ARTS I The Michigan Daily Sunday, February 15, 1981 Page 5 'Curse' perfect theatre evening THE DAILYI By ANNE GADON The Dratman Theatre Company's rendition of The Curse of the Starving Class is an orgasmic theatrical ex- perience. With their first production, the one-act play, Action, by Sam Shepard, they showed that they were capable of the ultimate in stagecraft. After Curse, I am convinced that they can go beyond ultimate. There is sim- Curse of the Starving Class By Sam Shepard Schorling Aud., School of Ed. February 13-15,1981 Weston .......................... William Cross Ella ..........................Andrea Kupetz Emma.....,................Stephanie Ivanoff Wesley ..........................Kerry Milliron Taylor ....................... David Bernstein Directed by Ted Levine, Produced by Andrea Gonzales A Dratman Theatre Company Production ply no stopping this company's :dedication to quality. Thank God. In case you are unaware of the -existence of Sam Shepard, he's one of the greatest faces to pop into the playwriting scene in the past decade. Shepard writes about the post- apocalyptic world. His characters are usually rooted in a cottage in the middle of rural nowhereland. They are shell- shocked and on the lunatic fringe, they do nothing all day except spout illogic at each other. There is no reason to their life; it is only a meaningless progression of events beyond their con- trol. SHEPARD'S NIHILISM is often overwhelmingly terrifying and shocking. Curse of the Starving Class has more humour in it than his other works because it's such an obvious satire of human ceremony. The crowning example of this is the charac- ter of Emma, the adolescent blooming, so to speak, into womanhood. Emma prepares an exhibit on "How to Cut up a Frying Chicken" for the local 4-H contest. Mother cooks the chicken that Emma has prepared and the kid goes into a fit of rage. A sudden adolescent tantrum occurs - Emma decides to leave home. She goes into town and shoots the walls of a local bar full of holes, and explains to brother Wesley that she's just following her "innate criminal instincts". pocketing her gun, she leaves forever. Ummm. . . marvelous dness. Then, home weir- TO BELIEVABLY recreate such a, lack of naturalism, requires a trusting, group of actors. One of the virtues of DTC is its concentration on ensemble work. The company has no actors that; hit you immediately as people possessing star quality (with the, possible exception of Ted Levine, who played the lead in Action and directs Curse, a professional who knows how to make others look good), but they produce some of the best group perfor- mances that I have ever seen west of Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio, the pin- nacle of ensemble production. Kerry Milliron, Andrea Kupetz, and Stephanie Ivanoff as Wesley, Ella, and Emma respectively are an incredible trio. Ivanoff, as the whiny adolescent, is at times too obviously playing "cute kid." Kupetz, however, is near perfec- tion as the zoned out mother. Her in- tuitive performance is one of the most" admirable aspects of the evening. William Cross, a familiar local player who is rarely less than phenominal, Ian Dury Dear old Ian's got a new one out, and,- as usual, it's cute as a button. Those who relished the head-banging rockers on New Boots and Panties, the Blockheads' best-loved album, may be pleasantly surprised at the disco/funk orientation of Laughter. These mealy, frivolous, ostentatious orchestrations fit Dury's nasty-but-nice style perfec- tly. In fact, it's rather funny when Dury gruffly screams the lyrics to "Super- man's Big Sister" in this no-class Limey accent amidst the syrupy keening of strings and a thumping Lip- ps, Inc. beat. 'Lots of hilarious, scatalogical, -tongue-in-cheek lyrics here. I won't spoil the fun by quoting them, but don't ,miss Dury's "I am an actual train!" monologue - it's a brilliant, gleeful piss-off to the romantic Arlo Guthrie-Orient Express Iron Horse mystique. Hard-core punks tend to sneer at Ian: claim he's too coy, too 1N U T T E LC 1A S 1 clever, too goddamn cheery for their serious tastes. Well, that's what they said about Pollyanna, and boy, were they sorry when she fell out of that tree. Ian Dury may be the Hayley Mills of the British invasion, well, there's nothing wrong with it!!! -Anne Sharp R omantics If nothing else, National Breakout has taught me that there's a difference between a band doing good and a band doing successfully. With this album, the Romantics show that they're a band that did good, somewhat successfully, and are still somewhat successful, but, somewhere along the line, lost track of the good. The main reason for this album's failure is its material - most of these songs are awful to begin with. With lines like "21 and over/ You can't get no pass/ Can't stay here/ Somebody's gonna beat your ass" popping up all over this album, I don't care how well you'execute the songs, you're going to sound fairly silly. The good examples of how bad these guys can get are the aforementioned "21 And Over," two fairly wimpy ballads ("Forever Yours" and "Take Me Out Of The Rain") and "The Story of the Roman- tics From Their Own Point of View In 2:33," which also happens to be known on the album as "National Breakout." BUT FEAR NOT. There are good points to this album. "Poor Little Rich Girl" is OK, and "Stone Pony" (don't be confused; it's not Linda Ronstadt's) and "Friday At The Hideout" are fairly good. But the best has to be "A Night Like This," featuring an incredibly in- fectious bass line from Rich Cole. What happened to these guys? I don't know. Maybe it's because they recor- ded this album in New York City in- stead of Florida, as they did their first. Maybe they needed more time to write songs. True, a year is usually enough, but realize that they had three years in the Detroit bars to get their material together for their first album. If that's the cause for this debacle of an album, let's hope that they take off more time before their third album. -Lex Kuhne We would like to thank Schoolkids' Records for the use of some of the albums included in today's record reviews. does not deserve that adjective here. That is more the fault of the casting directors than Cross, who should have realized that Cross is an actor and not a performer who works well with others in a group. His pear-shaped tones and dramatic arm gestures are simply out of place here. . A program note, explains that mem- bers of DTC believe that "the theatre is a place to learn." This purist attitude is quickly apparent in their work. DTC does not go for slick presentations or surface acting - they aim only for the truest productions for truth. And what a splendid sight it is. INDIVIDUAL THEA TRES 5t Ave o Liberty 761-9700 A N COMEDYI (give or take an LILY TOMLIN; ' THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING WOMAN DAILY-6:40, 8:30, 10:20 SAT, SUN, WED-1:00, 2:50, 4:50 HURRY-ABSOLUTELY FINAL WEEK!!. KAGEMUSHA The Shadow Warrior" (PG) directed by AKIRA KUROSAWA DAILY-6:30, 9:15 SAT, SUN, WED-12:50, 3:45 BA RGA IN MA TINE ES WED., SAT., SUN. $2.00 tii 6:00 , _. TONIGHT At The MICHIGAN THEATER 101 DALMATIONS Dir. Walt Disney. Color. 35 mm. Cruella DeVille! Say it out loud a few times. Feel your spine tingle? Now say Dalmations. Ahh. Now that will bring a wiggly smile to your face. All 101 cute little puppies are dogknapped by the evil Cruella for use in her newest fur coat. Can they be saved by their parents and human family? Would Disney let you down? Fun for the whole family. 7:00 & 9:00. For those of you who get a Spring Break, enjoy it For those of you who don't get a Spring Break, we hope you get a lucky break. CINEMA GUILD --- - - ----------- (A : (I The Ann Arbor Civic Theatre Presents A Victorian Melodrama A \- i ^ ' .. , = ~4 ; ,;:- f E ... . /l The Valiant HIEROINE BAST LYNNE by Brian J. Burton Based on the novel by Mrs. Henry Wood Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre March 4 - 7, 1981 8:00 P.M. Wednesday & Thursday Tickets $4.00 Friday & Saturday Tickets $5.00 For ticket information call 662-7282, or write: AACT Tickets, P.O. Box 1242 Ann Arbor 48106 ~TheEvil, VILLAIN rrvr. 7, -7 V T I r- PLEASE, WON'T YOU JOIN US FOR A BLUE RIBBON BREAKFAST OFFERED DAILY 7 AM to11 AM, and WEEKENDS 7 AM to 3 PM The SUPREME 2 large eggs any style, 2 pcs. bacon or sausage, and all-U-can-eat hotcakes. now only $1.99 BREAKFAST for a buck and a quarter A. One large egg and toast, 2 pcs. bacon or sausage. B. One large egg with four hotcakes. C. Four hotcakes, 2 pcs. bacon or sausage. rl Fxtr.a t .- .nr .tac .7 me h -.. any OMELETTE Mushroom, cheese, the King, ham & cheese, or the Western. only $1.99 SIDE ORDERS Chilled juices...................... Hash browns ..................... . Additional Eggs ................. (ea.) Side of sausage, bacon or ham ......... Donuts .......................... Danishr........................... Pecan roll......................... $ .69 .49 !.30 .99 .25 .60 .85 ,I . i i