ARTS Friday, January 9, 1981 The Michigan Daily Page 9 Performance Guide, MUSIC Chuck Berry-Back to the roots, with no rot in sight yet. Berry is, sure, the Faddai of Rock 'n Roll, yeah, yeah, but beyond the historical worth there still exists a performer with energy to burn. The fire will be lit at 7:00 and 11:00 at Second Chance, Monday, January 12. Lonnie Brooks Blues Band-Brooks has been kicking around the blues scene for years, but his step into the national limelight has been relatively recent, with a surprisingly well-publicized 1979 LP and this current tour. This date at Rick's American Cafe should prove an exciting evening. Wednesday, January 14. Electromusicological Vidiocity-Partly music, partly video, EV contains prophetic video art, electronic pygmy rituals, and a multi-images slide show of "The Great Lakes in Transition, 1850-1980." Fun for the whole family! Canterbury Loft, January 10 and 11 at 8 p.m. FILMS Disney Cartoon Festival'-The 1940 feature Pinnochio took the lavishness of Disney technique to its artistic peak-today's best animation, logically, is working toward entirely different goals of experimentation-but the studio's -most winning work may still be that of its earliest years. This program of- fers a very rare chance to see some little-shown gems which pioneered popular cartoonery and have a frilly charm their slicker ancestors usually missed. Included will be the first Mickey Mouse short, various stages of M.M. development in the early '30s, the giddy first Silly Symphony '"The Skeleton Dance," and the first in color, "Flowers and Trees." Great stuff. Friday, January 9, & 7:00, 8:40 and 10:20, Old A & D. Time After Time-Nicholas Meyer's ingenious satirical fantasy, in which H.G. Wells (played by Malcolm MacDowell with consummate milquetoastiness), having invented a real Time Machine, must use it to pur- sue Jack the Ripper (David Warner) to modern-day San Francisco. Mary Steenburgen is the sleepily enchanting heroine. Droll, neatly paced and played, this is an arch balance of thrills and wit, achieving both without at all minimizing either. Friday, 7:00 and 930, Nat. Sci. Chuck Berry 200 Motels--A flaming bizarroe of music, hmor and chaos, with Frank Zap- pa and Leon Russell, and others drifting through. It's definitely some sort of achievement, frequently very funny, and at times memorably disorienting; it's such a constant assault that the flop ideas and sequences. just meilt into r the thick, greasy but not unpleasant stew. Better video-(f)art than Mgical Mystery Tour, which it's double-billed with, although there are of cours more reasons than ever now to see that other musical-fantasy pastiche. 8:40, MLB 3, Saturday, January 10. Andy Worhol's Bad-Spaced-out black comedy, with a slicker veneer than such earlier "Worhol" is-it-cinema essays as Trash, but without Paul Morrissey's underground/overland ambiguity. Carroll Baker, a real professional actress (and there's a r.p. actor, Perry King, too), plays a coolly businesslike dealer in assassins. The rest of the cast doesn't bother iwith feigning wierdness, having already achieved it off-screen. They float by with casual if well-practiced freak-show fascination. Just for fun, though never good and clean about it. Saturday, 7:00 and 9:00, Aud. A. Yellow Submarine-Still thousands of oohs and ahhs ahead of just about any other pop/op/deco/dodo artifact, bright and busy and silly and clever and frighteningly inventive, usually all at once. The credit is less due to the Fab Four, the excuse for it all, than to the droves of animators who labored for months in order to come up with something that seems as dizzily spon- taneous as a mushroom dream. Sunday, January 11, 7:00 and 9:00, MLB 3. The Loves of Isadora-One of the very few films to give Vanessa Redgrave an epic role to match her goddessy reserves of presence and skill, and as such worth seeing at any cost. The actress isn't much of a dancer, but her performance in this large-scale, uneven biography provides large, tremulous insights into the drives that might have fired Isadora Duncans legendary persuit of dance as a revival of classicism and a way of life. Sun- ,day" 7:00 andl10:00, Old A &D. THEATRE My Fair Lady-Another warhorse of a musical performed by a slightly talented group, the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre. This production lacks energy, talent, and creativity, says our Daily critic (see review opposite). Despite that, tickets are going fast. At the Lydia Mendelssohn, January 9-10, 14-17 at 8p.m. A 2CIVIC'S LOW-BRED 'LADY' 'Fair' is not the By AMY MOORE Community theatre provides amateurs with an opportunity to par- ticipate in the world of the stage. Anyone attending a local theatre production expecting to see the brilliance of Broadway recaptured, however, will inevitably be disappoin- ted. Although the shows chosen often provide the ingredients for success, small theatre groups notoriously tran- sform large, effervescent.musicals into futile imitations of the long-standing Broadway versions. Yet the goal of community theatre, and one which is often misunderstood, is to leave the audience with a sense of the effort and enthusiasm of the people involved. Unfortunately, the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre's production of My Fair Lady generally fails this humble goal and simply leaves one with the desire to chemically drum its irritations out of the memory. THE FIRST WORD that comes to mind in describing this show is "lack." The production itself lacks energy, the actors' movements lack motivation, the show lacks pace (three and a half hours long, slowly. . .), the perfor- mances lack characterization and the blocking lacks grace. If the performan- ce had been a dress rehearsal, the director would at least have had the op- tion of doubling the rehearsal time and quickly postponing the opening. (God Bless David Merrick.) Even an af- terglow for this show would need pall bearers. From the opening number, My Fair Lady dragged. The excitement grew af- ter each scene-would the flats crash, would the crewies handle the technical misdirection, could the performers stay in character throughout the fiasco-? Each segment grew more and more frustrating. The chorus should have been arrested for loitering. The actors truly needed a shot of speed. Each bogis accent and each fumbled line added fuel to the destruction of the material. Then hope arrived. With a quick boost of energy from Alfred Doolittle (Charles Sutherland), the production was given the "Little Bit of Luck" that it so desperately needed. The actors grew somewhat comfortable with their bodies, and the whole show took a leap forward. The chorus of servants, led by Mrs. Pearce (Alene Blomquist), per- formed well. By the time Mrs. Higgins (Burnette Staebler) was introduced, the performance had grown measurably, if not :quite redeemably, more professional. Staebler neatly characterized the perfect elegant lady, with style, grace, credibility and talent. As Freddy, John Butterfield's voice hit the mark when she opened with the romantic "On the Street Where You Live," prompting the traditional gawd- that-song sigh from each female in the audience. Colonel Pickering (James Piper) also added sparkle-so much so that the Civic's version of My Fair Lady might have seemed more sound if Eliza had fallen for his charms rather than those of Mitchel McElyra's Higgins. TOWARDS THE end of the staging, most frustrations melted into simple amusement, much of it, thankfully, in- tended. McElyra had to be laughed at. His interpretation of Professor Higgins as a scatterbrained, overly exciteable linguist could hardly attract a down-to- earth female, although the University might hire him to lecture. With little ef- fort, McElyra wildly distorted the stan- dard Rex Harrison prototype. After the initial shock at such sacrilige died down, he gave the audience and show what they needed badly-comic relief. Finally, a few words should be said about Nancie Krug's Eliza. The girl has talent, although often it appeared as if she didn't know what to do with it, perhaps kept adrift by inadequate direction. As Eliza mustered up the energy to push Freddy over a suitcase, "Show Me" proved to have exceptional life. Given the difficulties of handling the lead in such a rocky staging, her performance was "lovery." My Fair Lady is one of those warhor- se musicals that a sizable public is word always willing to swallow in any form, and the Civic's staging, is, sadly, about an average example of Ann Arbor theatre. It's not all their fault that My Fair Lady dies in parts-these epics are always hard for anyone but pros to carry out. Mesmerized by Burton, Harrison etc., and stunned by $30.00 ticket prices, audiences feel that they always have to love these musicals. But Ann Arbor isn't New York, and you're painfully aware of this after leaving the theatre, slightly saddlesore, around midnight. The show has its moments, but it leaves you worn out, and you don't need to pay five dollars for that. DOLMAR SUL 4i COPYING COURSE PACKS. S! Featuring the new Xerox 9500 Competitive Prices--Fast Service .r --611 Church St.-665-92OO ~ ' FRAGE' 24 4for L SALE 7 plus tax r $100O -.4A -SA 'l ow- sale end6s " THE BAGEL FACTORY 1306 S. University " Permanent Centers open days, - Opportunity to make up missed ceerrgs and weekends. lessons. " low hourly cost. Dedicated full- sVoluminous homestudy materials time staff.Econstantly updated by research- " Currplete TEST~n-TAPE "faciities ers expert in ttyeir field. for review of class lessons and . Opportunity to transfer to and supplementary naterials. continue study at any of our " S~-.0 claisses taught by skilled over 85 centers. ;rrs 'uC to S. a I Cinemna II pres ent s Gimme Shelter (David and Albert Maysles, 1970) -4 '* ,; t What might have been just another documentary of a rock tour becomes radically altered by the tragic events at Altamont, California. A film about the power and the danger of charisma and about our own pop culture. With the Rolling Stones, Ike and Tina Turner, the Jefferson Airplane, and the Hell's Angels. (91 min.) 7:00 and 9:45 n PLANNED PARENTHOOD I Fy 14 e 1 ';Fol .11t be Fourth Inn Arbor Ik Festival two shows Sunday January 18 Power Center 2pm Leon Redbone Margaret Christi Michael Cooney he Henrie Brothers 8pm Leon Redbone Andy -Breckman Mick Molonev and 912 N. Main St., Ann Arbor t * Pregnancy Testing (same day diagnosis) + Problem Pregnancy Counseling + Complete Contraceptive Clinic (women and teens) * Birth Control Information / Education * Vasectomy Services + Early Abortion Services * Board Certified, Licensed Gynecologists Rock All Night (Roger Corman, 1957) Outrageous dialogue twists and turns this exploitation-type teen movie into a farce and genre spoof. Musical numbers by the Platters and others appear at the beginning of the film. (65 min.) 8:40 only. Friday, Jan. 9 Aud. A $2.00 one show, $3.00 both shows Andy Warhol's Bad (Jed Johnson, 1977) Truly one of Warhol's most outrageous films stars Carroll Baker who moonlights by booking young women on assignments to kill! This comedy-drama, with its revolting nihilistic viewpoint. is technically excellent. The performances are all good, and the sharp dialogue embodies keen, decadent insight into the numb- ing world of the solid citizen. (110 min.) 7:00 and 9:00. Saturday, Jan. 10 Aud.A $2.00 A.K.A. Cassius Clay (Jim Jacobs, 1970) The best of the Greatest. This documentary, made in 1970, traces Ali's career from his Golden. Glove beginnings in Louisville, through the Olympics, the Liston fights, and up to his biggest bout against Uncle Sam. Jacobs' exhaustive effort contains a wealth of rare footage that will delight all and in- form even the most ardent fans. (79 min.) 7:00 only. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Melvin Van Peeble's, 1971) Sweet Sweetback is uncompromising in its realistic view of the ; black experience in white America. Melvin Van Peebles wrote, produced, directed, and starred in this revolutionary film about