Thursdoy, July 18, 1974 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursday, July 18, 1974 THE MICHIGAN DAILY : ... gcy . x;: ; ::.... - ,,,;.LV: :; :;a>: :.... aka '"c: . , q"i ;;. .v... .. ,.... ....,.. .. ............. Repertory season opens 'The Shrew' braves the, times in lusty farcein By CINDY HILL A stagehand warned me that I would love the Michigan Repertory Theatre's production of Shakespeare's The Tam- ing of the Shrew Monday night. He was right. Thanks to the skillful direction of Richard Burkwin and outstanding per- formances by the leads, David Hopson (Petruchio) and Pat Idlette (Kather- ine), Shrew was everything the bard intended: a bawdy, lusty farce with only a glimmer of soul-searching pro- fundity to keep from spoiling the fun. Of all Shakespeare's plays, Shrew has been hardest hit by the times. Both the playwright and the play have been subjected to feminist wrath. Directors have approached the play somewhat timorously in recent years -when they approached it at all. The charges are hardly new. As far back as 1911 the poet John Masefield described Petruchio as "a boor who cares only for his own will, her flesh and her money." Anyone who seriously believes the play concerns itself with such a con- stricted theme need only see the Hop- son and Idlette perform the final scene to be convinced otherwise. Together, they make it clear that Petruchio's "victory" is Katherine's victory as well. Both performers por- tray their final relationship as a loving conspiracy, and, most definitely, a partnership. It is perhaps the first Katherine has been offered in her life. And Katherine remains indomitable even through her final speech, tradi- tionally an anti - women's liberation classic. As Katherine, Idlette makes an al- ternately touching and comic transi- tion from the choleric termagent to a witty, saucy, confident woman. In the final scenes she is not subdued, merely given direction. If there are any targets in the farce, Burkwin shrewdly picks Bianca, cus- tomarily portrayed as the soft, sugary, feminine epitome. Burgwin's Bianca, as played by Diane Daverman, is more saccharine than sugar. Artificially sweet and superfi- cially demure, Daverman's Bianca only barely masks her convincing, cagey avarice under the thin gusise of the cloying, simpering feminine ideal. She spoofs every stereotypic feminine vir- tue in the process. Daverman's portrayal is an excel- lent foil for Katherine, whose frustra- tion at watching Bianca's false coyness rewarded while she .is persecuted for her blunt, outspoken high spirits is evident. Katherine's wrath is understandable. Her strength of character makes her both the play's heroine and Bianca's, rather than Petruchio's, victim. In- deed, her married life is relative liber- ation when compared to her childhood home. Hopson's Petruchio, while it does not offer any hitherto unrevealed insights into the character, portrays the char- acter as traditionally envisioned to the hilt: bawdy, boisterous, flamboyant and lusty. A few other performances should be mentioned in passing: Randall Forte is excellent as Petruchio's wisecrack- ing Irish servant, and Evan Jeffries as Lucentio's servant-disguised-as-no- ble, is apparently pompous and arro- gant. Dennis Moore and Jack Sharrar are entertaining as the buffoon-like suitors for Bianca's hand. Paul Hustoles is the panting, zealous lover who finally wins Bianca, and Jack Van Neatter is her nervous father. The performances and comedy of the piece is marred in spots by over- acting, particularly in Bianca's scenes with her lover, and the scenes among the would-be lovers. As is customary nowadays, Burgwin set Shrew in a more contemporary time-pre-Victorian England. Usually, the updating provides for a well-spring of incongruities, to the detriment of the play's credibility. In Shrew, the change is not only smooth and consistent, but adapts so well to its new time it seems to be written for it. The play uses the time setting to spoof Victorian mores with a teapot fight in Baptista's parlor, servants who dust off visitors after they have thrown each other around the room and turn their backs when they kiss, and Petru- chio's comic wedding attire---with an open trap door in the back. The costuming, handled by Katherine Holkeboer, was beautiful - from the rich brown and rust hues for Petru- chio, to Bianca's starched pink ruffles. Burgwin's Taming of the Shrew is, in short, a delight. Performances con- tinue through July 26. Bianca (Diana Daverman) 'consoles' her sister Kate (Pat Idlette) in the wading scene from "Taming of the Shrew." display of 50"'s mrl By BOB SCHETTER Picnic, William Inge's bitter-sweet play on small town American morals, opened last night at Power Center and is a success for the Michigan Repertory Company both technically and in the handling of the play's material. Billed as an attempt to explain past influences on present American living, Picnic portrays what happens when a so-called "bum" moves into a small, 50's Kansas town and exposes, rather inadvertently, the double standards by which certain of its inhabitants have constrained their lives. Foremost of these American mores is sex: sex mixed with romance and sex mixed with true love. The plot starts slowly with a typical Labor Day. Helen Potts and Mrs. Ow- ens are neighbors, with the former forced to tend to her ailing mother, and the latter looking after her two daughters Millie and Madge. Madge is going with Alan Seymour, the spoiled son of an oil baron. Alan, it turns out is an old college chum of the "bum", Hal Carter, who was hired by Potts to do odd jobs. All very confusing. Then . . . Marge falls in love with Hal, and all Hell breaks loose when Howard Bevans, a local shopkeeper brings a bottle of booze to the picnic A real soap opera. But the decisions these people must make because of that Labor Day's picnic are serious and the subsequent consequences are only tragic. The early humor of the play is turned to irony and points a disturbing finger at atti- tudes upon which American love and culture are built. The strongpoints of this production are its technical aspects, comprised of precise special effects, set design and casting of characters. These technical- ities are often the downfall of summer repertory, but not so in Picnic. The acting must not be undermined. The intensity of each actor's perform- ance drew me into the heart of the play and kept Inge's portrayals of typi- cal, Americans from becoming stock. David Hopson's role as Hal was out- standing, as well as John Reed's How- ard and Anne Temple's Helen Potts. Certain episodes in Picnic are dis- quieting but the knowledge gained from them make Picnic worth seeing. Exftrp endf, sion: Wh o e n e w ops iin By BRIAN SUTTON "Okay now, this is the hope song, which we usually use to wind up the show. Let's make the lovers a car-wash attendant and, say, a ping-pong player, and the object is, uh, a popsicle. Okay, to start out . . . In a house on Olivia Street, cast mem- bers of The Extension, currently playing at The Rubaiyat, are training a new cast to replace them. The Extension is an improvisatory mu- sical revue in which members of the audience are asked to choose categories. from a list, and the cast performs pro- ductions based on these categories. Later in the show, audience members are ask- ed to give suggestions from the top of their heads, with no list to choose from. The cast huddles briefly, going over pos- sibilities, then does a sketch based en the topics given them. Under the name The Proposition, the revue has played in Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, for six years. It is this Cam- bridge cast that has come to-Ann mAbor, and is currently.playing&atThe. Ruhai- yat. However ,a cast of local performers is scheduled to take over the produc- tion, beginning on July 31st. The members of the new cast, chosen from tryouts held July 1st, bring varied experiences and talents to their new roles. For example, Connie Avasharian comes to the cast with a master's de- gree in voice, and considerable experi- ence in opera and musical comedy. How- ever, she has no previous experience in improvisation or mime-two major as- pects of the production. "It's the most challenging form of theatre I've ever en- countered," she says. "I basically went to the audition to see if I could cut it," Woody Semeliner went to the audition for a different reason. He works for Ca- ble three, which was filming the audi- tions. After the filming was done, he elected to stay and try out for the show, in spite of having no previous dra- matic experience. When asked if malting his performing debut with no script to fall back on made him uncomfortable, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "It's roughly equivalent to birth trauma." Perhaps best prepared for the new production is Marty Colbecki. He spent eight months as a member of Complete- ly Different, a Detroit improvisational comedy group in the tradition of The Committee and The Second City. He sees being part of the Extension as a chance to "show Michigan the possibili- ties in the improvisational approach. Theatre here tends to be restricted to set, unspontaneous pieces, "and I hope we can change this." This comment sparked a discussion of improvisational theatre, with members of both the new and the old cast clearly soli on the idea. Among the advantages of improvisatory theatre are indepen- dence from the uneven quality of recent dramatic scripts, lower cost of produc- tion, and the greater artistic freedom and more thorough theatrical training it gives the performer. Working in mime is also a rewarding experience, cast members say, because it develops an awareness of the body, "Anything I do now - walking down a street, opening a door, throwing a ball- I notice, because maybe I can use it in the show," says Chuck Keeps, a theatre major and member of the new cast. Drew Sparks is directing the new cast, with considerable help from members of the current production. Preparing the group involves training in mime, inten- sive work on a few set pieces, and con- siderable training in theatrical and liter- ary conventions. One cannot ad-lib a par- ody of musical comedy or Shakespearian drama unless one understands the form first. Nobody memorizes parts, but ev- eryone is expected to be able to use cer- tain accents, dialects and stock charac- ters (the evil boss, the all-American girl, etc.). But these are merely the raw materials of the show. Putting them together to create an entertaining, spontaneous pro- duction takes something more. "They take over from us on July 31st," says Suzanne Rand, a member of the cur- rent cast. "And that's when they'll start really learning how to do the show."