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THEATRE
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U
I
I
Lonely
ives
By Noelle Brower
Antique Pink
Project Theatre
Directed by John Russell Brown
Starring Kim Hunter and William O'Leary
November 1-3, 7-10
Lydia Mendelssohn Theatre
8 p.m.
It spoke to me and made me
want to experience it per-
formed," said Project Theatre's ar-
tistic director John Russell Brown of
his company's latest production, An-
tique Pink. "I could immediately
imagine (after reading it) two ex-
citing performances in the major
roles. A play that does that is an ex-
citing play."
Antique Pink does speak to its
audience, whether on paper or in per-
formance. Its deceivingly simple
structure encompasses three charac-
ters that everyone undoubtedly
has passed the likes of without noticing
many times on the street,ibut no
daring plot twists, no special gim-
micks, no feats of skill. It is a love
story, yes, but not an ordinary one.
The play revolves around two cen-
tral characters: Margaret, an elderly
woman of 70, and Pascal, a young
painter of 20.
"Margaret is someone who has a
great adventure, an adventure of the
spirit which will lead to a change in
the way she meets every day mat-
ters," explained Brown. "And the
young man, Pascal - whom one
would imagine wholly hostile - is
shown to have a quiet, different inner
self. Each is searching for
fulfillment."
Despite her age, one gets the feeling
that Margaret has aninnocent soul;
her childlike delicate behavior makes
the audience develop a sort of protec-
tiveness for her. It is understanding,
not pity that one feels for her.
Here is a woman whose life can be
measured out in the simple figures of
her life's gross, net, and vacation pay,
statements in a final chapter. Though
her outward life has been
unremarkable except for her small
bouts with loneliness, she has retained
an unquestioning attitude about life.
An innocence most 20-year-olds have
lost.
It is a period of change for her; the
death of her mother and her milestone
birthday suggest that she is entering
upon a new phase of her life, probably
a last one. This change takes place
literally upon the stage during the
performance. The room where the
play is set is being painted; it hasn't
been painted in 40 years. Margaret
has made the decision to paint the
room for herself without her mother,
wondering if it is right to change what
has been the same for so long. The
now color will be antique pink, "kind
of white, like faded linen."It is a
delicate color, like Margaret herself.
Pascal is the painter, an introspec-
tive and reticent young man. His
responses to Margaret's inquiries are
monosyllabic. Yet there is a sense of
communication between the two,
arising from the thing they have in
common: loneliness.
The play is full of humor. The two
main characters are quirky, funny,
and endearing. How can one not love
Margaret's enthusiasm over her pet
ants. Yes, she has pet ants, only the're
not kept in an ant farm, they live with
her in her apartment. She keeps wat-
ch over them through a pair of opera
glasses.
Tonight marks the English
language premiere of Antique Pink.
Originally performed in German,
Professor Brown commissioned the
translation from playwright Richard
Jest
for
fun
< <SERIOUSNESS is a crippling, if
not fatal disease."
"Whatever you do, keep up the fight
against seriousness."
These words are my own, printed
less than two months ago in an article
I wrote about comedy for the New
Student Edition. Since I wrote the ar-,
ticle, thousands of concerned students
have been coming up to me and
saying "Mike, what the hell have you
been doing to put a dent in seriousness
at this University?" You, like those
concerned students have a right to
know if the man who carries the ban-
ner against seriousness is even
waving the damned thing.
As painful as it is for me to admit
this publicly, in the past two months I
have not done a thing to promote
frivolity, nor have I put even the
tiniest dent in prim self-restraint at
this University. I have not yet begun
to take the shrink wrap off the anti-
serious banner.
A lot of you are probably thinking,
understandably enough, that I am just
one of those brilliant intellectuals who
Catch of
the Day
by Mike Fiscn
P
J
Deep down I knew that eating a Twinkie
in the reference room was but a half-
hearted attempt to conceal the un-
deniable-I was serious, and I needed to
do something about it.
suggested that those who take excess
injections of insincerity feel a con-
stant desire to take part in sorority
rush.
Aside from the imperfected cures
there is no prescribed method for
dealing with seriousness. My first
step in dealing with the problem was
to search for the roots to my disease.
The etymological dictionary I looked
at showed that serious comes from the
Latin seriousus, which means
grave or earnest. Now I knew from
whence my sickness came.
Next I wanted to know if
seriousness had been plaguing
mankind for centuries, or if it was a
recent development like AIDS. It was
strangely comforting to know that
Shakespeare's Henry VIII (according
to the Oxford English Dictionary) had
a "weighty and serious brow." With
this background information I was
ready to find out exactly what the
disease was, and to explore other
diseases like it.
I found the following definition for
serious in a dictionary at the
Graduate Library: ". . weighted
down by heavy cares, important
work, or the like." Being weighed
down by work of paramount impor-
tance
could
even
Ar
elude
cons
dang
and
goin
Alon
do n
not o
they
"cau
I'll
joke
Ot
be s
serio
solen
that
and
usua
imp
plic
yea:
seri
sim
awe
cor
talks a lot but never does anything.
Call me a self-serving hypocrite if you
will, but there is something you must
know before you decide to embarrass
me publicly. I have been informed by
my girlfriend that I am "a lot more
serious than I used to be freshman
year." She tried to lessen the pain by
adding "It's a good thing. I mean ...
you're more aware of things." Her
statements hurt me, Mr. Fun, more
than any person with a marginal
orientation towards good times could
'ever know. It would be impossible for
me to be purveyor of anti-serious
ideals if I, Mr. Fun himself, were in-
deed a staid individual.
For a few days I was unwilling to
believe that I was even the least bit
serious. I made up scenarios in my
mind of all the wild, rocking, nutty
things I had done in the past month. In
one of my sorry self-delusions, I
talked myself into believing that
studying at the Graduate Library on
Friday and Saturday nights was big
fun because I took the risk of bringing
food along despite strick anti-food
rules. Deep down I knew that eating a
Twinkie in the reference room was
but a half-hearted attempt to conceal
the undeniable-I was serious, and I
needed to do something about it.
Once I accepted my problem I had
to find out if I could be cured. Students
and professors at the University are
now researching possible cures for
seriousness which include insincerity,
and thoughtlessness.
I am certainly not about to take an
insincerity injection until researchers
are confident that such an injection
would have minimal side effects. A
few independent researchers have
ANTIQUE PINK: As the room changes color so do the characters. Pictured are Kim Hunter as
Margaret and William O'Leary as Pascal.
Nelson with whom he has worked
before.
"I think for a translation to work
you have to translate more than wor-
ds," says Brown. "One has to try to
find ways of making it accessible.
With an English play one keeps the
Englishness intact. In this play we
have gently loosened its roots."
With the second production of the
newly formed Project Theatre set to
open, Brown said he has no rigid ar-
tistic plans for the company.
"We're not setting a mold to follow,
a predictable style, a continuous
theme, or indeed plays that use only a
small number of actors. I just wanted
to do plays that I think will work
here."
The first Project Theatre produc-
tion was D. H. Lawrence's The
m
C~i spy
OorNi
RALPH'S
MARKET
The mini.mart
where you buy smart
Daughter-in-Law, a play rarely per-
formed in the U.S. in which Brown
tackled such problems as a language
barrier, scenes difficult to stage and a
complex set design.
With Antique Pink the big technical
problem is the painting of the room
over the course of the play, night after
night. How will it be done? "It's a sur-
prise," said Brown, smirking.
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4 Weekend/Friday, November 1, 1985
Weekend/F