
FRIDAY and SATURDAY 1 1 :00 p.m.
SUNDAY 7:00, 9:00 p.m.
MARCH 26, 27, 28 AUD. A., ANGELL HALL
75c (separate admission for each show)
NEXT WEEK
MARLON BRANDO'S
"ONE-EYED JACKS"
I
I
Daily Ciassif ieds Get Results
The season's first art auction
is scheduled for Sunday, March
28th at 3:00 in the Main Ball-
room of Weber's Inn. Presented
by the Meridian Gallery of Indi-
anapolis, this one-day auction
sale will feature custom framed
and matted works by such in-
ternationally-known artists as
Salvador Dali, Victor Vasarely,
Ann Walker and Pablo Picasso..
An exhibition period, which will
enable the viewers to familiarize
themselves with the art and ar-
tists presented, will precede the
auction from 1:00 to 3:00.
Highlighting the show will be
an interesting series of twenty
different miniature color etch-
ings which can be either hung
on a wall as part of a grouping
of art works or placed as an' ob-
ject upon a table or shelf be-
cause of their unique plastic box
frames. These moderately priced
pencil signed and numbered
limited edition works have been
created expressly for these un-'
usual frames by such noted ar-
tists as France's Suzanne Run-
acher, Fetreman and Carlise;
Spain's Servulo Esmeraldo and
England's noted satirical cartoon-
ist, Ronald Searle. Also in this
group are work by the Frenen
surrealists Claude Serre and
Virgilige Nejestic.
Other works in the show will
include original etchings, litho-
graphs, wooducts, and watercol-
ors which were recently purchas-
ed by the gallery from major con-
* temporary artists in America
and Europe. Some of those whose
works will appear in the auction
are Rene' Carcan, Andre Fran-
cois, Alexander Calder, Christine
Chagnoux, Joan Miro, Johnny
Friedlander, and many others
whose works are regularly ex-
hibited in major galleries and
museums throughout the word.
APPLICATIONS NO W BEING ACCEPTED FOR
ORGANIZATIONS EDITOR
and
Associate Organizations Editor
1972 MICHIGANENSIAN (yearbook
Petitions available at Student Publications Building
420 Maynard Due April 2, 1971
Questions: call Bruce at 769-0937 or Katrina at 665-6477
.r.
Come and Enjoy
Sid Shrycock Goes to Africa
an original full book musical!
Residential College Auditorium
EAST QUADRANGLE
March 26th and 27th at 7 and 10 p.m.
TICKETS $1.25
I Advance soles Friday in the Fishbowl 1 1-4 p.m.
I
New From Levi !
For the Student Body:
Boot Jeans
Writer-Ine-Residence
presents
GARY SNYDER
March 29 thru April 4
During the week Snyder wilt read his poetry and
hold lectures and discussions on ecology, an-
thropology, Asian culture, Zen, mind-body.
7MONDAY, MARCH 29-discussion at the
Residential College, 8:00 p.m.
TUESDAY, MARCH 30 -- poetry reading,
Rackham Auditorium, 8:00 p.m.
FULL SCHEDULE OF EVENTS IS FORTHCOMING
LIFE Movie Review
Voyeurs of the Apocalypse
Here come the white liberals-educated, guilty, anxious to feel
(something, anything) again. Here are the blacks, angry, a little
crazed and delighted to oblige Whitey by involving him in an
off-off-off Broadway theater piece that will make his understand,
really understand, what it's like to be black.
The essence of their technique is reversal. The blacks put on
whiteface and daub their visitors with black makeup. Whereupon
they force-feed them soul food and alternately abuse and patron-
ize them. At which point ,things get really fought: a wallet is
stolen,and then a purse. A man who objects is taken away and
we hear the sounds of him being beaten. A woman is stripped
and nearly roped. And when a copy (actually another actor)
arrives he believes the white-faced blacks, not the black-faced
rwhites, on whom he visits further psychological devastation.
But-and this is perhaps the most savagely telling part of the
sequence-when the audience is releysed frorri its ordeal it makes
no objections. "Great theater," one of them says. "I'm going to
tell everyone to come," says another. "It really makes you stop
and think.' fVeryxinvigorating.rg
To say the least.' This sequence occurs in the middle of, and is f
the high point of, a funny, messy, inconclusive, intermittently
brilliant movie called HI MOM!, which is by Brian dePalma, who
has, with it, moved from the relatively cheerful anarchy of last
year's drft-dodger comedy, GREETINGS, to a much more intense,
difficult, and daring manner of film-making. This sequence, for
example, is photographed in very grainy black-and-white, in imi-
tation of a TV documentary. As a result it is visually ambiguous,
forcing one to work hard at following its development in detail
but imparting, as the visual media so often do these days, the
most disturbing sense that the world is out of contact, running
riot before our helpless eyes. Moreover, the technique makes us
feel as if we, no less than the abused white "audience" we are
watching, are masochistic voyeurs, impotently fascinated by our
confrontation with chaos.
A single sequence does not a movie make, but this one is but-
tressed by some other excellent bits, Especially like the opening
wherein the protagonist (well and broadly played by Robert De
N ira) gets backing for a movie project from a pious, paranoid
pornographer (he believes, notch, in the beauty of the human
form and hopes to make "the first children's exploitation pic-
ture"). There is also a lovely, parodical affair with a girl whose
romantic eagerness ("Be gentle with me!") contrasts deliciously
with the settings for their trysts-an apartment shared with too
many roomrmates, a pizza joint, an ice cream parlor.
All of this is done with enormous exuberance and great technical
facility. If you can imagine Jean-Luc Godard directing the
varsity show, you will have some idea of Mr. DePlma's approach.
I think you'll have a pretty interesting time at HI MOM!
by Richard Schickel
"Full of extraordinary thinking, accurate
dialogue, and bull's-eye put-downs. DePal-
ma does not play favorites. Everyone gets it."
-Show Magazine
"UPROARIOUS! Might just be this year's
'PUTNEY SWOPE!'"
-William Wolf, Cue Magazine
"STANDS OUT FOR ITS WIT AND
GOOD HUMOR! "-oe Green spu%New York Times
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PRE-SH RUN K
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CHECKMATE
READ
-JAMES WECHSLER-
cl;4mi ~igai 43 a
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University of Michigan Film Society (ARM)
Presents
Marcel Carne's
Les enf anis du paradis
(Children of Paradise)
written by JACQUES PREVERT
with Arletty, Jean-Louis Barrault,
Pierre Brasseur, Pierre Renoir
FRI DAY-SATURDAY-SUNDAY
kA - 9Y 'O
I
Cl~r
OFFICE HOURS
CIRCULATION - 764-0558
COMPLAINTS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS
10 a.m.-Noon and 1-4 p.m.
CLASSIFIED ADS - 764-0557
10a.m.-1 p.m.
DEADLINE FOR NEXT DAY - 12:30 p.m.
DISPLAY ADS - 764-0554
MONDAY --9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
TH1FSDAVthru FRIDAY_ 1 n m -4n.m.
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