W , w{ Page 8-Surday, March 23, 1980--The Mic theatre =hian liv 24 ..rrryarr .."v.. 1w w v (Continued from Page 3) The show's title refers to a 'piece by a former company member. She had been married 'to a man for several years, the story goes, and when Shirley Chisolm ran for president in 1972, she asked her husband if he would cast his vote for her. No, the man said, explaining he could not vote for Chisolm because she was a woman. The former member thought, "bitch, you crazy for putting up with all this shit for all these years." Eventually she divorced him. "The night we opened Bitch,'' Stephanie remembers, laughing in awe of herself and the company, "none of us had slept for two days. I had had an exam that afternoon from four to six and at 6:10, I was at the theatre for warmups. Technically, the show was a mess. But the audience was packed and we were on. We didn't drop a line." After a piece about natural childbirth which Stephanie says was "heart- wrenching," the company performed a motorcycle gang number in wigs and leather jackets, singing, "shoobop, shoobop!" "The audience was still blowing their noses from the childbirth piece. But that's okay," Stephanie smiles. "We like to keep people on their toes so they don't sink into an emotion for too long. We also performed 'A Bicentennial Minute.' We couldn't resist." For this sketch, three women pretended to be marching cadettes and said, "200 years ago our forefathers came to this country and our mothers were never even mentioned." In June of that year, on Stephanie's insistence, her parents came to Ann Arbor to see Bitch, You Crazy. She had worn a wedding gown in one of the sketches-a satire on a television game show called "Catch Him And You Keep Him''-and afterwards, Stephanie remembers, "My mother said, half kiddingly, 'You look lovely in that wedding gown.' My dad said, 'Look, I was a communist at your age. This is nothing new.' They're old style Democrats. They were gradually supportive." After Bitch, which the company played about twenty times in Ann Arbor, the unit went on tour: its final performance was at the National NOW Convention in Detroit. ('I had a 102- degree fever during the performance," Stephanie recalls, "but it was fantastic performing for 800 women."). It was there that the issue of male' performers in the company was brought up. "To put it mildly," Stephanie says, "there was a lot of controversy. We didn't listen to each other as well in those days. Now we give each other equal time about an issue. That's simple but really important." The company decided to accept male performers and also, at that time, its production reflects the company's perspective now that it has taken a second, more thoughtful look at the feminist and gay movements. Written by Stephanie, Elise Bryant, Loren Siegal and Debra Sheldon (who is no longer with the company), the piece "is a reuniting with our mothers." It was conceived in Stephanie's living room. "The four of us sat around a candle," Stephanie explains, "and then spon- taneously, Elise said, 'Go back to when you were three or four. What were you birthday and I'm taking my daughter out to lunch.' Deb, at the time, thought that was the coolest." Now the company is in a major transitional period; they are working on getting grants, discussing whether- to stay in Ann Arbor or move elsewhere, and preparing for a spring tour to St. Louis, Chicago; and Champaign-Ur- bana. "We've begun to define ourselves in professional terms," Stephanie says. The company is also trying now to make statements on the liberation of others besides women and gays. The desire to explore issues such as education, the justice system, and the influence of multi-national corporations exists, but there has been little time for researching those topics. (Stephanie works 30 hours a week as a waitress; the other members hold jobs ranging from teaching special need children to secretarial work to coordinating at the Produce Co-op). Feminism and gay rights have been the company's most accessible resources in the past because they are most personal to the members. "The hardest thing," says Stephanie, "is fighting off people who say we're too idealistic or that art and politics don't mix. I'm sick of it. I don't want to hear it anymore. All things start from wild ideas. I know that's cliche, but I believe it. And now I can speak from experien- ce; the company is a fantasy come true for me. When I was 15, I saw the San Francisco Mime Troupe in the Village. Seeing how riled that audience was, I wanted to do it too. I wanted to rally people for those kinds of reasons. "I've known people who at first were antagonistic towards us, but they come to see us again. That, to me, is what's important. They're thinking about something they haven't before. "What do I want now in terms of Theatre Company?" she sighs. "I want to be paid for this. I don't even care how much right now. I want to tour exten- sively, to be able to devote a lot of time to performing without thinking it's my spare time. I want to keep reaching, keep getting better. My goal is for ex- treme conservatives and extreme radicals to actively get something from our shows." Stephanie pauses, getting closer to the edge of her chair. "I want world change," she says. 1 w sense of collectivism began to evolve. Earlier on, after each production, the company took in too many performers. "It was so intense sometimes," Stephanie says, "it was like having twelve lovers at once. We realized after Bitch, that we needed policies on membership and leadership, and a concept of commitment. "It took us two years to get the next show (At Second Site) together. We overdid on the collective stuff. Those were hard times. There were bad feelings; we lacked cohesiveness .. . leadership. Most have been worked out now." For the most part, the writings in At Second Site are original. First performed last December, this~ wearing? What were you doing with your mother? Remember the first time you realized you were a sepairate being from your mother, the first time she gave you respect, the first time she treated you disrespectfully.' "We each shared a round," Stephanie continues. "I told the story of my parakeet, Chirpie, who died when it flew out a window I'd left open. I was about eleven, and my mother cried hysterically because she was worried about my reaction. This was my responsibility, my own pain. There was no way she could take away or influen- ce what I had done. "Deb remembered one day wvhen she was in second grade, her mother came to school and announced, 'It's my 31st bukowski (Continued from Page 7) one photograph, Bukovski is seen sit- ting in a cafe sparsely occupied by a few old German men, drinking and thinking alone. He becomes a part of them: "Their faces were very red but I could feel them thinking about the days and years of their lives. They were waiting to die but they were in no par- ticular hurry; there were many things to think about." Lafer, on the train ride back to Paris the picturesque small towns are all reduced to places where people are "waiting for death." Shakespeare Never Did This is an af- firmation of the direct daily experien- ce. All of the small things become poignant, and occasionally, in the author's references to death, those things become heavy with a wonderful- ly poetic sense of melancholy. As soon as he and Linda arrive back in Los Angeles and get into a taxi Bukowski realizes that a book has somehow been created for him in the last five days. All he has to do is simply "write it one more time." The end of the book is telling us in ef- feet to write from direct experience and forget about the symbolism and order which pervert that reality. Bukowski may not always see the value of everyday life as art (he seems disdain- ful of that word sometimes) but we see his product as art. You may not.always like Bukowski, but at least you wind up knowing him. Shakespeare Never Did This is en- couraging about creating something yourself. ,It makes you realize how spontaneous, accessible ant ever- present poetry-indeed all art-can be. Anything has the capability of becoming aesthetic. A Jackson Pollack painting or a Ginsberg poem resemble Bukowski's Shakespeare Never Did This in that the composition appears very simple. If you're contemptuous of such spontaneous art you might say something like "I could write that. Anybody could." But remember, you didn't write down what seemed so banal-even Shakespeare didn't. james dean's (Continued from Page 6) "Social activity distracts me from my studies." HOW TO LAUGH HYSTERICALLY " Write on another person's memo board that he or she is gay. " Penny-in the hall geek. * Think of all the nasty, one-syllable words there are, and put them on a list in the bathroom. Start with "butt." * Flush all toilets at once, causing pipes to burst. " Pull the fire alarms and watch 'fuddy-duddy' grow annoyed. " Yank down the ceiling tiles and play frisbee with them. " Steal Ann Rogers Harvey's under- pants._ Open your window and yell scurrilous oaths at anyone who might be able to hear you. * Go to a University football game and swear in unison-at unfortunate tur- ns of events. undag Co-editors Elisa Isaacson Rd Smjth Putting politics on stage Supplement to The Michigan Doily E-Z steps to living properly Burping oi Shakespea Cover Photos by Paul Engstrom and Howard Witt Ann Arbor, Michigan-Sunday, March 23, 1980