The Michigan Daily-Friday, December 5, 1980-Page 9
-
PTP's R&J
sinks at
christening
(Continued from Page Eight)
position. There is certainly ample room
for levity in the first Montague-Capulet
scrap, but there is an overabundance of
it here. Stratford, Ontario import Jef-
frey Guyton has done beautiful work
with the dueling, but the players' smiles
and sneers, combined with overly sun-
ny lighting, give the proceedings the air
of gentle horseplay, rather than deadly
earnest feuding.
Indeed, when someone finally is
wounded (Mercutio in the first scene of
the production's second act) and cries
"I am hurt," he wths a solid laugh-from
the audience. He shouldn't and wouldn't
have if the drama's dark side had been
given equal time. As it stands, the
initial act of violence seems to start a
new and different play-one with a pur-
pose and focus at odds with the farcical
early scenes.
MERCUTIO AND Tybalt both end.
up dead of course, but in this production
they have another attribute in com-
.mon: Both Jon Hallquist and Charles
Jackson attack their lines with an tef-
feminate bravado that is neither
amusing nor justified by the script.
Jackson, as Tybalt, is particularly
strident, bitchy and unpleasant.
Though weak spots are everywhere,
,the production does manage to totter
through the first two acts without
* eeting utter digaster. There is always
4the female Hallquist to warm up a
igid moment, or a bit of cheeky
Adalogue between Baird and Edward
,Stasheff as Peter, or a, particularly
°splendid Jan Chambers costume.
But the three scenes that conclude the
play are, quite simply, vile. Earlier in
the play, Chace gets by on looks, vigor,
and humor. Here all is anguish, and the
undergraduate just ain't got the stuff.
y His misery breaks down into two
'variations, -scrunching his brow and
pouting-which creep toward comedy
upon the fifth or sixth rendering. James
Reynolds' Friar Lawrence sputters out
a barely comprehensible explanation of
,what has occurred previously. The
whole ensemble stumbles in, and the
;grief that is supposed to be suffusing
the stage looks' instead like murky,
misdirected chaos. The hair-tearing
and wailigg is sheer frippery, and the
. prince seems especially majestic for
putting an end to it.
Sad to say, the strongest element of
this Romeo and Juliet is the richly in-
formative program, replete with
chronology,.synopsis, notes on the play
and on its central' relationship. The
rest, in sum, is a sorry display of much
of the department's dirty linen. The
star-cross'd lovers deserve better.
Performance Guide
- MUSIC
Same Band/The State/'Thwartedi-Ann Arbor's most adventurous and
satisfying rock band rememerges after a conspicuous ansence and rumors
of a break-up. Second-billed, The State will undoubtedly provide an ear-
shattering dose of pure punk, though in the past their anger hasn't been ar-
ticulated well enough to be listenable. Thwarted are an unheard of com-
modity, preceded by rumors of being "interesting," which this evening of
local rock and roll will undoubtedly be. Friday, December 5,8:00 p.m. at the
Half-Way Inn, East Quad.
The Cult Heroes/Ragnar Kvaran Group/The "New" Cubes-Another tough
local triple header. The Heroes play aggressive rock and roll-equal parts
heavy metal and punk-and play it very well, besides featuring the
inimitable Hiawatha Bailey, one of those singers everyone should see at
least once. Ragnar is an eccentric, and sometimes arresting pop-rocker with
good songs and a mediocre band. The "old" cubes were nothing but a
motorhead punk version of Blondie, and the new band still contains clone
Carolyn on vocals and Farfisa, but they deserve the benefit of the doubt, at
least. Monday, December 8,9:00 p.m. Second Chance, 516 E. Liberty.
Jimmy Johnson-A rare chance to hear this blues singer/guitarist outside
his sweet home Chicago. Witty lyrics and strains of soul and jazz spice his
sound up considerably. Wednesday, December 10 9:30 p.m. Rick's, 611 Chur-
ch.
Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band-The old fart is finally getting some
of the attention he's always deserved and riding the wicked intensity of his
new album. This show should be nothing less than miraculous. Open your
ears and your mind will follow. Thursday, December 11, 8:00 p.m Harpo's,
Harpers and Chalmers, Detroit
FILMS
Beat the Devil-John Huston's 1953 international-intrigue sendup bombed
with and baffled audiences at the time, and didn't amuse Humphrey Bogart
much either-he had sunk a lot of his own money in it, and didn't get the joke.
Flippant, quirky satire a decade or two ahead of its time, it's sublime
comedy now. Friday, December 5, and 7:00 and 9:00, Lorch Hall.'
All That Jazz-Bob Fosse's maddening, self-indulgenit, pretentious, inter-
mittantly brilliant Las Vegas update of 81/2 is a gaudy autobiographical
yowl of angst with symbolism, cynicism, lofty platitudes and song and dance
galore. The message is: life, creativity and love are all bullshit, and yet they
aren't. The movie, likewise, is dazzingly glib-a lot of crap and some great-
ness wrapped in enough glitter to make some viewers believe that it's all
great. Enough of it is to make this definitely worth enduring once, even the
interminable final half hour. Roy Scheider, as Bob Fosse, manages to create
more of a character than would seem possible under the circumstances.
Saturday, December 6,7:00 and 9:30, MLB 4.
Tabu-Documentary filmmaker Robert Flaherty (Nanook of the North)
teamed with poetic fiction director F. W. Murnau (Nosferatu) for this
curiosity, a conventional romantic tale filmed on location in the South Seas
with native non-ators. It's been labelled a fascinating but fatally imbalan-
ced oil-and-water combination of talents for years, with Flaherty's straight-
forward observation finally winning for control of the muddle; but in recent
years there's been general critical re-appraisal that brands Tabu, for all its
faults, one of Muranu's most sweetly lyrical works. Sunday, December 7,
7:00 and 9:00, Lorch Hall.
Under the Roofs of Paris and Entr' acte-Two films by Rene Clair, one of the
most charming and sophisticated of major early French directors.Roofs of
Paris is a sunstruck early-talkie musical,' Entr'acte a 1924 silent Dadist
exercise in surrealism. Both are being screened at 7:00 and 9:00; Sunday,
December 7, Aud. A.
Why We Fight-Frank Capra, the undisputed king of effortlessly
manipulative Americana in the '30s and '40s, did his bit tbr the war effort, as
did most of his Hollywood contemporaries. Three sections from his seven
part documentary series will be screened, and for those of you who think
unabashed propaganda during WW2 was limited to the Other Side, it should
be intriguing experience., These are wildly dated in their voracious
patriotism, of course, but that's what's fascinating about them, and Capra's
filmmaking skill was far from lost in the effor'The two-and-three-fourths-
hours show will be at 7:00 only, Wednesday, December 10, MLB 3.
The Three Cabelleros-A Fantasia without the top-heavy pretentiousness,
this musical blend of live action and animation with a Latin American slant
bewildered audienced in 1943 with its breathless experimentation and crack
visual humor. A wild rush of puns, surrealism and gaudy Technicolor, it's a
lot closer to the frenzied wit of Allegro Non Troppo and modern experimen-
tal cartooning than anything the Disney studio has done before or since, and
though Disney has not seen fit to re-release it in any major way, it's gecome
a sort of cult classic. Thursday, December 11, 8:45, Aud. A.
THEATRE
No More Masks-For every person who ever questioned their attractiveness
or relationships. Lots of well-done shtick and dynamite singing by Univer-
sity theatre students Loren Hecht and Judy Milstein. At the Canterbury Loft,
332 S. State, December 5 and 6 at 3 p.m.
Hello, Dolly! The Soph Show has chosen this warhorse of a musical for their
twenty-fifth anniversary production. Don't go expecting Barbra Streisand,
although rumor has it that this staging does manage to pump some life into
'this by-now achingly predictable, archtypical example of theBroadway Big
Show. Lydia Mendelssohn, December Sand 6, 8 p.m.
"Sheer vocal elegance, Music Week London.
'A clean, mellow style and a great feeling of togetherness,"
Evening Express, Aberdeen, Scotland.
"Cooly urbane virtuosity, "Chicago Tribune.
Artist hunts
for treasure
BOSTON (AP) - When he was asked
to illustrate a book, British artist Kit
Williams became so indignant he ended
up writing a book himself - writing it
backward, in fact - and creating a
real-life treasure hunt to go with it.
A school dropout at 15, Williams ser-
ved a hitch in the British navy before
becoming a successful painter.And
when publisher Jonathan Cape asked
him to illustrate a book, Williams said
he replied, "Painters don't illustrate
books."
WILLIAMS WAS still reluctant when
the publisher suggested he write a book
instead, and illustrate that. "I think you
could have done the kind of book that no
one had ever done," Cape said.
"Unless I'm excited all the time,"
Williams recalled, "I can't work." But
he said he paused at Cape's suggestion.
"My paintings were very complicated.
They take a long time," he said in an in-
terview. "I had to think of something
that would keep my interest for four
years. Would it be possible to write a
book backward?"
He answered his question with
"Masquerade," published in England
last year, and now available in the
United States from Schocken Books.
"THE NOVEL is in the pictures. The
writing in it is bare bones, it's really the
illustrations," he said. "What I wanted
to do was make people look at the pic-
tures a long time. I thought if there
were puzzles in the pictures, maybe
they would."
Each of the 15 paintings reproduced
in the slim volume includes a hare, the
book's main character. Each also con-
tains clues to where Williams buried a
5%-inch, 18-carat gold and bejeweled
hare, which he designed and made.
The finder gets to keep the treasure,
which is valued at about $20,000 and is
buried in a clay container somewhere
in the BritishIsles. It has been sought
since Williams' book came out in
England. There are clues in the text as
well as the pictures. -"You need the
whole book," Williams said. "If I were
to rip out one page, you couldn't solve
it."
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few SwinghleSingeU
A Christmas program
Traditional carols
Irving Berlin's "White Christmas"
Songs by Jerome Kern and Cole Porter
Music of Scarlatti, Debussy, Rimsky-Korsakov
The New Swingle Singers' style of singing music by
Johann Sebastian Bach
Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik"
Fddayw c.2a , o
F 1idAI!tD cJZ at r 8 00
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