ARTS
;
The Michigan Doily
Saturday, January 30, 1982
Page 5
'Violets too restrained
Joe Tiboni, namesake of Joe's Star Lounge. Daily Photo by JEFF SCHRIER
Back to Joe's
By Steve Hook
I want to go back to Michigan,
To Dear Ann Arbo; town,.
Back to Joe's and the Orient,
Back to all the money we spent. .
OE TIBONI has made this obsolete
verse at least half appropriate,
with the opening of his new bar, Joe's
Star Lounge (109 N. Main). Oddly
enough, the location is that of the old
Orient club, not the old Joe's, which is
now Mr. Flood's Party, which Joe used
to work in and he almost bought. Small
world.
He has renovated the Star Bar. He
has ripped out virtually everything that
made the Star Bar the Star Bar. The
ceiling is higher now-the very same,
detailed one that graced the Orient. He
has installed high wooden tables and
scattered around 150 bar stools. He has
enlarged the once-cramped dance floor
and has elevated the stage. It's a new
bar all right.
I sat down in Joe's new lounge Thur-
sday night and discussed his new en-
deavor. I found out that the bearded,
pony-tailed entrepreneur is 31, a June
1964 graduate of Ann Arbor's defunct
University High School, and an
ungraduated veteran of Michigan State
University and Washtenaw Community
College.
He has kept busy in Ann Arbor "doing
a lot of different things" since then,
mostly "hauling equipment and doing
sound systems" for local bands and
clubs. He was involved with the Arbor
Alliance for some time, and has 'recen-
tly finished his one-year hitch as head
of WJJX, the University's AM student
station.
Last summer, Tiboni had his eyes on
Mr. Flood's Party, the bar in which he
had worked since 1974. The closed-down
Flood's was on the market, and for a
while, Tiboni planned to buy it. He
didn't. He bought the Star Bar, instead:
"In the long run, I think it works out
better that I bought this place. This is
more an extension of my own per-
sonality. It's more of the club exactly as
I wanted it to be. Flood's would have
been continuing' something that
someone else had opened, established,
and run for a long time. It would have
been more like being a curator of a
museum."
Tibon-'s premise in buying the Star
Bar was that the establishment needed
to be changed-new ceiling, floor,
walls, tables. Everything but the star in
the window:
"I, don't like to talk about the Star
Bar, to tell you the truth. Because the
Star Bar, like Mr. Flood's, was a being,
an entity. Some people liked it; some
people hated it. It was what it was.
"What I set out to do was open a good
bar, where you could get good drinks,
with full service, good selection of
products, and good sound system, good
sight lines, and a dance floor, and good
bands. Various people will have their
opinions about whether or not that was
available at the old Star Bar, and
frankly I don't want to run them down
one way or another. But I'm certain
there weren't good sound and , good
sight lines, because there was not P.A.
The joint was all scrunched down; the
band was hidden in back. It was a pret-
ty uncomfortable place. It was,
however, one of three bars in town with
a dance floor andlive music, and that in
and of itself was appealing to a lot of{
people."
To Joe Tiboni, there will be no more
pleasing sight in his new bar than that
of a full dance floor. With an enlarged
dance floor, the new Star is especially
suited to those who like to kick up their
heels:
"My motivation for opening Joe's
Star Lounge was that we wanted' to
provide a good showcase for good local
music, and part of that these' days is
dancing. Although a lot of people who
like to dance these days will be loath to
admit it, the legacy of the disco era is
that everyone has gotten over their self-
consciousness about dancing. And
everybody dances again; it's just like it
was 15 years ago."
While Tiboni, said he'll be bringing
new bands into town, most bands which
appear will be the town regulars (Nar-
della, Siegal, Newhouse, Flexibles, et.
al.):
"It's true that a lot of bands you've
seen somewhere else you'll see here.
But once again, you may have seen
them someplace else, but you've never
been able to dance to them on a
spacious dance floor, and then go sit
down and watch and listen to them in a
spacious, comfortable place.
"We're looking to bring in more ban-
ds than there are in the area, just for
variety's sake: Of. course the biggest
problem that we're going to face is our
' size, and our capacity (150) pretty well
bears on our talent budget."
Okay, what kinds of music will be
featured at Joe's, Joe?:
"I like to say broad spectrum dance
music-rock to reggae, funk to country-
Wvestern to blues to dancable jazz:
anything so long as it fits into the dance
format. We'll have it. This pretty much
precludes solo performers, folksingers
and things like that. Pretty much
everything else."
While his club will appeal to students,
Tiboni explained that this group will
hardly be the exclusive clientele:
"Students fit into the scheme of this
bar in the same way everyone else
does. I think that most students are
savvy enough to realize that there's
more to Ann Arbor than the CCRB and
Dooley's, that they'll come down for the
music and the dance floor and
everything else that we have.".
Not surprisingly, 'we find the club
owner optimistic that his new
acquisition will prosper:
"I don't see any reason why it won't.
If people support it, it will make it.
People support clubs now that I don't
think offer as much value as this one. I
think we're offering what people want
in a club and they'll-support it."
By Tania Blanich
T HURSDAY'S performance of She
Brought Me Violets at Canterbury
Loft proved to be an interesting ex-
perience 'for audience and cast mem-
bers alike. As a work in progress, the
play was subject to discussion in order
to evaluate its strengths and
weaknesses-a good exercise in
analysis for Ann Arbor audiences.
She Brought Me Violets deals with a
mother's inability to accept the death of
her young daughter in an automobile
accident. The one-act script, written by
Ellen Linnell Prosser, a University
graduate student, won a John Gassner
Memorial Playwriting Award in Boston
in October 1981. The play deals with a
difficult subject, but is.too understated,
a fact which weakens the potentially
emotional force of the play.
The play revolves around Karen, the
mother, who clings to her memories,
refusing to believe in the death of her
daughter. Karen's grief, and guilt,
cause her to reevaluate her past. The
"memories" of Karen's mother and
daughter speak to Karen from offstage,
but the audience is left wondering
whether the conversations are flash-
backs or just in her imagination. This
confusion diminishes what impact the
work develops.
The play does not contain any highly
intense moments but rather it rolls on-
ward to a vaguely moving conclusion.
The actors reflected this style with con-
sistant, if uninspiring, performances.
Gary Garrison, with the double role of
the neighbor apd the policeman, has a
rather engaging, intimate stage
presence.
In the role of Karen, Elizabeth
Jahnke did what she could to give the
character some life. Unfortunately,
Karen comes across as being rather
cold and incapable of deep emotions.
Phylis Ward Fox has done an ad-
mirable job of directing the play. The
innovative use of a scrim helped to set
off the confrontation between Karen,
her mother and her daughter. These
last two characters stand behind the
scrim for most of the play, emphasizing
the fact that they are meiories, and that
the conversations are taking place in
Karen's mind.
She Brought Me Violets has potential,
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but needs the obvious refinement and
clarification that the subtitle "a work in
progress" indicates. As Prosser has
written the play, we can only get in-
volved with the characters on a super-
ficial level. In dealing with such a deep
subject, we expect more and are disap-
pointed to not receive it. The play does
have a certain appeal and the
discussion following the performance
offers the audience the rare opportunity
to meet the cast, director, and
playwright. Performances will con-
tinue throughout the weekend.
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A great orchestra of which Bulgaria can be proud.
-Paris
"The miracle of this movie Is that it
sends us home in a state bordering on
elation. "-Cosmopolitan Mag
REDS
I:
WARREN
BEATfY
"
DIANE
KEATON
MON., FR.-8:30
SAT, SUN-1:00, 4:45, 8:30 (PG)
SAT, SUN-$2.50 Til 1:30 pm
(R)
9:15
MON., FRI.-7:00, 9:15
SAT, SUN-2:10, 4:35, 7:00,'
SOFIA
PHIL HARMONIC
Vladigerov: Bulgarian Rhapsody "Vardar"
Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto in D major
Mincho Minchev, violinist
Dvorak: Symphony No. 8 in G major
Thursday, Feb. 4 at 8:30
HillAuditorium
Tickets at $13.00, $11.00, $9.00. $7.00, $5.00
$2- ANN ARBOR LATE SNOWS
FRI-SAT NIGHT-ALL SEATS $2.00
At Midnight (X)
She was willing
to do anything to win.
Anything!
AA
RATED:X
At 11:30 PM (R)
The King of Karate
Bruce Lee
*
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