Tuesday, November 7, 1972 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Three Tuesday, November 7, 1972 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Three I - %. ! 1iqb. 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. s ______.____________...____ _.___.. .a..r}r.r."". .. .... ..r..................... ............................................................ ..... THE U fD Prod of t SOME FU] ECONOMIC TO HUNGA NOV. 7-3 NIVERSITY OF M EPT. OF ECONOI Invites You to a Lectur . Janos 11 Institute of Economi he Hungarian Academy c 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 CREAOR Radvertising ntr - w for bue the public good / icFwvioftI 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: I I .:...... x.4..4 ?. Q;_YJ.4. K.:k;. .I I I