'0'. ARTS' The Michigan Daily Saturday, January 29, 1983- Page 5 Absurdity abounds in 'Soprano' By David Kopel T HE LIGHTS go down. Some mem- bers of the audience applaud hear- tily. And then the play begins. Thus, the beginning and end of the play are linked. And perhaps the audience con- siders the circularity of their own lives, and wonders if, despite all the motion, anyone is really getting anywhere. The Ann Arbor Civic Theater's production of Eugene Ionesco's The Lesson and The Bald Soprano percep- tively capture the spirit and the zest of Ionesco's absurdity. Performances continue this Saturday night at 8 p.m., and February 3-5. The theater is located at 338S. Main St. The Lesson appears first in the evening. The plot revolves around a nervous, shy professor tutoring his beautiful young pupil in arithemtic and philology (comparative linguistics). As the Professor, Larry Rusinsky -steals the show. At first intimidated by his pupil's beauty, he becomes in- creasingly dominent as the lesson progresses and becomes more difficult. Conversely, the pupil loses her initial confidence. Dire consequences result. Gaining authority, Rusinsky capers about the stage. Leaping from behind a couch, crawling on the floor like a wind- up toy, dashing into the audience, Rusinsky captivates the audience's at- tention. His antic, darting eyes, and maniacal tongue give him an engaging face. At the hands of a lesser actor, lonesco's script could be plodding. But Rusinsky's animation fits perfectly with the ridiculous lecture. As the Professor explains,, words have the same pronounciation, spelling, meaning, and inflection in all languages. But only after years and years of study can one understand exactly what the differences are among the languages. According to the Professor, the Italian phrase, "The name of my country is Italy," is tran- slated in French into, "The name of my country is France." In Spanish, one would say, "The name of my country is Spain," or, in neo-Spanish, "The name of my country is neo-Spain." Not surprisingly, the Pupil is baffled. Although she is a strong memorizer (she learned all of the multiplication by memory, including 3,755,998,251 times 5,126,303,508 equals 19,390,002,844,219,164,508) she cannot grasp the subtleties of philology. Unfor- tunately, as the Pupil becomes disen- chanted by the lesson, and afraid of the Professor, Christy Rishoi's performan- ce becomes less convincing. For exam- ple, she develops a toothache, and com- plains over and over "I got toothache," but her insistence about the toothache carries little credibility, even, it seems, to Rishoi. The final confrontation bet- ween Professor and Pupil, however, brings out the best in both Rusinsky and Rishoi. Following The Lesson is The Bald Soprano. Compared to The Bald Soprano,