I 4. 4 ARTS TheMichigan Daily Monday, December 11, 1989 IN 'evie Marriage bowls over Page 10 Roses De La Soul 1-pils to rise to Abe occasion - ยข'here are times when the ebul- lience, daring, and sheer groovability of hip hop convince you that it's the only pop music that retains any of the excitement of punk. But then again, there are moments when you're sure that hip hop is juvenile Wand has its brain in its trousers. This ambivalence was sharply felt at De La Soul's somewhat perfunctory per- formance on Thursday night at the Power Center. Translating the hu- 'mor, verve, and ingenuity of the ;year's best rap record Three Feet High" And Rising to the live arena proved to be a bit of a problem for the Strong Island trio. Mase wasn't :exactly the nimble-fingered king of 'the turntables that we'd come to ex- jpect from the album; Posdnous was pissed off with a sound system that ;threatened to explode when the bass -was pumped up; and Trugoy the "Dove just seemed plain bored. To ,cap it all, the band spent what fwseemed like an eternity introducing -their paean to their pricks, "Jenifa." What began as a mildly comic rou- tine with gyrating hips and passable tomfoolery descended into discom- "forting misogyny with some of 'Dove's more unpleasant asides. The song itself isn't that offensive. The only amusing aspect of the show was the edgy Siskel and Ebert style repartee between Pos and Dove; otherwise the performance confirmed ,that rap is best heard on vinyl in :.your home or in a club. Nabeel Zuberi a. r Artists reveal selves through masks "If the body is the house of the spirit and the psyche, then we are all Haunted Houses." So proclaimed the Theatre and Drama Department's dance/performance art presentation at the Trueblood Theater on Saturday night. What made this short, 30- minute performance very different was that the stars were masks - masks of all shape and sizes and col- ors, and masks that revealed some- thing of their makers. The company consisted largely of students in John Gutoskey's mask making class at the art school. Stu- dents had made carnival masks, masks from found objects, and masks centering on the themes of fear, healing, and duality. These thematic masks were the most bizarre and ornate; it was clear that the makers had let loose a veritable can of psychological worms to create such striking facial deformities. One student's deep-seated phobia of wait. ressing manifested itself in an image of a blonde, plump-faced waitress with smeared lipstick and a cigarette permanently dangling from the side of her mouth. Directed by New York author and performance artist Lenora Cham- pagne, the most successful of the vignettes were those that drew atten- tion to the masks rather than the choreography. "The Party Scene" presented the dynamics of various poseurs through guttural utterances - no spoken words, just a succes- See REVIEWS, page 12 The War of the Roses dir. Danny DeVito BY TONY SILBER Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner appeared on the cover of last Sunday's USA Today Magazine with the question: "The next Hep- burn and Tracy?" No one doubts that there has been some chemistry in their on-screen interplay since Ro- mancing the Stone, but Douglas and Turner have just made motion pic- ture history with The War of the Roses. Rarely does a film come along where the two leads look so com- fortable acting next to each other, so natural, and so effective. This fact alone coupled with the innovative approach of this film and its story help to create one of the brightest spots on this year's film scene. Be- sides Douglas and Turner, there's also director/co-star Danny DeVito, who's like family acting next to these two box office titans. Divorce in the 1980s has been one of the most significant family issues of the decade. As the rate of couples ending their marriages soars above the 50% level, it's about time a motion picture took an innovative angle in exploring this problem. War of the Roses is a cynical and mean-spirited black comedy about marriage and divorce, and it makes some bold and audacious statements in its fascinating family album, story-telling apporach with the slick, $450 an hour divorce lawyer DeVito relaying the events of the story. Turner and Douglas portray 4 44 Barbara Rose (Kathleen Turner) pelts Oliver Rose (Michael Douglas) with anything short of rocks and garbage. Danny DeVito's second directorial effort depicts marriage and divorce as smelling not quite as nice as, um, roses. Oliver and Barbara Rose - two in- credibly different characters who find their common interests in bed and in money. They meet while in college - he's at Harvard Law, she's on the gymnastics squad at Madison. They fall in love, marry, and have two kids. They seem destined for happi- ness until signs of trouble appear, emerging subtly due to these excel- lent performances and some sharp writing. As Oliver gets richer and richer in his lucrative law firm, Barbara be- comes more and more isolated and insecure with her passionless mar- riage and her insensitive husband. The transition from young love in college to empty matrimony after 15 years of marriage is handled with precision by DeVito and his actors. Although a different cast and director might have created abrupt and unbe- lievable transitions through time, these three have their act polished and one would hope they never work apart again. The War of the Roses is a cine- matic diagram of a failing marriage and the roles of the husband and the wife in the home. But the film is a comedy, which makes this all theE more fascinating because the story is so depressing and angry. 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