A"-tqSwtp&u0 We stock a full line of clothing, boots, camping equipment, hunting clothing & winter coats. 201 E. Washington at Fourth Open M l-Sat 9-6 994-3572 *mmmm .. r ARTS Page 6 Friday, September 26, 1980 The Michigan Daily Civic's 'Our Town' a safe bet 15% OFF ALL Merchandise with this coupon I I I I I I I I I I I (except sale items) Expires September 27, 1980 i ® i UAC Mediatrics presents: Friday, Sept. 26-"EASY RIDER" 7:00 p.m., 10:35 p.m. By ANNA NISSEN Ann Arbor Civic Theatre could hardly have gone wrong when they chose to produce Our Town. It is a nearly foolproof play. Our Town is a pastiche of turn-of-the- century Americana, chock full of provincial charm. The milk wagon rat- tles past each morning, crickets rivet in the distance, Emily helps her mother string beans, the Gibb kids bicker over their weekly allowance, and Editor Webb mows his lawn. From the opening rooster's crow to the black umbrellas dotting Emily's funeral, the saga of Grover's Corner is built around cliches. "Robinson Crusoe and the Bible, Han- del's 'Largo'. . . and Whistler's 'Mother,' " Editor Webb confesses, "those are about as far as we go.' WE ARE ESCORTED through Grover's Corners by the Stage Manager (John Stephens), a modern Greek Chorus figure played with the right mix of affability and drollness. "In our town we like to know the facts about everybody," he claims, and introduces us to a cross-section of the towns 2,642 inhabitants which includes the Polish twins just born on the other side of the tracks. We meet the milkman, Howie Newsome (Ed Lesher), white haired and loveable, speaking in the ver- nacular o.f rural New Hampshire. We -meet the town drunk Simon Stimson (Jeff Smith) who is drawling and surly but should have been more acerb. The role of Rebecca Gibbs as played by Cathe Wright at the other extreme, when she finds she has to wear that loathesome blue dress, is just a bit overdone. She should have been a saucy little girl, not a banshee. Fortunately, all the major rolls are well-cast. Blond, lanky Ken Norman is just right as George Gibb, adjusting convincingly from a sixteen- to a twen- ty-six-year-old. I found it hard to believe that Norman is only a high school senior himself. MRS. GIBBS IS well realized as a strong, expansive character by Cathe Wright, who spoke 'in a light, forced brogue. I thought initially that Susan Morris as Mrs. Webb lacked Wright's stature, but then Mrs. Webb is supposed to be twenty years younger than Mrs. Gibb, more lighthearted and girlish. Editor Webb was excellent, played by Leo McNamara. He has a well-trained resonant speaking voice, and is really a pleasure to listen to. Emily Webb can be a difficult role, but almost without exception Patricia Garcia is outstanding. In the proposal scene over strawberry phosphates, she is too giddy, jittering more like a sophomore cheerleader than the young woman who has just been elected Secretary and Treasurer of the Senior Class. But in the graveyard scene Gar- cia's high dynamics are just what is needed. Some of the Civic Theatre's deviations from the original script are definite plusses. For instance, the lear- ned Professor Willard who lectures on the geological make-up of Grover's Corners is here a woman, all the more comic as a small-town, lace-collared bluestocking., All in all we meet twenty eight characters, many of them stock comic characters, all of them familiar. 'Blest Be the Tue that Binds' is the unifying anthem, as it is belted out by mothers in the church choir who are devoted to Cars stalled in first gear:' With "HELP" 8:50 p.m. their families, as it is sung when Emily and George join hands, and when Emily joins the community of the dead. It's hard to imagine a flop Our Town. Wilder's knack of recapitulating these age-old songs, these typical characters and cliche occurrences retains for us their original richness. Ann Arbor Civic Theatre's performance is unpreten- tious and sincere. I recommend it especially if it's been a while since you've marvelled, with Emily, over the uneventful wonders: "food, coffee, and new white dresses, and hot baths, and sleeping, and waking up." Nat Sci Aud. Sunday, Sept. 28- "HAIR" 7:00 p.m., 9:30 p.m. By FRED SCHILL Whoever said you can't argue with success wasn't an artist. Maybe it was Ric Ocasek and the Cars, who have now released the same album, same songs for the third time. Their debut album The Cars was justly hailed as a whole new tune, as they carved a niche in the top forty scene with a distinctive and innovative blend of tightly-interwoven rhythms and detached vocals. . APPARENTLY FEELING they had contributed their bit to mankind, the Cars haven't changed a note since. The same song, verse two came out in the form of Candy-O, which at least had the title cut to recommend it. Same song, verse three is Panorama, and the players are understandably getting bored. The songs are stiff, the music mechanical and endlessly repetitive, the vocals dead on arrival. Rigor mortis has set in. Someone should throw a sheet over the corpse. For the uninitiated, songwriter Ric Ocasek keeps falling in love, see. He's not very happy about it because he never likes the women he falls for, who return the favor by not liking him either. Which leaves him singing the blues, but not very convincingly. ONE WOULD think that such an emotional/intellectual collision would explode into energy. One would be wrong. Ocasek dispassionately assumes the role of Richard II in the title cut-he can't decide whether he will fall or not-and objectively con- tradicts himself with admirable con- sistency throughout the course of the album. A 'I 1, - 'q.- With short "BEATLES ON ED SULLIVAN" MLB 4 He dispassionately chafes at the bit in "Gimme Some Slack,-' dispassionately declares his independence in "Misfit ,Kid," and dispassionately takes what's his in "Running to You." Or is it "Let's Go"? "My Best Friend's Girl,"maybe? It hardly matters, By the time he gets to "You Wear Those Eyes" halfway thorugh the second side, he's become so dispassionate that he has given up singing altogether, and lapsed into mouthing the words. AND THE BAND isn't any more ex- cited about the situation than he is. What were once vice-tight rhythms are now habit-formed riffs. Drummer David Robinson plods through entire songs like the corroboratingly-titled "Up and Down" without ever changing pace. Robinson's idea of variety is a cymbal crash, his idea of innovation two cymbal crashes. Bassist Benjamin Orr tightened his strings a little bit and just can't get over the reverberating tautness of it all. He just keeps listening to the twang and trading lackluster three-note riffs wth keyboardist Greg Hawkes, who sounds worst of all. I am convinced Hawkes has only two fingers. His work runs the gamut in tastelessness, from disco- style snythesizer blasts that sound like those awful things one hears just preceding a blue light special to gim- micky Meco-ish interplay that sounds like the empire striking back. And all that's base in between.