arrowing 'Journey' By ANDREW ZERMAN IF ONLY we could dismiss it as soap opera, if only we could comfortably say, FN Long Day's Journey Into Night Eugene "This is too excessive. This isn't really true O'Neill, who started American drama, . . ." But O'Neill won't let us. The char- most successfully overcomes his inelo- acters are too real; the impact too great. quence, his creakiness and melodrama to create the quintessential family night- The American BicentennialTheatre pro- f ar. duction of Lonig Day's Journey Into Night The. .r l is being presented at Power Center through The journey is long, yes, and exhausting'this Saturday, h miserable, and harrowing even in its oc- Kennedy Center ashpeningsand the casional redundancy and monotony. Iso- Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. lated by fog from the rest of the world, the Tyrones are imprisoned in a shabby Appearing as James Tyrone and direct- summerhouse with two stupid servants, lng this production is Jason Robards, our withther gilts reretand espir nd, foremost O'Neillian actor. This cast of lu- wit their guilts, regrete and despair and, mnre loicue h nentoal- r fmost unbearably, with each other. nminaries also includes the internationally- renouned Zoe Caldwell, Tony-winner Mi- For four hours, we must watch them chall Moriarity and Walter McGinn. destroy each other as they reveal their personal anguish and futilly try and es- AS THE ravaged mother, Caldwell gives cape from life with liquor and morphine, the most remarkable performance, easily Jason Robards until, at the end, they are all in a stupor. dwarfing memories of Katherine Hepburn ' features stellar cast in the movie. Incessantly patting and clutching her dress, snuggling impulsive- ly up to the son she knows has consump- tion, always moving and speaking with a touch of the addict's jitteriness, Caldwell is unforgettable. Moriarity, perhaps the most exciting young American actor today, emphasizes the humor and ironic deatchment of Ed- mund, the character based on O'Neill him- self. Though Edmond descends into hell with the rest of his family, there is a pos- sibility for optimism with Edmund. After all, we know that he will grow up and turn this wretchedness into art. We cannot forget that this play is the story of O'Neill's life and it seems Moriarity has used that to mold an Edmund who is something of an observer, the only char- acter with any chance of escape in the future. PERHAPS the memory of Robards him- self as Jamie has been too vividly etched in my memory from several viewings of the movie, but I found McGinn lacking a certain dynamism and thrust. Robards, now playing the older genera- tion, makes the transition from the role he perfected - that of the dissipated loaf- er - to this new role beautifully. He vali- antly tries to be the imposing, dignified patriarch at the same time that he is a failure; a man who, like his older son, had enormous potential that was never recog- nized. ROBARDS as director is not quite as successful. I don't think the play's length is an insurmountable obstacle but Robards seems determined to make it so. Throughout the play, and in the third act, especially, there is far too little niovement The production, visually, is unforgivabl3 static. THE PACING could be tighter and quick er in places and probably will be by the Washington opening. Again, this situatior is most dire in the very long third act. am convinced the play can be gripping for every minute of the four hours but the director must make special efforts to see that it is. Robards simply hasn't made enough effort. I don't mean to detract from the qual ity of the performances, which do shine through the dull staging and line flub bings. Unless you'll be in Washington ovel Christmas, get a good night's sleep anc see Long Day's Journey. I won't deny ji has its trying moments but, I assure you there's a pay-off. inO NTHE MICHIGAN DAILY music"review Wednesday, December 10, 1975 Page Five 76,000 FANS JAM PONTIAC STADIUM: Who concert: Blast from the past By JEFF SORENSEN the rock pantheon of oldies, EVEN THOUGH Peter Towns- the Who together more than views with the rock press, ha Special To The Daily The Who's 1975 rendition of j hend doesn't smash his guitar anyone else with his rauccous, indicated that he's having trou PONTIAC - Members of the those hits is beginning to sound 4 anymore, The Who still offers fast-paced drumming style. ble writing new material an< popular British rock quartet, like old hat. In many cases, The more entertaining theater than The other band member, bas- that he's finally getting tired o The Who, drove a crowd of Who's performance of their any other rock act performingI sist John Entwhistle, maintains performing on stage. 76,000 enthusiastic fans to a standard re p e r t o i r e hasn't today, including the Rolling an inscrutible image as he After all, one can't go 01 near-frenzy with a dynamic, changed significantly in six Stones. While that other British sticks to the background both singing lines like "Hope I db fast-paced concert in Pontiac years. Old standbys like "Sum- band features almost exclusively j musically and onstage. before I get old" forever. Th Stadium Saturday night. mertime Blues" feature ar- the histrionics of Mick Jagger, Still, showmanship isn't every- members of The Who simpl: Nevertheless, the performance rangements that are virtually all the members of the Who pro- thing. The Who put on a com- have to face the fact that a revealed that the Who seems to identical with the version on. ject a unique image on stage. petent recitation of their oldies, they get older, they must groN be marking time musically. The the groups' 1970 concert album Without a doubt, lead singer but I yearned to hear more of musically as well. show featured very little of the Live at Leeds. Roger Daltry is the most flam- their recent material. If they choose to repeat them group's recent material - only However, it must be adimtted boyant. Widely reputed as a sex The group didn't play a single selves as the evidence from th two of the songs performed were that it was those classic Who, god for the teenage set, Daltry cut from either Quadrophenia, Pontiac Stadium concert sug written in the past four years. songs that delighted the Pontiac twirls his microphone, looks Odds and Sods, or Who Came gests, the group will eventuall: Instead, they chose to focus on Stadium crowd. After years on pretty, and belts out some of First, while the two songs they become, like Elvis Presley o their earlier hits like "Can't the road, that repertoire lends the most infectious, gritty vo- performed from their latest al- Chuck Berry, a commerciall Explain" and "My Generation" itself almost perfectly to The cals in rock 'n' roll. bum, The Who by Numbers, successful museum piece, an -as well as material from their Who's high-powered stage act. Townshend, on the other hand, were particularly weak. nothing more. rock opera Tommy, composed Unquestionably it was The concentrates most of his en- THE FACT that the group has -- ----- - -> in 1969. Who's nearly-infallible sense of ergy on his electric guitar. returned to the oldies on stage showmanship on stage that cov- DRUMMER Keith Moon rep- raises some serious questions Pe r E ALTHOUGH many of those ered up for lack of new musical resents pure chaos even though about the group's future. Towns- songs will stand high in directions in their act. it is he who holds the sound of hend, in several recent inter. - -- -- ----- ------ - --- - - --- The University of Michigan PROFESSIONAL THEATRE PROGRAM Presents Tolefo SvmDnhonv--brisk temDoSITarporationyAmerican he Kenedy C nte i en-o -m- I6/i1./% t l.-,, i- ll '& r J L M N4./ITm-m *I aw -A- E f- MWA v%. d- - -p r %r"%I Doily Photo by KEN FINK Keith Moon of The Who Pereussionists add spark to Gill Scott-Heron concert By TOM GODELL horns repeatedly had a difficult time playing in tune. The sec- FRANZ SCHUBERT composed and movement, taken at a more eight symphonies . . or: moderate tempo, was heavenly. was it nine? More like ten. NoI matter. Last Friday night, the The second portion of the pro- Toledo Symphony presented the gram featured two of the or- one in B minor, always number- chestra's finest performers: Ka- ed eighth, sadly called "unfin- thryn Stepulla, the orchestra's ished." assistant concertmaster, a sen- I say sadly because it is more ior at Wayne State, and Debra than an even bet that Schubert Fayroian, principal cellist and completed all four movements Michigan grad. of the work, and the pages of Sadly, the pair did not live up the final two were somehow to their potential in their per- scattered about Vienna, page 2 formance of the Brahms Double of the schaizo having been dis- Concerto. They simply lacked covered as recently as 1969. the power to carry over the or- Without question the finale chestra that Brahms requires of was incorporated into the Rosa- his soloists. Intonation problems, munde music (the lengthy in- too, marred the performance. terlude after act I in B minor). P But, with a nickname like "un- THE PAIR also lacked some- performance of Rachmaninov's Third Piano Concerto - without a doubt this composer's most self-indulgent work, represent- ing overblown late romanticism at its worst. The soloist was Horacio Gut- ierrez, winner of the silver me- dal in tho 197n Trh iknvskr i to perform. Yet he didn't miss a note; the performance was flaw- less. I was most impressed by his straight-forward, no non- sense approach to this music. His dead-pan delivery drained the music of much superfluous emotion. By STEPHEN HERSH AIL SCOTT - HERON'S mid- night concert at the Michi- gan Theatre Friday night made for a generally boring evening that featured little music and too much political rap. This was evidenced by the fact that the most exciting mo- ments of the evening consisteds of Scott-Heron bobbing with the rhythms of the energetic per- cussion section. The driving sound of those passages had all the fullness of a populous percussion section like Santana's-despite the fact that there was only one drum- mer and two players of miscel- laneous exotic instruments. THE PERCUSSION w o r k really overshadowed the stuff; that's generally considered to{ be Gil's main attraction - his rhythm 'n' blues. The bass playing, and the pi- ano work by Gil and Brian Jackson, was generally in- spirited. They did occasionally pick up momentum, when the percussionists got an infec- tious backbeat going. That was the case during "Deaf, Dumb and Blind." The bassist thumped out a rocking, straight - ahead beat, apparent- ly egged on by the rhythm mu- sicians. And Gil fell into the! groove too, bouncing with the microphone in his hands, bend- ing up and down at the knees in front of the piano, pointing or waving with one hand and then' the other. T H E saxophonist then join- ed the rest of them, blowing; with raucous abandon. And per- cussionist Tony Duncanson pro-t pelled the pace even more byr beating out a long solo on a! drum strapped around his neck, shaking his head to throw his colorful yarn cap back into place. But none of the other num- bers had as much energy. "Time after Time" came close,; repression and assassination. He touched on the tangled re- lationship of "the three C's - CIA, Chile, and Cuba" and cast doubt on the official explana-, tio'ns of the assassinations of. political figures in the past de- cade. Yet the topicality of Gil's speech could not disguise the emptiness of his playing. If: aUl in eIV .L7/ a v iixuviCy Competition in Moscow. Born in Gutierrez produced a beauti- Havana, he first soloed with the ful tone that was precise and symphony there at the age of dynamic, but lovely and lyric 11. He soon moved to the United when necessary. Once again, States, attended the Julliard the orchestraaniment School of Music, and became a Was superb-orchestra and solo-j U.S. citizen in 1967. iist dialogued beautifully, as if they had been playing together HE CHOSE a brisk tempo for years, not just days. Gutierrez the first movement of the Rach- made the concerto a joy, and maninov, thereby making the the concert an unqualified suc- music that much more difficult cess. tennial Theatre Jason .Zoe Robards Caldwell Michael Walter Moriarty McGinn LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT written by: EUGENE O'NEILL directed by: JASON ROBARDS DECEMBER 6-13, 1975 POWER CENTER for the Performing Arts Tickets available through the PTP Ticket Office, Mendels- sohn Theatre Lobby. Hours- Mon.-Fri., 10 a.m.-l p.m., 2-5 p.m. Call 764-0450 for Mrre information i Scott-Heron could only infuse finished" attached, few bother thing in feeling, which was es- his band's music with the rhy- to reconstruct the work and per- pecially noticable in the lovely thm and energy of his rap, he form it as it should be-com- slow movement. The finale was, would create a performance of plete. Thus, Serge Fornier chose without question, played best. powerful musical and visual to follow the crowd and perform Brahms' typically mellow mood strength. the first two movements alone, was conveyed perfectly by the dark tones of Fayroian's cello.3 I MIMETROUPE directed by MICHAEL FILISKY DECEMBER 11, 12, 13-8:00 P.M. ARENA THEATRE, U of M $2.50 GENERAL ADMISSION $1.75 students, senior citizens, and unemployed Reservations: 663-1068 i i J I 4 kt t with some energetic singing by NEVERTHELESS, the Gill. But that tune seemed to POLICE OFFICER NEVERTHELSS, the per- LIESBIESllm.c was a good one. The owe its drive to the percussion- NEW YORK (AP) - Sgt. Al tempos were brisk, making the ists. It was spearheaded with Toefield, director of the New music sound hypertense and im- a conga solo by Duncanson, his York City Police Department's pasisoned. Unfortunately, as a hands moving at a lightning ; Youth Dialogue Program, has a result of this approach the lyric speed. His solo grew into the hobby - bicycle riding. An ex- element of Schubert's writing final percussion passage. competitive bicycle rider, he was strained, and the music. Ths , Awas manager of the U.S. Olymp- failed to sing. The strings, as The encores, There Ain t No C Bicycle Team and helped we have come to expect, played Such Thing as Superman, also aetewfr CnrlPr magnificent)y In contrast, th moved with a measure of jump.; pave the way for Central Park. agifcety. I otat he But te ody i theconcsrt wasmto be closed a few hours a week .. - .. -. -. But the body of the concert was to traffic so bicycle riders can almost bland. The music go around unhampered by cars. relatively unvaried, with most gs a a mpere by car. of t e ian sol s sou ding As a labor of love he is coor- H L DAUA of the piano solos sounding dinator of the annual Pepsi- more or less the same, and Cola Bicycle Marathon, which most of the chord patterns castI takes place in Central Park DEC. 21- in the same mold. over the Memorial Day week- end. It attracts some 10,000 GIL STARTED off the con- cyclists from all over the na- BILLIARDS a cert with a rap, delivered in jtion. He says he is pleased that'. a staccato rhythm that fore-! many members of his Youth shadowed the beat of the mu-. 4Dialogue Program, which pro- M PNBOWLING sic. He spoke in general and : motes better understanding be- specific terms about politics, I tween police and youths, enter. at the OPEN the m v i ATBRIAR D CLOSED ONLY DE 0 J.C.PENNEY 9769-87800 1-94 & S.STATE, ANN ARBORM The accompaniment, as usual, was very good, if a bit heavy. The concert concluded with a' Mt. Rainier National Park in: Washington contains 241,992 acres and contains the greatest single-peak glacial system in the United States, radiating from the summit of an ancient volcano. ATION SPECIAL -JAN. 3 t $1 per hour =" win a free game UNIO 1 P.M.a 24, 25, 31,JAN. - .. , J F i j* t _f .: } it ' I 1 6I ubp r4 *9 r I r}#I I I +i . . rr I=' : i 'i . - . : ..r r-- --- *R-- , _ _- .. H it C ;. 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