ARTS
The Michigan Daily Friday, March 13, 1981 Page 7


Showcase goes
down easy 'All

Join the crowd, Al
Blues guitarist Albert Collins performs while mingling with the crowd
during his performance at Rick's American Cafe Wednesday night.'See
tomorrow's arts page for a review of his show.
New Al Mdia sh o w
lacks sparkle, meanitng

the Way
By JOSHUA PECK
One can scarcely imagine a better
approach for a playwright seeking to
unveil an underlying truth of existence
than to toy with life's manifold incon-
sistencies. Diverse as people's ex-
periences may be, one thing all of us
seem to run into is the exasperating un-
predictability, the changeability of it
all. Some fortunate soul may be just
beginning to feel cocky about a streak
of good fortune when he is hit by a wave
of unwavering misery.
Tad Mosel's All the Way Home,
playing through tomorrow night at the
Trueblood Theatre, is a grand success
for many reasons, but for none so
poignant as the cunning way the script
wrangles with the uncertainty life en-
tails. Both the script and the theatre
department's treatment of it are
replete with romantic details: a sweet,
almost saccharine idealization of both
the play's five kids and its four gran-
dparents, a generally sunny, muted
lighting scheme, and an overall gently
sentimental mood.
YET RUNNING interference against
the show's nostalgic elements is a view
of death so cynical and disturbing it
would not be entirely out of place in a
Brechtian drama. In the first of the
show's three acts, the Grim Reaper
cruelly flirts with two older generations
of the plot's pivotal family before
finally zeroing in on Jay, who is more
sorely missed than either of the other
two would have been. The play, at its
core, boils down to a struggle between
the indifferent, uncontrollably
capricious ways of death, and the op-
timistic, undaunted naivete of this very
human family.
Key to the effectiveness of the story is
the credibility and tenderness of the
relationship established between Jay
and Mary Follet, (Gregory Jbara and

Home'
Rebecca Stucki), the thirtyish couple
whose romance sets up the sorrow and
subsequent recuperation of the latter
acts. It has been a long while since the
Trueblood stage has seen a romance as
delicately underplayed as this one.
Jbara, who thus far had proved great
prowess only at farce, here is a tower of
strength, as a man deeply gladdened
yet slightly embittered by the prospect
of middle age.
See THERE'S, Page 10

By ANNE SHARP
"Everything's Turning Gray," which
opened Wednesday night at the Lydia
Mendelssohn, is being produced by the
All Media Company, but don't let that
fool you - this show is essentially a
concert.
In the past, All Media has specialized
in live drama and dance set to the beat
of live rock-and-roll and peppered with
flashy audio-visual and lighting effects,
but his show is something less. Five
local kids put together a band - White
Lies - rented a hall, procured lights,
dry ice, a smoke machine, flash pots, a
set of psychedelic slides, a rear-
projection video setup, and a couple of
warm-up groups and, for four glorious
shows (through Saturday night), will
pretend to. be rock stars. You gotta ad-
mire their chutzpah.
AT THE SAME time you've got' to
wonder if they know what the hell
they're doing. Most groups that have
relied heavily on special effects - and
let's face it, they (Genesis, The Tubes,
Kiss) are rather passe now - have
some justification for it: they are tight,
experienced groups, with a distinctive
sound, and the A-V stuff is just an extra
- exciting icing on the cake. White Lies
does it the other way around. Gregg
Mazure, the founder-impressario-
director of All Media, and Pat Grimes
put together White Lies expressly for
this concert, and one gets the im-
pression that this mocked-up group
relies a little too heavily on its visuals.
Compared with bona-fide working ban-
ds like the Urbations and the Flexibles,
who have developed a hard-earned
following and still perform in small-
time beer dives with little more props
MANN THEATRES
VILLAGE 4
375NMAL
Daily Discount Matinees
TUESDAY BUCK DAY

than a microphone, White Lies perhaps
doesn't deserve all the hoo-hah.
Which is not to say that this rock-
band-manque, White Lies, isn't any
good. They play well together, con-
sidering the short time they've been a
unit. The music, composed by Mazure
and Grimes, is adequate, if un-
distinguished. It varies from bawdy
R&B ("Paper Towel Blues") to white-
boy reggae ("The Last Place"), from
See NEW, Page 10

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[[ilWjjIV L/N/IRCI1 104115
Screenings at the Michigan Theatre: 7:00, 9:00 & 11:00 p.m.
Saturday: 1:00, 7:00 & 9:00 p.m. All programs are different
and of substantially equal quality. Award winners screened
Sunday at 7:00, 9:00 & 11:00 p.m. Single admission: $2.00.
Daily series: $5.00 (not available Sunday). Advance sales begin
at 6:00 p.m, for that day only. $20.00 series tickets on safe the
openingday of the Festival at 5:30p.m. All tickets are sold at
the Michigan Theatre.

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A MARTIN RITT RONA.LPDSHHLOProAg,,o
SALLYFIELD TOMMYLEE JONES "BACKROADS"
Alor gDAVIDKEITH Wratenby GARY DeVORE
M.b HENRY MAN N by A ANo ndMARIYNERGMAN
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[ S 1:15 3:15 5:15
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--. -A CBS Theatrical Films Presentation
A MARTIN RITT/RONALD SHEDLO Production

As timely toUday
as the day it
was written.
TESS'
PG A COLUMIA
PICTURES RELEASE

1:15
4:30
8:00


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