ARTS
The Michigan Daily
Saturday, November 20, 1982
Page 5
'Runaways': Musket rolls
By Julie Winokur
L AST NIGHT'S opening for
Musket's production of Runaways
at the Power Center proved to be a
rollercoaster ride over the peaks of
ironic humor and into the depths of self-
destruction and rejection. Through a
series of monologues and musical in-
terludes performed by the twenty-eight
member cast, the play exposes the
troubled world of adolescents.
The monologues maintain no obvious
continuity except for the underlying
themes of parent-child conflicts and
the pain of a child's survival in an adult
world.
The characters are not all runaways,
as the title would lead us to believe.
They range from young children
playing in the front yard to a fifteen-
year-old child prostitute 'playing' in the
city streets. In addition, the set of cir-
cumstances covered involved a huge
range of severity, from the common
problems of communication gaps and
broken homes to the horrifying realities
of child abuse, teenage prostitution,
and adolescent drug abuse.
The success of the production deser-
ves dual recognition. The first praise
goes to Elizabeth Swados, who in
writing Runaways chose a subject
which is contemporary as well as direc-
tly related to every member of the
audience. No one can watch Runaways
without seeing a part of himself.
As far as the Musket crew is concer-
ned, Runaways provides an excellent
showcase for individual talent, which
compensates for weak links in the
group effort. The creativity in staging,
costumes, and lighting makes
Runaways visually interesting and
multi-dimensional.
The weakest areas of production lie in
choreography and enunciation in the
group musical numbers. The
choreography fails to take advantage of
numerous opportunities, resulting in
many awkward and unfulfilling scenes.
Vocally, Runaways is a true
pleasure. Many of the actors have
strong voices with much talent and
training. Katy Cavanaugh and Muriel
Joseph, in particular, sing with
resonant clarity and self-confidence.
Cavanaugh's performance as a whole
exhibits excellent stage presence.
Michael Kaufman's painfully convin-
cing acting provides some of the
musical's most dramatic moment~s.
The drug overdose scene, wherein the
entire cast attempts to revive hinm,
silences the audience in shock and
horror. Their pounding feet and clenj
ched fists strike like lethal spears at tbe
audience.
On the lighter side, Gayle Cohen anid'
Alan Fox present a humorous discourse
with dolls. Cohen's impersonations are;
hysterical-she has an excellent talent
for imitation and comedy. Todd Ed=
ward also provides a humorous flair -to"
his solo on comic strip heroes.
Runaways continues tonight at 8 p.m.'
and Sunday at 2 p.m. Call 763-1107. ;
Invasion of the Ant man
'S.;
;V.
By Mellissia Bryan
I DO NOT have a handle on this Ant
music stuff. I've attempted every-
thing Adam Ant suggested. I tried to get
Bob Dylan off the jukebox, dressed as
fashionable as Ann Arbor could take,
and I even got into this zealous music
reformation bit.
But somehow the real meaning of
"Antmusic for Sexpeople/Sexmusic for
Antpeople" has eluded me. Before
giving up the ghost, I have the long
awaited opportunity to see Adam Ant at
the Royal Oak Music Theater on Mon-
day, Nov. 22 at 8 p.m. I suppose if I pay
close attention I will finally understand
what Britain has been making all the
fuss about for the past few years.
Adam is at the forefront of British
pop music. Adam Ant records have sold
over 4.5 million copies in Great Britain,
and last year he had six singles in the
British top 10-two number ones in-
cluded. (You're supposed to be im-
pressed at this point.) Considering that
Adam gets no airplay in the cultural
wasteland of America, it would be easy
to think that Adam Ant's tour would go
unnoticed. That is a good deduction, but
no, chilluns, Adam Ant is selling out
concert halls all across the U.S.A. Even
here-HERE in Detroit. So, to whom it
may concern, that just goes to show you
that this stuff has commercial
possibilities (snicker, snicker).
Sermonettes aside, Adam Ant and his
entourage (not the Ants, mind you) will
make their first Detroit area perfor-
mance. Adam has stripped down (both
musically, and well, cosmetically)
from his excesses in order to promote
his fourth album, Friend or Foe. To
clear up one point of controversy here
and now, Adam Ant has not "gone
solo." Three members of the band are
no longer with Adam, thus the term
"The Ants" is both cumbersome and
inefficient, but the most important
member of the band, Marco Pirroni is
still jammin' along with Adam. Marco
co-wrote the album, Kings of the Wild
Frontier, Prince Charming, and Friend
or Foe. He is responsible for the Ven-
ture type guitar lines; he also produced
Friend or Foe with Adam. Marco's
stabilizing effect has made the tran-
sition from Kings to Friend or Foe suc-
cinct and progressive.
You can't separate Adam's music
from Adam's fashion. His flair in-
dicates where his music is going and
from whence it cometh. From his pirate
wear on Kings (a rough and tumble
version of Mutiny on the Bounty) he
personified the Antmusic warrior that
he sang about.
Adam then moved along from one
storybook character to another. Unfor-
tunately, Prince Charming was a bit
out of his range. I mean really, all that
make up and lip gloss and ruffles, it g
tiresome quickly, and that's providigg;
you like that sort of thing. Adam surer
med up that period: "The PrincV
Charming Revue was a cameo-very
visual but, in terms of clothes, very
hindering to my movements, and I felt I"
had to stop heading in that direction. 11-
gone as far as I could with that makei
up." For whatever reason, Adam cut.
out that illusionary side show, and now.
prances around attired in what my
mother would describe as "logical
limits"-leather pants, sashes, tall
boots, and the like. Adam's present togs
take from the era of Kings with a little
bit of PrinceCharming frills. Similar to
Friend or Foe they reveal that Adam
uses his resources and draws from
them, yet combines them with new in4
fluences in order to keep progressing
and changing.
LSAT,
Helping hand Photo
Saturday Night Live comedian Tim Kawurinsky lends a helping hand to
Drew Barrymore, star of the blockbusterE.T. Barrymore, granddaughter of
actor John Barrymore, will be the only guest host in the show's history who
is younger than the show itself.
Energy and
co nfiden ce
"highlight
R.C. play
By Dave Kopel
THE RESIDENTIAL College's production of
Six Characters in Search of an Author,
continuing this weekend at the R.C. Theatre,
carries off a difficult play with energy and con-
fidence.
As the play opens, an acting company is
rehearsing a play. In from the streets walk six
strangely-dressed people. The six are a family,
Characters so they say, from an unfinished
play-created by an author, but not completed.
The Characters ask the Director to put them on
stage, to let them live out their story. At first
skeptical, the Director listens to their story, and
eventually agrees to produce it as a play.
The efforts at production result in a hopeless
confusion of reality and illusion, that neither the
Acting Company, the Characters, or the audien-
ce can fully understand. What is real? The Actor
who pretends he is a Character? The fictional
Character sprung to life? The way the Character
sees himself, or the way others see him? In the
end, we never know, for we are left in the dark,
listening to mad laughter.
Luigi Pirandello, the author, never knew
which was real. The family he put in the play
were literally living people to him, hallucinatory
beings who spoke to him, and commanded him to
write down their story.
Given such an intellectual, bizarre plot, the
play might drag. But thanks especially to three
engaging leading actors, the audience is drawn
into the game on stage, and caught up in the ac-
tion and tension.
Theatre Prof. Peter Ferran is the Father, head
of the family of characters. He gives his role a
sense of Greek tragedy and nobility, and leads
the audience through the web of ideas with an
easy grace. Jeff Casper, the Director, darts
around stage, propelled by his shallow ambition.
But the real spark of the show is Katayoun
Amini as the Stepdaughter. Her confidently sim-
ple movement, her dancing eyes, and her bold-
ness ,make the Character's story come alive.
Although sometimes hesitant to give full
emotional commitment to moments of passion,
she and Ferran create a powerful scene of quiet
intensity, when they relive an incident of near
incest.
Dan Stulberg's set, dominated by a faded
tapestry, conveys a fine sense of drab reality,
waiting to be interrupted by the vitality of fan-
tasy. Mark Liebeskind, the Son, announces that
he was "never fully developed dramatically."
And so he is not, partly by Pirandello's design,
and partly by an unvarying pose of sullen indif-
ference.
The Residential College aimed to choose a play
that would make the audience think. Six Charac-
ters in Search of an Author challenges its
audience to see new realities. And it's still fun to
watch.
Performances continue through Sunday at 8
p.m. in the R.C. Theatre, with an additional
matinee at 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $3.
Records
Bill Summers and Summers
,Heat-'Seventeen' (MCA)
The title of this one warns you that
it's not really wise to buy it. That num-
ber must mean something. It can't be
the price of the album-seventeen
dollars is a bit high. It can't be Sum-
mer's seventeenth album-he is strictly
a one-hypercommercial-album-a-year
,man. It can't be a 17 R.P.M. record,
there's no such thing. It can only indicate
the age or the IQ of the demographic
segment for which it is intended.
One comes to the conclusion that this
can only be intended as a dance record
by a subtractive process, i.e., it simply
can't be anything else. However, it fails
miserably at this task. Dance music,
contrary to what the snobs say
repeatedly, and with self satisfied
superiority, is not easy to write. Ask
Bill.
Just pounding away at bass guitar,
drum, and synthesizer won't do it. It
takes a sense of style, a certain wit-
tiness, spirited delivery, and talent. Bill
should have woken up his band long
enough to tell them all of this.
Skip the stupid, cliched lyrics which
sound like they were written by a
welder. The music is totally worthless.
Nobody bothered to think of anything
new. This stuff sounds like every bad
dance lick you've ever heard, but wor-
se. The rhythms are lethargic and poin-
tless, with absolutely no hooks to get
you moving. I guess Bill figured kids
and dancers are stupid and won't notice
the lack of any merit in this album.
Let's hope he's wrong.
By Phillip Lawes
Everyone Runs From Something...
Runaways
Book, Music and Lyrics by
Elizabeth Swados
I
rANN A RBOR
INDIVIDUAL THEATRES
IK h Ae of Lber 7610700
"'NOT A LOVE STORY'
STRIPS BARE THE
PORN WORLD"
-NEW YORK POST
A MOTION PICTURE
ABOUT...
PORNOGRAPHY
WARNING: THE GRAPHIC
SUBJECT MATTER IN THIS
FILM MAY BE OFFENSIVE
TO SOME VIEWERS!
FRI. MON.-6:40, 8:30, 10:20
SAT. SUN.-1:10, 3:00, 4:50,
6:40, 8:30, 10:20
SAT " SUN
shows before
600pm.
THE MOST PRAISED AND
LOVED ROMANTIC FILM
OF THE SEASONI
RICHARD GERE
DEBRA WINGER
.MN
FRI & SAT t12:00/ all seats $~
The Most Fun ''t
You'll Ever Have
BEING SCARED
~gKGM