'Page to Stage'- studen t plays click Civic 'Crucible' The Michigan Daily-Saturday, April 12, 1980-Page 5 a stunner By DENNIS HARVEY Fromn Page to Stage has an air of flawed excitement and interest about it, heightened by the,fact that one goes in with comparatively dismal expectations-the production is a collection of brief original skits and short plays by Residential College students. They've directed, acted, and designed the lighting and sets for each scene, along with writing them. To be sure, there are moments of pretentiousness and immaturity in the works, and the performances sometimes underline themselves in that unfortunate and familiar form of artificial drama- class playacting Still, what comes through the rough surface is often fresh, en- thusiastic and promising. The R.C. } Play Workshop (the 24-member group whose first production this is) lacks, predictably, assurance and a practiced sense of where to stop before clever ideas t:urn static. But there isn't a moment in From Page to Stage that doesn't at least reach 'l"t for something halfway in- teresun with ambition and flashing integrity; the evening doesn't always succeed, mt it's never dull. EACH OF the performances (at the RC Auditorium, running through Sunday evening) consists of six or seven fairly short scenes, of about ten minutes in length each, and a longer presentation. Thursday night's extended piece (to be repeated tnight) is "Gambit" by Joanne Rielly, a whirling and notably amusing pastiche of absur- dist bits capped by a neatly bizzare explanation. The central character Toni's (Robin Wright) nightmarish fantasy of being faced with actors acting out scenes from her dismal past existence isn't just a hokey forum for some entertaining ab- stractionism, but rather a picture of her state of mine during her slowed- down last moments of life as a suicide. Reilly uses this premise wittily, bringing it forward as a final, ironic i twist to add a somber note to the ec- centricities that have gone on before. Toni sits alone in her presumably drab apartment, droning on with a deadpan and funny interior monologue of banal despair and angst ("Early Childhood. I remember the day I wet my pan- ts . . .") Then a stage director inex- plicably invades this setting, bringing on a succession of actors to portray Toni and various influential people at different stages of her life-all of them dank. FORTUNATELY, all of this what- is-illusion what-is-reality stuff is treated satirically, though the Philosophy 101 issues still drum up their annual - quota of spacey fascination, and there are sections of genuine dramatic power. When Toni returns to the crib and recalls wit- nessing an upsetting fight between her father and mother as a baby, the frightening tensions of the at- mosphere are just right. As the mother, Gerardette Mazura has the perfect neurotic eyes and racked manner to embody the fears of a woman hesitantly withdrawing from a browbeaten state of marriage. When Toni asks the director for a relief from these past miseries, for some romance and fiction, a top- hatted dancer emerges to sweep her into the midst of lunatic Busby Berkeley camp, singing "A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody" with two in- sipidly grinning chorines in support. "Gambit" is terribly aware of its medium, like many avant-garde pieces that go a little too far for their own good, and it's hardly original-during Thursday's per- formance, one audience member caught on too quickly and grumbled, "Oh, one of those all-in-the-mind things." But it's also funny and skilled, a likeable barrage of inven- tiveness and wierdness. THURSDAY NIGHT'S shorter of- ferings were a mixed bag of blackouts and heavier drama con- cepts, variable but always in- triguing./ The opener, Jeff Wine's "At The Theatre," centers comfor- tably if a little too eagerly around the comedy of embarrassment: sit- ting in an on-stage theatre facing the audience, waiting for an imaginary play to begin, a man humiliates his date by asking for sexual favors in the most obliviously indelicate and obnoxiously loud way possible. Drew Allison's "Cold Water Wash" offers an adventurous set-up in its confrontation between a National Guardsman (Michael Morrissey) and a militant young resident (Tracey Rowens) whose slum neighborhood has been turned into a police state by a nervous government. This situation has possibilities that hold the interest, but character development is sket- chy and the actors are 'rather wooden mouthpieces for their arguments. Allison's "The Balance Point" is even more ambitious, and thus even more obvious in its failings, yet it has considerable power. A 17-year- old hitshot (Morrissey) and his bedridden grandmother (Julie Fink) alternate with interior monologues; the former is full of excitement for the New Year's Eve party he's going to, and the latter -has only acute loneliness and sad remembrances to look forward to. Fink was not quite able to communicate agedness in her physical presence, but her con- viction and Morrissey's self- deprecating comic timing made the scene moving in spite of its slightly heavy air of despairing theatricality. POSSIBLY the most affecting sketch of the evening is"The Tide" by Tom Robinson, a delicately ob- served interlude between two brothers who've been commercially fishing together for 14 years. One of them (Howard Andress) arrives with some difficulty at the knowledge that he has to move on, experience more of life before his youth is gone, to the disbelief of his brother (Philip Tannenbaum). Their groping attempt to come to terms with his desire is broken up at the end by something out of an all- too-convincing nightmare-a mother (played with earth-shaking ferocity by Mary King) who orders the "boys" out to make some money with more castrating-bitch aplomb than has been seen since Joan Crawford stopped making movies. Andress, whose light, easy, natural style on the stage is a frequent relief among the strenuous acting of many of the other company members, See STUDENT, Page8 By JOSHUA M. PECK There is a growing body of American and European drama that seems to get handed around from amateur company to civic theater to high school, all around the country. Some of Tennessee William's and Eugene O'Neill's "smaller" works fall into this category, as do some of Shaw's less complicated plays, a few of Thornton Wilder's,and such Americana as Sunrise at Cam- pobello. All are fairly well crafted, some extraordinarily well, and all are frequently performed. Arthus Miller's Death of a Salesman and The Crucible are two more that fit into this class of popular dramas. The latter of these in particular displays a quality that invites a certain, admit- tedly far-fetched, comparison. The plays can be likened to a living room full to the point of being cluttered with furniture, lamps, and carpets. The audience is restricted to looking at the furniture from one angle, and unless in- teresting occupants (that's right, ac- tors) fill the room, the onlookers might soon tire of gaping. MOST AMATEUR companies strive to make that furniture more in- teresting, by showing genuine and believable characters to be living and lounging in it. Sometimes (as long-time Ann Arbor Civic Theatre patrons well know) the actors can inhabit the same room with the furniture for hours without ever settling decorously into it. In the current production of The Crucible at Mendelssohn Theatre, Civic's actors are comfortable in Miller's armchairs and cushions. At times the performers look to be downright cozy. What's especially striking and surprising about the production is that Civic's players sometimes go beyond merely letting the divans prop them up; they reach in- to the realm of the professional theater by turning elements of Miller's sofas around, showing new aspects of them to the audience, and in fact shedding new light on them. This exceeding the bounds of mere competence is almost entirely at the hands of William Cross, a consistently excellent performer sagely cast in the leading role of John Proctor. The Crucible, unlike most of the other plays mentioned, is not set in the day in which it was written. It addresses itself to the witch trials of the late 17th Cen- tury in Salem, Massachusetts. It was no secret when the play opened that its real target was another period in American history, one whose main con- cern was only metaphorically termed "witch-hunting." The years of red- baiting fever under Senator Joe McCar- thy and the House Un-American Ac- tivities Committee are the analog. THE PLAY TELLS the story of a gr->up of adolescent girls who gradually manage to persuade themselves and at just about every moral issue wrap- ped up in the McCarthy years. Abigail shows us the way the anti-Communist fever was opportunistically used by those with an axe to grind. Desperate for the love of John Proctor, she names Proctor's wife Elizabeth early on as one tainted by the Devil.. The Proctors' marriage, rent asun- der by the ostensibly Christian court, is tested in what Miller clearly believes to be unconscionably cruel fashion by the inquisition. In the production's strongest scene, Elizabeth, delicately and evocatively played by Sandra Hud- son, is forced to choose between saving John's life by publicly accusing him of lechery, and lying to protect his reputation. Bob Starring, in yet another com- manding performance, plays the of- ficial who presides over the witch trials. His lines concerning the trials' philosophy are perhaps the most poignant and powerful analogs to the sentiments of McCarthy days. "A per- son is either with this court, or he be counted against it," Starring barks. For all the script's strengths, and those of the cast, there are ample. weaknesses as well. Marian Miner, Christopher Flynn, and Robert Seeman, all in importat roles, are weak to the point of flaccidity. And Ed Lesher, who seems to show up in every Civic show, engages in more bombastic gesticulation and vocalization than ever, with the ultimate effect of delivering a sorely misplaced Morey Amsterdam imitation. But The Crucible overall is worth- while a venture as last summer's delightful The Madwoman of Chaillot-and for approximately the same reasons. In Chaillot, leading lady. Claribel Baird pulled the whole en- deavor through its weak spots. Here William Cross does the job. Achingly bewildered by a moral dilemma too painful to face, he faces it anyway, with magnificent style that ennobles and ex- pands the meaning of courage. TS ---- the adults in their lives that they have fallen prey to the spells and incan- tations of a large cadre of witches and wizards, some of whom are regarded as Salem's most respectable citizens. The fear and superstition of the town- speople allow the fantastic accusations of the girls more credence than they might otherwise win (get the referen- ce?), and finally, even the rigidly moralistic Proctor and his wife find themselves in prison. The strongest personality among the teen-aged finger-pointers is Abigail Williams, here played with disarming strength by Pioneer High School student Alison Maker. The actress' manner is a bit overdramatic in her fir- st scene-at one point,.she clasps her neck at the mention of a scaffold-but as her character's malevolence and trickery grows, so does her performan- ce. One serious difficulty that afflicts Maker to a large extent, and others in the cast as well, is director Willie Morgan's decision to play the witch- craft accusations as a black and white issue. When Maker first begins to spout the names of the Devil's friends, she alternately rolls and shifts her eyes about, as if to ensure that everyone in the audience knows Abigail is knowingly committing slander. The play would boast a larger measure of intrigue if there were some doubt as to whether the girls believe what they are saying. THROUGH ANALOGY, Miller gets 7-*% CINEMA Ij *I JONAH WHO WILL BE 25 IN THE YEAR 2000.. . (ALAIN TANNER, 1976) Funny, far-reaching comedy about eight survivors of the late 60's whose paths cross briefly while searching for a common purpose inside "the whale of history." A dramatic tragi-comedy in political science-fiction, with a rich concoction of color, black and white, songs, skits, economics, dreams; speeches and sexual experimentation. (1 ,0m.) French with English subtitles. ANGELL HALL 7 & 9 $1.50 T Tomorrow: THE FIRE WITHIN (MahIe) ( TONIGHT TERRENCE MALICK'S DAYS OF HEAVEN Set in the wheatfields of the Texas Panhandle, the story of a woman torn between two men is narrated by a sharp, street- wise girl. RICHARD GERE plays the man who asks BROOKE ADAMS to share her love with another so they can live the easy life, not realizing the depth of his own feelings. Shows at 7:00 8 9:05-$ 1.50 Sunday: CHINATOWN CINEMA GUILD AT OLD A & D AUD. (We like films there)