ARTS Mormons host area conference here today The Michigan Daily Saturday, September 20, 1980 Page 5 An uneven 'Viriiaol' By CHRISTOPHER POTTER Years ago I casually sat down to listen to a cast recording of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia oolf?, and I've never felt the same J nce. The playwright's all-embracing, all-consuming rite of marital discontent at a small New England college carries. the harrowing emotional totality of a dozen major epics-by turns hilarious, tormented, sardonically sadistic, achingly gentle. Premiered nearly twenty years ago, Albee's living room talkathon endures as quite simply the greatest American play ever written. It is a work bf genius which set the stylfstic mode for dozens of inferior tream-of-reality imitations, yet which ike all great works has itself defied both time and social obsolescence. It may be true that Albee penned Virginia Woolf as a kind of self- exorcism rite and, once his demons were exhumed, he found he had nothing else to say. Yet the fact that virtually all of Allbee's subsequent efforts drown in a sea of baroque irrelevancies does nothing to dim the blazing pureness of is one incredible work. Taken alone, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf would insure an immortality that the com- bined efforts of a thousand lesser ar- tists would fail to match. SUCCESSFULLY staging this play can be a foreboding challenge, in its own way as difficult .as attempting Hamlet or Lear. Virginia Woolf's four characters require the most delicate in- terplay. There's George and Mar- tha-he is by turns witty, mournful, sadistic, self-loathing; she is bawdy, *gressive, swinishly strident, yet achingly perceptive. In (essence, it's a rapier vs. a sledgehammer,' allegorically the uneasy but necessary alliance between the American intellec- tual and mercantile classes. There's also Nick and Honey-he is young, am-- bitjous, scientifically brilliant but aesthetically indifferent, the symbol of technological Utopian impersonality; Sle is a cowering child-woman, a per- onification of all the cringing born- victims in our universe. This sad quartet shreds respective souls before us during the course of a midnight-to-dawn liquor-ridden battle of its in George and Martha's campus Johanna Dickey (Honey), William J. Cross (George), Mary Lou Blanchard (Martha) and James Danek (Nick) during a rare moment of relative peace in the Canterbury Loft's production of Edward Albee's 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' The characters launch their night-long verbal assault on each other in the living room of George and Martha's New England, college- town abode. The Loft's staging runs this weekend and next, through next Saturday, at 8:00 p.m. equipped for the heavyweight give-and- take that eternally rules George and Martha's marriage. THERE'S NO sting to Blanchard's verbal venom, no fire to her nocturnal savagery. Her voice is often plaintively weak, her dramatic rhythm consisten- tly off. The Canterbury production is thus thrown into structural and thematic chaos.wAbove all else George and Mar- tha must be euqal combatants-mat- ching strength and cunning blow-for- blow, with Martha if anything the more aggressive, masculine of the two. Yet Cross's omnipotent performance so thoroughly overwhelms Blanchard that their epic battle turns into a walkover. The actress' efforts are so limited that George's inbred bitterness seems almost psychotic by comparison-their struggle is thus effectively mutated into a wife-beating atrocity, with George as the raging bully and Martha the feeble victim.- The imbalance largely negates the ef- fectiveness of the two lesser roles. As Nick, James Danek tends toward a rather strident, one-note delivery, largely impervious to Nick's gradual drunken metamorphosis into a melan- choly sensitivity to those about him. Johanna Dickey gives a fine, resonant performance as Honey, though she ten- ds, as do most interpreters of the role, to emphasize the comic aspects of her character at the expense of the tragic side. Sharpe's direction of the play is suitably reverent and unfrilly-to his credit, nothing has been cut from the show, as is common in other produc- tions. The living room set is suitably condensed, though rather surprisingly the naturally claustrophobic nature of the show doesn't really seem attuned to the cramped quarters of the Canter- bury Loft. There's really very little to complain about with this presentation save for the one flaw that leaves everything to complain about. It certainly wasn't the easiest assignment to begin with-Mar- tha is surely one of the greatest, most difficult roles in the English language theater. There aren't that many great Hamlets around either, yet one can always hope. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) is having an area conference in Ann Arbor this weekend to "help build the church and hear the messages of God," a spokesman said. Vernon Cooley, president of the Michigan-Dearborn mission, said there will be approximately 865 missionaries from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan at the conference. The total number attending, including missionaries, area-followers, and the general public will be around 14,000, he added. THE HIGHLIGHT OF the conference will be tomorrow when Mormon President and Prophet Leader, Spencer Kimball, will speak at Chrysler Arena. He is scheduled to appear to 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. The conference will begin at 10 a.m. dmppp- Mh==NAhl Films TON IGH T , M I.B 4 7:00+9:10 $2.00 this morning, with a meeting of all missionaries. In prptest of the traditional Mormon anti-ERA stand, there will be a rally for the Eqqal Rights Amendment held out- side the Mormon Conference at 3 p.m. Sponsoring the rally is the National Organization for Women, Mormons for E.R.A., and Students for E.R.A. THERE WILL be a priesthood session at 7 p.m. tonight. The priesthood session includes all 12-year old males and older, who have been voted and approved into the leadership. "These men are not the hippie type at all-they've been well chosen and live the gospel of Jesus Christ to the fulles," Cooley said. This may be the last area conference, he added, because improved satellite communication allows them to com-" municate yearly meetings from Salt Lake City, Utah. home. Their elongated wordplay rakes on the intricateness of a contrapunal oratorio as thunderbolts of verbal dam- nation are hurled back and forth on stage; as such anything less than an ideally balanced cast of actors can throw Albee's nimble .work into a disastrous wobble. And that is precisely the problem with the Canterbury Stage Company's current production of Virginia Woolf. Director William Sharpe's treatment is generally sensitive and well-staged, yet is thrown irreparably out of kilter by a grotesque thespian mismatch in the two lead roles. AS GEORGE, William J. Cross is a human dynamo, a lightning rod actor throbbingly possessed by his character. The man is a joy to watch and hear; though his eloqution may smack a bit too 'much of the classical repertoire, Cross gloriously brings his protagonists' character as George slides with bitter drollery toward the middle age of his wrenching but necessary partnership with Martha. Cross acclimates himself perfectly to the musical beat and pace of George's laser delivery. Though he's really too physical, powerful, and largeLframed an actor anatomically embody his tweedy, burned-out protagonist, these shortcomings are totally obliterated in this whirling dervish of a performance. Would that Mary Lou Blanchard's Martha was even remotely equal to Cross' powerhouse assault; alas she resides on a thespian plane entirely at odds with what is required to bring the author's diabolical battle royal to life Albee's Marthe must be belligerent, pugnacious, a predatory killer-Blan- chard's Martha would be mortified if she accidently stepped on an ant. Though she isn't a bad actress, Blan- chard projects a haughty, remote quality much in the mold of Jessica Tandy: she's an elegant, muted, nice- grandmother type ruinously ill- stoningDIRK SOGARDE ANDREA FERREOL ked on the VLADIMI NAROKOV Novel " Screnptoy by TOM STOPARD Directed by RAINiR WERNER PAINDER Prom Now Line Cknmo Tax forum crowd hostile to absent Tisch (Continued from Page 1) in state revenues. If this plan is adop- *ed, the legislature would depide how to make up for lost property taxes. Proposal C, the plan supported by Staebler, and many other state leaders, would cut property taxes and raise the state income tax from 4 percent to 5.5 percent. This plan -is an attempt to make Proposal D less attractive. THE TISCH PLAN, Proposal D, would be the only chance for voters to actually vote for a tax cut rather than a *ax shift. Analysts statewide estiniate that, if adopted, Proposal D would decrease state revenues by about $2 billion. The state government would be forced to make up for the tax loss by reducing services such as higher education. That threat has the Univer- sity-and other institutions that depend on state funds-busy making sure voters know about what might happen under such a tax reduction. That's one of the reasons Thursday, night's tax forum was held: to tell voters how Tisch, and the other proposed changes in Michigan's tax laws, would alter the way citizens pay taxes and receive government services. PARTICIPANTS ALSO discussed voting "strategies" that would defeat the Tisch plan, or at least lessen its im- pact if the tax cut received a majority of "yes" votes. All three tax plans could pass. If that is the case, Bullard explained, the referendum with the most "yes" votes would become law. Portions of the other plans that don't conflict with the first measure would also be adopted. For example, if Proposal D received 1,000 "yes" votes and 600 "no" votes it would become part of the state con- stitution. If Proposals A and C each received 1,000 "yes" votes but more than 600 "no" votes, only portions of those plans would be adopted. The decision about which provisions would stay would rest with the courts. But the man who asked if his votes for "A" or "C" would help defeat "D" didn't get an answer. While there was mild disagreement between panelists-who wouldn't mind votes for their own tax reform plans-and audience members, they all agreed with Bullard who said: "Voting 'no' on (Proposal) D must be the foremost thing to keep in mind."