te tai elltTHE MICHIGAN DAILY
Arts & Entertim n Page Six Friday, June 11, 1976
TABLE TALK
Ken Parsigian
I was having dinner with a bridge-playing friend of mine the
other day and we were, of course, discussing the interesting
hands we had played lately. I had just finished telling him
how I'd bid hearts three times with a singleton, and conned
my opponents out of a cold slam, when he started a story about
the nationally known expert that he had played against a few
weeks before.
"I was so scared when I sat down to play against him," my1
friend said. "I didn't know what to do. All I knew was thatt
somehow we were going to get two zeros at this table."'
The first hand was rather uneventful, but then along came this1
beauty:
North
xxc
VKxx
f A x x x
4 K x x
West Eastj
'AQxx Axx x
xx VJxxxx
* J x x x x f x x x
4xxx 4xxx
South1
* A K J 10 9 xt
V A Q x
fx
4 A K Q
Contract is 74 South, opening lead small club. (x denotes smallc
card.)
My friend was sitting East, and followed to his partner's small
club lead with a low club, and the expert, South, won the Ace.t
He thought for a second, then slammed down the Ace of spades,t
followed quickly by the King of clubs. My friends partnerc
thought the quickly played King of clubs was the king of spades,t
so naturally he played a small spade. "Ah, but I led a club",1
said the expert. "Now that spade is a penalty card, to be played
at the first opportunity."t
My friend's partner played a club from his hand and left the
misplayed spade face up as a penalty card. After gathering in the
club trick, the expert led a diamond to dummy's Ace, and played1
a small spade. My friend followed suit, and the expert finessed
the 9. "You will now please play your penalty card," the expert
said to my friend's partner.1
With his eyes transfixed on his Q of spades, he grudgingly9
played the small spade. Declarer then drew the last trump (Q
of spades), and claimed the remainder.,
"I'm going to remember that hand," my friend said. "Some-t
day I'll get a chance to use it."1
And with that, we finished dinner and headed to the club for1
an evening of bridge.
The chances of getting the same bridge hand you just talked
about are less than 600 billion to one, so you can imagine my
friend's surprise when on the first hand of the evening, he held
the same hand.
Well, I braked hard all the way (not knowing that this was the
same hand), but partner forced to the grand slam in spades any-
way.
I could see him licking his chops across the table from me, and
I wondered how he could be so sure of himself. But West led
a small club and I stopped worrying about partner and concentrat-
ed on the hand.
Things went as planned with the first trick. Now, my friend
paused a second to think (or to appear to be thinking) and then
led the Ace of spades and in rapid fire the King of clubs. West
followed low to the spade lead then played a small spade on the
King of clubs.
"Aha!" my friend cried. "I led a club and you played a spade.
That is a pen-'
"Excuse me," said West, "but I am void in clubs, so I trump-
ed."
My friend turned about eight different shades of red, then looked
apologetically at me and said "Sorry partner. But I couldn't
have made it anyway since the finesse was off," he added hope-
fully.
"On the contrary," suid East smugly, "I held the Queen of
spades. So you could have made it on a simple finesse."
"Oh," I moaned to my friend, "if only you would not strive to
be so clever, you would not so often come away looking
so foolish." But my words fell on deaf ears as my friend had
already moved to the next table.
Actors serenade
at TNT bombs
By CARA PRIESKORN
Special To The Daily
BALTIMORE, June 10-The
New Theatre Festival is con-
tinuing, despite shortages of
beer, muggy weather and a
bomb scare in the Festival hous-
ing. As usual, the quality is
variable.
Possibly the most theatrical
event of the week occured from
2:00 to 4:30 Wednesday morning.
While I was trying to get to
sleep, the sound of a fire alarm
filled my ears. Thinking it a
joke, I stayed in bed until roust-
ed by a voice announcing that
a bomb had been planted in the
building. I grabbed the essen-
tials and ran out.
We were herded onto the front
lawn, and waited as the Balti-
more Volunteer Fire Depart-
ment arrived, along with Rod
Steiger-y police officers,
Most of us were semi-content
chain smoking and swearing un-
der our breaths, but there are
always a few diehards in every
crowd. One group wanted to set
up some improvisational theatre,
and much to the dismay of most,
they did so. Out came the re-
corders and guitars, and several
would-be singalongs were also
put together.
The police came out to tell
us that they had found some-
thing, were now trying to find
a bomb squad and we must all
move across the parking lot.
More swearing.
AFTER MOVING, and having
had to listen to endless rounds
of endless folk songs we were
informed that we would not be
allowed back into the dorm that
night. What they had found was
a two-foot cylindrical ashtray,
the type used in shopping cen-
ters, and they could not remem-
ber it being there before. The
ashtray in question had been
outside my door since Sunday-
I had been using it that long and
had not detonated it in four
days.
We made an exodus across
campus to the fine arts building,
where numerous army cots were
retrieved from the bacement.
After 45 minutes of dragging
them to the second and third
floors, we got an all-clear sign
and were allowed to reumrn
home, to Residence One,
But the show must go on.
Actresses have been complain-
ing of the shortage of good wo-
men's roles, and the various
companies here do appear to be
male-dominated, but there have
been several prominent roles for
women preformed, with more
promised.
The moat outstanding of these
is a play by Tone Brulin, written
for TIE 3, A Tale of Two Worlds.
This is a one-woman show about
current themes, done in a clas-
sical oriental style. The story is
a folk tale from Surinam about
the creation of the world. The
concept is interesting because
Surinam does exist, but so little
is known about it, the story has
the quality of complete fantasy.
Siti Fauziah, the star of the
show, served as narrator, god
and naturally, heroine. Fauziah
employs mime, Asiatic dance
and puppetry in her perform-
ance, and is versatile in all
areas.
THE STORY revolves around
a man whose son hides from his
responsibilities in a plastic bag
and floats away on the ocean
until he beaches on Mah-Meri
and grows into an egg-shaped
object. (This is done with a
sesen-foot high plastic egg that
is inflated on stage.) A Malay
girl finds the egg and hones it
hotses her lover. The father
arrives and tries, with the girl,
to convince the son to come out
of his shell. Feet and hands
grow out of the egg, but that is
all and they retreat at the
thought of responsibility.
The play can be seen at both
a personal and political level;
the girl's expectations for a
lover are not fulfilled and the
father never gets a son to take
over his responsibilities.
Wednesday I saw the U-M
Yeats Ensemble perform On
Baile's Strand for the first time
and I am of mixed opinion, The
show is polished, almost too
much so; they were striving for
fluidity, but in spots it looked
too disciplined.
THIS PRESENTED problems
at times, but also worked to
their advantage; when the group
clusters to represent a fire,
various arms wind up and out
of the crowd as flames. The
most impressive use of the group
was as the sea at the end of the
show. They surround a man and
envelop him as he drown, par-
ticularly effective because of the
sound effects done by the cast:
they recreated the ominous
sounds of waves hitting the
shore.
The group as a whole inter-
acted well physically, but their
diction was lacking. The few
people who had individual parts
were rather wooden and not
really outstanding, with the ex-
ception of Marshall Levijoki,
who also co-directed the show.
The lighting was annoying be-
cause there was never enough
of it and I had to squint through
most of the production. The
costumes were rather boring
and resembled something Fred
Flintstone would wear.
The Florida Studio Theatre,
like several groups, chose U.S.
history as their theme, but lim-
ited themselves to the story of
Florida. The group was loose
and had some excellent mimes,
but their choice of material was
unfortunate. The script is good,
but one that should be done for
schoolchildren living in Florida.
For anyone else, the subject is
pretty awful.
is rrom the unrve.s m or mian Yats . seimie piv --
. The Yeats Ensemble is the University of Michigan's contrib
More.