The Michigan Daily-Saturday, June 10, 1978-Page 7
Wheelies' skit wits ocus on handicapped
By MA TT KOPKA ticulate well due to er restrictions.
They call themselves the "Witless AFTER YESTERDAY'S show, Duffy
Wheelies," but they showed just how said, "It's important for handicapped
clever they actually are in a series of people to get into the entertainment
open-air skits, performed on the Diag media. Certainly we have talents in
last Monday and again yesterday. that direction."
Walter Bilderbeck, Lucy Bjorklund, Although the wheelchair is the center
Tony Burdick and Yvonne Duffy, all of attention in the sharp dialogues,
one-time University students, wrote the rhetoric and songs,. Bjorklund noted,
show to dramatize the plight of "It's attitudes apply to anyone who is
wheelchair users. handicapped."
BURDICK AND DUFFY originated One of the highpoints of the produc-
the program, which makes use of a tion was Duffy's recitation of a poem
wheelchair, while he was her personal from "Colored Girls Who Have Con-
"helper," doing the household chores sidered Suicidle When the Rainbow is
which her confinement to a wheelchair Enuf," whikh harshly criticizes
does not allow. Burdick was her acting "bleeding hearts" for their wasted pity
coach. and demands honest attention for the
All of the performers contributed to character's real needs.
the writing of the show. "Tony and IN ANOTHER vignette, a "crippled"
Walter and I had been working man (Burdick) is denied a job at "Big
together, talking about alternate Products" by a masked interviewer
theater," recalled Bjorklund of the (Bilderbeck) who uses every excuse
early stage of the act. imaginable to avoid hiring him.
Duffy recently sued the Theater- The show was also spiced with two
Company of Ann Arbor after she was original songs, "Fixed Income Level
denied admission to the company for Blues," and the close, "Open Your
what she said the group called a lack of Eyes," which exhorts the crowd to in-
ability to project her voice and ar- volve themselves.
TONY BURDICK, Walter Bilderbeck and Lucy Bjorklund, members of the
Witless Wheelies street theatre troupe, dramatize the plight of the handicapped
in a noon-time Diag skit yesterday.
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