THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Friday, April 9, 1976 Page Five
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS' PLAY:
PTP successfully revives 'Camino Real'

U of M Dance Dept., School of Music
PRESENTS
"MELI-MELO"
(A DANCE CONCERT)
FRI. & SAT., Apr. 94& 10
--8:00 p.m.-$1.50
SCHORLING AUDITORIUM
(SCHOOL OF EDUCATION)
STARTS TODAY!!!

IM., TVIr,sn.-%7, nrT - r.,


By JEFFREY SELBST vennonal Williams - in this Ut course, it is more than:
show he condemns the self-pity possible that these characters
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS' Ca- he uses so liberally in other would not click together in any!
mino Real celebrates its works. And the style is also a other type of play. It is a fa-}
23rd birthday this year. Pre- free, fascinating one. tuity easily succumbed to, that
miered in 1953, it shows its age There is an undefinable allure of using famous people as sym-!
not so much in that it creaks to using characters from fiction bols. It saves time in explana-:
-for it doesn't - but rather or history in the writing of a tion, as these could stand as
that it was writen in a loose, play. It is a technique with sorts of ready-made totems.t
free-form manner that was, which Thornton Wilder toys, in But Williams doesn't fall into 1
even then, going out of style. The Skin Of Our Teeth and the trap. His famous characters
But it shows itself a play Pullman Car Hiawatha, and one are subject to all human frail-
worth reviving, as the PIP's which Williams uses to master- ty, magnified. They represent
production opened Wednesday
night at Power Center. Despite :S.::. S...t.... .M .,. ...:.: . . .
structural anachronism, it is a
play dealing with the same 'The play is utterly outside of what is con-
central themes that have oc-
cupied Williams and every oth- sEdered conventional Williams - in t h is
er playwright since the begin- show he condemns the selfpity le uses so
Wing of drama. .
The fact that this play is, liberally in other works. And the style is
rarely performed anywhere,'
much less Ann Arbor, coupled also a free, fascinating one.
with the fact that this is al-
most an exemplary production ;: ;...>s:.. ::::... ;:: .,...:.: . . -.....
of it, ought to make you grab
your chance and run to see it, ful effect in Camino Real. not the glorification of human-F
as it runs through Sunday only. T H E S E CHARACTERS ity, but its intensification.

grinning gargoyle, a god-devil learns, when cradled in the JOHN WOJDA turned in a
by the name of Mr. Gutman arms of the lonely, worn-out well-done, if slightly overeager
(played by William Leach). Marguerite Gautier at the end Kilroy. Perhaps he didn't un-
of the show, that he has trav- derstand Kilroy's dilemmas as
HE IS THE emcee, as well as eled the real road of royalty- well as he might, yet blundered
the manager of the Siete Mares, he has been, for a time, happy. through to a fairly correct in-
one of two hostelries seen in terpretation nonetheless. Wil-
Camino. His is the heaven that M A R G U E R I T E AND liam Leach, as Gutman, was
is comprised of creature com- 'rher lover, Casanova, are ever everything one could wish in a
fort - its foil is the Ritz Men fated to be unhappy. And that ghoul. You hated him, as you
Only, a living inferno where is the secret of their self-realiz- ought. Yet the special plau-
drunks sing out windows and ation, toward the end. "We dits are reserved for two ac-'
men die with impunity. It is have grown used to each oth- tors - Irene Connors for a
presided over by the seedy Mr. er," says Marguerite, but she panic - stricken, lovely, desper-
A. Ratt (Joshua M. Peck). is still deluding herself, even ate Marguerite; and Sheila Ann
Within the play, we witness when she thinks she has come Heyman, she who played the
the spinning out of the various !to truth. In the acceptance of importunate Rump Rubinsky in
fates of Casanova, a Christ-like her aging lover, she finds her- the truly idiotic Jericho, for the
figure known as The Survivor, self as well. brassy, crazy, driven portrayal
and Kilroy, the archetypical And Kilroy who does but of the gypsy.
All-American. We feel with rises again, is simultaneously
them, in large part due to the hopeful and hopeless. He brings This is truly something worth
general excellence of the per- forth the understanding that seeing - one of Ann Arbor's
formances, and we slowly be- this entire nightmare is but the best productions all year.
gin to understand their fate dream of Don Quixote.
and what Williams is saying. Acquiescence and hopeless-
The play is about the failure ness lead one to Camino Real,
of dreams as a sanctuary of yet sheer force of will leads
the human spirit. Desperation one out. Nowhere is this so'
is what leads men to this No- clearly demonstrated as in the
Exit town, and they cannot scene in which Lord Byron
leave but by sheer force of (Mark Forth) escapes. For he is Summer.
will. But solace is not to be wants to, and he will, and so
found in God, and that is be- he does.
cause men are not puppets, or
Listensto your world
so Williams tells us. THE GYPSY is the fc~il of


From the
devious mind of
Alfred Hitchcock,
a diabolically
entertaining
motion picture.

THIS PRODUCTION is mark-1
ed by imaginative, wonderful
sets; we have W. K. Fauser
and R. Craig Wolf to thank.
Musical accompaniments are!
superb and appropriate, and;
the clever dances add much to
the show.1
Also, the play is utterly out-
side of what is considered con-

include Don Quixote, Sancho1 The play itself is a carnival.
Panza, Jacques Casanova, Kil-1 It is the dream of Don Quixote1
roy, Marguerite Gautier, Zelda. as he struggles onward, along
and Scott Fitzferald, Lord By-x the "royal road" (camino real).,
ron, and Paris of Troy. These In his dream, the place is trans-
seemingly diverse personas are formed into a Sartrian prison,:
all necessary in the develop- where all must wait in physical
ment of this, his dream-con- contentment but emotional tur-'
struction of a mad fantasy moil until that magic moment
world, the world of the camino of release. Hell, or Camino
real. Real, is presided over by a

Davis speaks on television,
nilitary, 'earts and Minds
By JAMES VALK and somebody else." to go through with the inter-
Davis spoke of his interview,| view.
SPEAKING BEFORE a sell- in the film with General Wil- But when the actual filming;
' out crowd in Angell Hall liam Westmoreland (certainly of the statement concerning the
Wednesday night, Peter Davis, one of the film's more vulgar value of life by the Orientals
director of the award-winning displays in which the general was finished, Davis recalls, "He
documentary Hearts and Minds,! philosophizes that "the Orien- (Westmoreland) said, 'Wait a
spoke of his early career in tele- tals don't have such a high re- minute-I want to film that
vision and the making of the gard for life as do Westerners". over, I don't like the way II
film, which was shown before He remembers that meeting' said it,' at which point I
his appearance. him was "like meeting John thought he would retract the
Although his current status is Wayne. He was awesome." entire thing and say he loved
as a filmmaker, it was his in- The director recalled driving everybody. But when we film-
volvement with "The Selling of with Westmoreland to the site ed it again, he said exactly the
the President", a CBS docu- where the interview was to be same thing - he even had toI
mentary that detailed a multi- filmed, carrying on a casual do it a third time because the
million. dollar hype campaign conversation until he was ask- camera ran out of film."
by the federal government to ed by the general about his par- When questioned about how
boost military public relations ticipation in "The Selling of the' he reacts when audiences laugh
and increase 'appropriations, Pentagon": "I didn't see it, but aloud at certain sequences in
through which Davis first re- I heard it was bias, slanted, dis-the film, he said that he has
ceived wide attention. torted. Is that true?" Davis ad- found "sensitive and sophisti-
But television, he explained, mitted at that point he was cated audiences tend to be
"is a tumbling medium, where "ready to sop the car and get made nervous by such an out-I
images fill the screen for only out- ready to forget the en- pouring of very genuine human
a few seconds at a time. One tire film." feeling."
minute you can be in Vietnam, But this was his very pur-
the next in a pie baking con- HE TOLD Westmoreland it pose in making the film. When
test." It was this dissatisfac- was honest, to which the gener-I asked to elaborate on his posi-
tion that coaxed Davis into al asked him "Was it fair?| tion concerning the war, he!
film, seeking a project that Was it honest? Was it accur- aptly replied Hearts and Minds
would do justice to the Ameri- ate?," and each time Davis re- is what I mean to say about the
can involvement in Vietnam. plied, "Yes, sir." It was only war - I can't put it any more

THERE IS A Crucifixion im-
age present when the murdered
Survivor is cradled in the lap
of the saintly Madrecita. But
Giitrnan, our Cabaret-like em-
cee, tells us: "The Word makes
it necessary to resort to martial
law." And so we know that for
not ha"'ing learned the lesson.
we are made to pay more and
more harshly.
The lesson is that of honesty.
Each character must come to
grips with his own ininilses,
his actual feeli-es, not those
parades he aboit for the effect
of inmage. "I Pm sincere, T am
sincere" moans Kilroy to Es-
merelda, the gypsv's daughter,
(John Wojda and Diane Daver-i
man.)
But does he really know what,
he is sincere about? Kilroy is
humiliated, scorned - he is
forced to don a clown suit and
become the official "Patsy",
with a lighted bulb for a nose;
he must sell his most precious
possessions - his golden gloves
(boxing award), his belt, even
his too-big golden heart. But he

Gnt-n- she is the cvnical,
rnon-J queen of decadent vis-
ion-ri-s. She crn see the fn-
tire, as she drips oily pearls
of pro-ise, but she is omi-
no'. She is Glinda the Good
Witch Qone eerily mad, in a
nlgv with more reminiscent ov-
Prtones of tlhA Wi7.ard of Oz
than one can count.
For not only does it all take
nlae in a dream, but the fa-
cile admonition of Glinda. that
is, that Dorothy had always
the nower to go home if she'd
onlr known it, is echoed in the
end of Camirno eal when we
arm *i en to understand that
will alone would overcome the
staving power of the hellish
camino.
As an interpreter of this rich,
clever, moving play, director
Richard Burgwin has few
flaws. I could have lived with-
out the overdone Byronis mono-
logue (in block eight), as a
mere suggestion of same would
have achieved this effect; the
fault here is partly Williams',
for overwriting - it is certain-
ly the fault of Forth.

ti
:i
f
I
.
r
f
i
't
{
I
}
,
i
!
i
{
E
t
i

or see it.
$500.00 will buy you
a quality sound
system.
$419.00 will buy you
a EuraiIpass AND
round trip air fare
to Europe.
For more information
complete this coupon
or contact your local
travel agent.
1 NameI
Address
City State Z
i L
4TRAVEL
CHARTER INC.
1436 Brush Street
Detroit, Ml 48226
(3131 AT1511

then that Westmoreland agreed

articulately."

"THE TELEVISION coverage,
of the war was adequate," Da-r
vis told the audience, "but it
was inadequately presented."
And thus the idea of Hearts
and Minds came to being. "This
film was made to satisfy three
criteria: why we were in Viet-
nam, what we did there, and
the effect the war had on us.
If we hadn't adhered to these
guidelines, the final film would'
have been 35 hours long."
The work, which took one year
to film and one year to edit,
encountered trouble in its distri-
bution. "Columbia (the studio
who originally bought t h e
film) refused to release it when
they saw it, and Walt Rostow
(former advisor to Johnson was
appears in the film) filed an
injunction trying to stop its re-
lease."
THE FILM was ultimately
released by Warner Brothers,j
and has since been shown at
the Cannes film festival and1
has won the Academy Award
for best documentary two years
ago. (But not without incident:
Davis' partner, Bert Schnei-
der, read a telegram from the
North Vietnamese extending a
gesture of neace. The result was
an immediate declaration by
Frank Sinatra that "the en-
tire Academy denlored this ac-
tion." It wasn't the whole Aca-'
demv that obiected. Davis said,
"it was Sinatra and Bob Hone
At the movies...
This is a hot weekend for new
product in the commercial
movie theaters. What may well
turn out to be the Jaws of 1976
-All the President's Men-
starts today at the Movies at
the Briarwood shopping mall.
Also of interest this weekend

04-1
_ .LYE "...\.iii . %
~57~The Magic of Bergman
The Magnificence of Mozart.
Carmen F. Zollo presents
Ingmar Bergman's
Producd and Di.ctnd and W.ittanby Ingroar Begman"Dictsrof Photography Sven Nyk nat
Eric Ericson Conucting The Swedish Staoe Brokatirn Network Symphony
A S E7R&dioALPrduction -'A SURROGATE LEASE jiJaj"M M
SHOWTiMES: Man.-Fri. 7.00 & 9:40 M.M
Saturday & Sunday 4:20-7:00-9:40
" A

RICHARD DREYFUSS JinNSERTS"
c JESSICA HARPER - BOB HOSKINS - VERONICA CARTWRIGHT . STEPHEN DAVIES
( ss ale a d HARRY BENN Poduea by DAVINA BELLING andCLIVE PARSONS
 NO ONE UNOEwR 1-AMTsTED Wenand fecedlyJOHN BYRUM United AS
SHOWTIMES: MON. - SAT. 7:00 & 9:05
SUN 5:00 -- 7:00 - 9:05

i t 1u ! UU&LI uI v . 7 :20, 9:30 p.m .
IS TALKING ABOUT
I V-r s a v q ~v vTV s eI s sIr-F V V 1T
THE FINAL D'AYS
READ ALL ABOUT THE
STARS!P
Nixon, Kissinger, Pat,
' Tricia, Julie, Haig,
Ziegler, etc.
UNLIKE ANYTHING YOU'VE EVER READ
Foo____________________________0_____
C4A1

.th ri _i 1o~epdjr

resentE
Shiesear '