Tuesday, November 7, 1972
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Page Three
Tuesday, November 7, 1972 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Three
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TUESDAY SPECIAL SHE
dAl L 1DRINK 1. 'PRICEF
- ~drama-
Great God Brown:
demanding drama
1HE
DANCING from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.
341 South Main * Ann Arbor 769-59
960
YUVAL TRIO from Israel
Detroit Seats O.K.-Sold Out Ann Arbor
Virtuosi with Mozart, Ravel, Mendelssohn
THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS
Concert Series: Edith J. Freeman, Chairman
AUDITORIUM, FRI., NOV. 10, 8:30 P.M.
Art Institute Ticket Office (831-4678)
All Hudson's-$6, $5, $4
ANN ARBOR CIVIC THEATER AUDITIONS
Lion In Winter
ROLES: TWO WOMEN, FIVE MEN
SEPTEMBER 8,9 & 10-7:30 p.m.
AACT Bldg., 201 Mulholland
(off West Washington)
PRODUCTION DATES: JANUARY 17-20
By JAN BENEDETTI
"The Great God Brown" is one
of Eugene O'Neill's most difficult
and demanding experimental
dramas. The play is O'Neill's cry
for recognition, mercy and love
from an unresponsive and distant
God. He creates a dramatic ex-
perience out of his struggle with
his life and religion. At the end
of the play, he seems to find a
partial answer in the endless
cycle of "love and conception and
birth and pain."
The New Phoenix Repertory
Company who presented "The
Great God Brown" here Sunday,
tackled this troubling play with
a large measure of success. The
often-brilliant acting, sensitive
staging and direction, however,
were not quite enough. The com-
bined effort of the company's
formidable talents were defeated
by the flaws in O'Neill's writing.
The plot revolves around the
life of Dion Anthony, his wife
Margaret and their friend Wil-
liam Brown, who loves Margaret.
An adequate short plot sum-
mary is nearly impossible, how-
ever, since O'Neill is playing
around with a number of abstract
themes and techniques that effect
the plot but defy a neat incorpo-
ration into a summary.
O'Neill experiments with masks
tovS
in the drama. The company used
sheets of plastic with painted
abstract features.
Superficially, the masks stand
for the false faces that people
wear to hide their thoughts and
emotions from others. The masks
also, as O'Neill has pointed out,
represent the disfiguring crystal-
ization of the person's underlying
pure life-force when faced with
the brutalizing forces of the
world.
For example, the real Dion
continually tries to hold the
magic beauty of love within his
embrace. His mask forms be-
cause he is continually thwarted
in his desire by Margaret, who
loves only the mask, by the en-
vious Brown and by a seemingly
cruel God.
Throughout the first two acts,
O'Neill is able to maintain the
basic believability of the plot
and a]-- keep the deeper mean-
ings of the mask motif under-
standable.
He loses dramatic control of
this balance in the third act
when he tries to merge the plot
events with the forces represent-
ed by the masks. He attempts to
take the abstract forces (the
creative force of the real Dion,
the self-mockery of the masked
7:00 2 4 7 Election Coverage
9 Beverly Hillbillies
50 I Love Lucy
56 French Chef
50 Hogan's eHroes
56 Who Is?
8:00 9 Movie
'Spartacus." (1960)
56 Family Game
50 Dragnet
8:30 56 Dateline America
50 Merv Griffin
9:00 56 Common Ground
9:30 56 Black Journal
10:00 2 4 7 Election Coverage
Continues
50 Perry Mason
56 Detroit Black Journal.
10:30 56 Artists in America
11:00 2 9 News, Weather, Sports
50 That Good Ole Nashville Music
11:20 9 Nightbeat
11:30 2 Election Coverage Continues
50 Movie-Biography
"They Came to Cordura" (1959)
1:00 4 7 Election Coverage
Continues
wcbn today
fm 89.5
Dion, Brown's jealousy of Dion's
vitality) and translate them into
events within the plot. He lets
the masks- the symbols of the
abstract forces-intrude directly
on the flow of the plot. It doesn't
work.
He wants the audience to be-
lieve that Brown, wearing Dion's
plastic mask, actually liveskwith
Margaret and she doesn't know
the difference.
Throughout the play, the char-
acters often respond to the mask
and reject the real face as
strange. But when the masks
become a part of the plot (for
example, when the masked
Brown dies, the other characters
react to the plastic mask as if
it is his whole corpse), rather
than an accompanying expression
of the underlying conflicts, the
play is damaged.
Though the play presented the
company with inherent problems,
much- of the acting was clear,
strong and moving.
John McFartin's fine portrayal
of Dion was the high point of the
production. McMartin slipped ef-
fortlessly through the complex
maze of Dion's conflicts, and
brought into sharp focus the in-
ner war which tears -Dion apart.
He combined the defensive
flippancy of the masked Dion and
the tragic disappointment of the
life-seeking real Dion into a co-
herent whole. He gave a beauti-
ful haunting performance.
John Glover, in the key role
of William Brown, was never
quite the master of his charac-
ter's subtleties. When Dion dies,
Glover failed to suggest the com-
plexities of Brown's attitudes
toward the masked Dion and the
real Dion.
He settled for suggesting to the
audience that Brown admires
only the masked Dion and des-
pises the real Dion.
But Brown's real tragedy lies
in his repressed jealousy and
love for the real Dion's vitality-
an implication Glover did not
bring out.
As the Earth Mother symbol
in the play, Marilyn Sokol is to
be commended for her perform-
ance as Cybel, the Earth Mother
in the play. It's not easy to por-
tray a whore, a mother figure
and the peace of death all at the
same time, but Sokol managed it.
ein revie w in
drama, dance, film,
poetry, and music.
or writing feature
stories a bou t the
arts: contact Arts
Editor, c/o The
Michigan Daily.
Batsheva Dance Company
Batsheva...
too much suffering
STUDENT LABORATORY THEATRE
Two Short Plays and A Curtain Raiser
by GERTRUDE STEIN
Gallows HumorI
by JACK RICHARDSON
Arena Theatre Frieze Bldg.
(or earlier if the theatre is filled)
WED. & THURS., Nov. 8
ADMISSION FREE
4:10 p m.
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ECONOMIC
TO HUNGA
NOV. 7-3
NIVERSITY OF M
EPT. OF ECONOI
Invites You to a Lectur
. Janos 11
Institute of Economi
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on
NDAMENTAL QU
GROWTH, WIT
kRIAN LONG-TEl
:30 P.M. 20
MICHIGAN
MICS
e by
Cornai
cs
of Science
JESTIONS OF
H REFERENCE
RM PLANNING"
)0 LANE HALL
tonight
6:00 2 4 7 News, Weather, Sports
9 Eddie's Father
50 Flintstones
56 How Do Your Children Brow?
6:30 2 4 7 News
9 Jeannie
50 Gilligan's Island
56 Your Right to Say 116
P r> l
/ ~ S
ALLEN
LOVE
and the"
ECSTATIC BLISS
217 SPSH 2Ptt- 2AM
9:00
12:00
4:00
7:30
11:00
Morning After Show
Progressive rock
Folk
Rhythm & Blues
Progressive rock (runs until 3)
Batsheva Dance Company of Israel;
Friday, Nov. 3, 8 p.m. Power Center.
Choice Series of the University Mu-
sical Society
By DONALD SOSIN
No one denies that the Jewish
people and the Israeli nation
have endured a great deal of
suffering. But the amount of it
to which the Batsheva Dance
Company exposed us on Friday
night was a bit hard to handle.
The company has gained re-
cognition in the past few years
for its vitality and youthful zest,
but there was little of this in the
first half of its program, which
consisted of one long piece in
eleven sections, choreographed
by John Cranko to a series of
poems about the concentration
camps, and the hope for a re-
birth of humanity.
As programmatically clear as
much of the dancing was, I felt
that I was missing much by not
being able to understand the
Hebrew text.
I was assured by Hebrew-
speaking friends that the poetry
was quite beautiful, that the ac-
tion fit it closely, and that the
taped reading, by Israeli ac-
tress Chana Maron (who has had
her share of suffering - she
lost a leg in a bomb explosion in
the Munich airport a few years
ago) was eloquent. But to one
who could not understand more
than an occasional word, a print-
ed translation would have been
most helpful.
AND NOW
AWORD
FROM OUR
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ARTS
The dancing itself was some-
thing of a disappointment, for
while the individuals obviously
knew their craft well, as a unit
there was often a lack of focus.
Some sections "Song of My
People - Forest People-Sea"
(which was also the title of the
whole piece) and were striking
in the portrayal of rebirth; in
the first instance, it was a liter-
al rebirth, with couples forming
a collective womb from which a
man emerged to begin life anew;
and a more general statement
about the continuance of life in
the final section of the piece.
The undertone of despondence
that marked the first half con-
tinued with Linda Rabin's "Three
Out of Me." A robot-like figure's
presence controls the actions of
the other dancers during the first
section, to music of Ligeti. This
gives way to passage of gentle
joy with Handel in the back-
ground; the robot reappears and
wipes away the scene of tran-
qquility and the dancers collapse
in desolation at the robot mar-
ches on.
Here, the dancing of Joanna
Peled was outstanding, as was
that of Gabi Barr, who had ear-
lier proved her merit in combi-
nations with Yair Vardi and Pa-
mela Sharni.
The concluding piece, "Diver-
tissement in the Playground of
Zodiac," was choreographed by
the troupe's artistic director, Wil-
liam Louther. Using a variety
of techniques drawn from the
work of Martha Graham, whose
teaching was the springboard
that led to the formation of Bat,
sheva, the composition gave us
a lighthearted look at the char-
acterizations of the astrological
signs - the clowning of Scorpio,
the coquettishness of Virgo, the
continual wobbling of Libra as
she is saved from falling off-
balance.
At times there was too much
cuteness, both in the music and
the choregraphy, and the lack of
depth was a startling contrast
to the attempted intensity ear-
lier in the evening.
But I was never totally con-
vinced that the company pro-
duced a feeling of either real
drama or gaiety, and thus came
away largely unsatisfied.
BOUND TO STIMULATE
"EXTRAORDINARILY JOYFUL
AND MOVE."
... BOUND TO STIMULATE
-Boyum, Wall Street Journal
From the
CULTURE CALENWAR
FILMS-Cinema Guild shows Godard's Une Femme Est Une
Femme, Arch. Aud., 7, 9:05; Daily reviewer David Gruber
comments:
Godard's Une Femme est une Femme has the ap-
pearance of a New Wave home movie. Basically, it con-
cerns a stripper who wants a child but whose boyfriend
won't oblige her. So, a proposition is made to their best
friend. The outcome of this is not so important as the
viewer's realization that Godard is merely playing with
pot and the movie medium itself and the viewer. As ever,
Godard is Godard.
AA Film Coop shows Monkey Business, Aud. A, 7, 8:45;
Daily review Larry Lempert comments:
For those who, understandably, can never remember
which Marx Brothers movie is which: This is the one
where the four stow away aboard an ocean liner and
proceed to take sides in a gangland feud. But the plot
hardly matters-the rapid-fire one-liners and the in-
congruous, spontaneous sight gags make it the usual,
satisfying Marx Brothers hour and a half.
UAC-DAYSTAR presents
JAMES
TAYLOR
NOVEMBER 1
FRIDAY 8 P.M.
with SECTION
w h E I$3.50 $4.50 $5.50
crisler arena
Reserve your seats
today at Michigan
Union. (You'll re-
ceive a receipt-cou-
cou-pon awhich you ex-
change for a ticket
'H when t h e y arrive
from the printers)
OR BY MAIL-
I
5th
Dimension
Paul Williams
NOV. 10, 8:00 P.M.
BOWEN FIELD HOUSE
EASTERN MICHIGAN U.
TICKETS: Reserved Seats-
$3.50 $4.50 $5.50
TICKET OUTLETS:
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