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 2 01 -. 41 .00 ..... ... % .fe .u .. . ... .... .. .... ..... .... ..\. ....< ............ .\.......... ..... ....... .26............ .4..M 27 Adan e qTcesSls e. hm r. ac 42 -41 $7.50 PRE-SH RUN K 1If CHECKMATE READ -JAMES WECHSLER- cl;4mi ~igai 43 a __ --- , ! I State Street at liberty v. Ii; I; ..e .1, s1 1WF(r If -_ " U 7 . ROBART MI(HA4L J. ADMORD POLLARD LITTLEFAUSS AnD BIG HALSY 3rd WEK Ji -v- 7*131'. L ---! - 'il 11 I ~i I m :_ . 1 'r T 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. I Iui I H .- nr F y n_ c all - M IN