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Tintypes
Power Center
December 10-12
By Colleen Egan'
T HE BROADWAY musical,
America's contribution to theater,
presents a picture of life, to its audien-
ce, that suggests that despite all of the
difficulties we encounter throughout it,
life is indeed worthwhile. In A Chorus
Line, the thrilling finale gave the
characters and audiences of the show
what they had been hungering for
during the intense auditions. The stress
we felt for and with the auditioners was
well worth the wait; the ending was
truly vivacious.
Tintypes presents a picture of the
turbulent era at the turn of the century
in a way that makes all of its tumult
worthwhile. The lively, Tony Award
nominee's first national touring
production comes to Ann Arbor for a
three-day engagement at the Power
Center, December 10-12.
The delightful musical, starring for-
mer opera singer Patrice Munsel,
presents photographic segments that
recall the anticipation, fervor, and ap-
prehension of those living during the
Ragtime era. Tintypes' rousing style
embraces over 50 songs and dances, in-
cluding favorites by the great John
Philip Sousa, Scott Joplin, and George
M. Cohan, as well as the comedy from
the days of vaudeville, the Teddy
Roosevelt epoch, and the days of Em-
ma Goldman and Anna Held.
Tintypes, nominated in 1980 for two
Tony Awards, including .Best Musical,
was conceived by Mary Kyte, Mel Mar-
vin and Gary Pearle. The emphasis, as
in most musicals, is on entertainment,
but in Tintypes we receive a history
lesson as well. The arrival of im-
migrants, the wonder of inventions,
Teddy Roosevelt's creation of the
Panama Canal and Emma Goldman's
fight for the rights of women and labor,
are all detailed in the captivating
revue. The country's love affair with
the Ziegfeld Follies, French singer An-
na Held is also related.
Anna Held, portrayed by Ms. Munsel,
intrigued not only the country but
Florenz Ziegfeld as well, enough in fact
to inspire him to create the famous
Follies. In Tintypes, Munsel is said to
capture Anna Held's charm in the songs
that brought her fame and public
adoration, enhancing them with her
own personal style of comedy.
It is appropriate that Munsel, a
women of many firsts should play the
first lady of the Follies. At age seven-
teen, Munsel became the youngest
singer to debut at the Metropolitan
Opera. She has sung many highly ac-
claimed roles at. the Metropolitan in
Romeo and Juliet, La Boheme, and
Mignon, to name a few. In The Merry
Widow she broke all box office records
at the New York State Theatre at Lin-
coln Center.
Opera is only one of her many talents.
Munsel has also been a success on
radio, in Las Vega, internationally, in
film and on television specials, variety
shows and dramatic performances, as
well as on her own weekly variety show,
The Patrice Munsel Show, produced by
ABC. She is also noted for her perfor-
mances in such musicals as Can-Can,
Applause, and A LittleNight Music as
well as for her command performances
before the Queen of England and three
United States presidents and their
guests.
Tintypes communicates to contem-
porary audiences the difficulties ex-
perienced by immigrants during the
half-century between the Civil War and
the Roaring Twenties. It describes the
wide space between what the new
Americans thought they were going to
get and the reality of what they faced.
The show also characterizes the op-
timism that existed despite the gap.
The music and dance of Tintypes
depicts America's love for vaudeville
entertainment and Ragtime music,
which in turn mirrors the excitement,
warmth, and uncertainty at the dawn of
the 20th century. Munsel closes the
Professional Theatre Program's first
Best of Broadway offering with
"Toyland." Victor Herbert's song from
1903 summarizes the insightful,
arousing, nostalgic American history
lesson presented in Tintypes.
Pasta
heaven
Argiero's
300 Detroit
Hours: 11 a.m.-10 p.m.0 Monday-
Saturday. Closed Sunday.
By Ann Marie Fazio
H EY, I'LL make you an offer you
can't refuse. Go eat at Argiero's.
Tucked away on 300 Detroit St., the
restaurant seems like a villa cafe that
you would discover quite by accident
while touring the Italian countryside.
Very small and dark, by nightfall, if
you don't know where Argiero's is, you
could easily walk past it. Those who
know look for the red and green
Christmasklights which adorn the ex-
terior.
The inside is quaint, but a little too
noticeably remodeled. Red and white
checked tablecloths do cover the small
tables, however, and the crowd is
refreshingly non-college.
The food is that home-style that you
would expect to find at that villa-
nothing extravagant, just good. And
also very inexpensive. Two can stuff
themselves for about $10. The dinners
can be ordered in half-orders, which
are enough to satisfy the normal ap-
petite, for about $3, and full orders,
twice as big for about $4-5.
Start out with the soup. Both varieties
are excellent. The minestrone has a
savory beef broth filled with Italian
beans and other vegetables. The other
selection has chicken-filled noodle rings
(tortellini) swimming in chicken broth.
Both are topped with generous
sprinklings of Parmesan cheese.
The antipasto, often the favorite part
of an Italian feast, is disappointing. A
bit of lettuce, a black olive and several
slices of cold cuts and cheese, even if
they are salami and provolone, do not
an antipasto make. -
Thepasta dishes, however, make up
for any salad failings. The best of those
are the spinach pasta dinners and the
green herb sauces. The Pesto is
especially good, a thick buttery herb
sauce poured over spinach rotini, curly
noodles. The Pasto di Giorno is also
delicious, rotini in an oil, butter and
garlic sauce-one of those dishes either
both you and your date order, or neither
do.
For those who prefer the traditional
tomato sauce over pasta, stick to the
spinach noodle dishes. The spinach fet-
tucini, wide, flat noodles with tomato
sauce, and spinach lasagna, wider, flat-
ter noodles layered with cheese and
sauce, are both hearty, tasty and
filling.
The plain, old spaghetti is, unfor-
tunately, just that-plain. The sauce is
less than spectacular and a bit too
tomatoey. The chicken cacciatore was
also lack-lustre. It was basically
chicken in tomato sauce. No garden
fresh vegetables, except for a
mushroom here and there.
Do save room for dessert. The cannoli
are a confectioner's delight, made the
real way, with ricotta cheese. And the
mile-high Amoretto torte has alcoholic
vapors rising from its fluffy layers.
All in all, Argiero's is a wonderful lit-
tle Italian restaurant. Though it's not
perfect, neither is your grandmother's
kitchen.
Mangiare!
SIGNALS
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