Two
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One s a
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doll
fy
BY MIKE KUNIAVSKY
OUR cultural icons have a hard
job: they have to breathe, sleep and
eat like the personalities which we
have created for them. Sometimes
they can't handle this pressure and
something has to give. In Karen
carpenter's case, it was her eating:
in 1982 she died of a heart attack
induced by an overdose of Ipecac, a
vomiting drug. Todd Haynes, a
graduate of the semiotics program at
Brown, takes Carpenter as a cultural
symbol and portrays her story using
another pop icon, Barbie (yes, the
doll), in the Ann Arbor Film Co-
op's showing of Superstar: The
Karen Carpenter Story, which will
play along with several other camp
classics (including Dating Do's and
Dont's and the '50s wrestling classic
Scrambled Legs). Ken makes a
guest appearance as Richard
Carpenter, Karen's Donny Osmond.
Edlward D. Wood's notorious Glen
or Glenda will be the second half of
this double bill.

The Michigan Daily - Friday, September 29, 1989 - Page 9

Musical

Chairs

Amid pomp and controversy, the

DSO pays

a visit to Ann Arbor

For a moment you probably thought you were admiring cultural icons Karen
and Richard Carpenter. Well, here Barbie and Ken play their favorite pop
duo. Actually, Superstar is a serious critique of American culture.

Also showing this weekend is
Hotel Terminus, a four-and-a-half
hour documentary about Klaus
Barbie (no relation to Ken) released
last year and made by Marcel
Ophuls, best known for The Sorrow
and the Pity. Barbie, called "the
Butcher of Lyon," was the Nazi
leader in charge of that city during
the German occupation of France and
was responsible for countless
sadistic deaths. After the war, he was
spared by the U.S.
Counterintelligence Corps (the CIC)
and allowed to escape to Bolivia,
where he was protected from
extradition by the dictator of that
country. After the fall of that regime
in 1978, he disappeared, was found
in 1982 by Serge Kleinsfeld and
Simon Wiesenthal and then
extradited and tried by the French in

1983. Described by Ophuls as "a
film about lies," Terminus
concentrates neither on Barbie's life
nor his trial but on the people who
surrounded and protected him and on
the moral relativism of both the
French and the Americans toward
who he was. It does not try to take
an objective, unemotional stance on
these people's actions, but confronts
the participants with what they have
(or have not) done. It played Cannes
unofficially this year, but the critics
were so impressed that they gave it
the Critic's Prize anyway.
SUPERSTAR, etc, will be shown on
Friday at 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. in
MLB4, tickets $2.50. HOTEL
TERMINUS is playing Saturday at 2
p.m. and 7 p.m. at MLB3 and on
Sunday at 7 p.m. at MLB4. Tickets
are $4.

BY TONY SILBER
W HEN the world of art becomes mixed up with
the world of politics, the results usually aren't too
pleasant. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra comes to
Ann Arbor this Sunday to open the 111th season of
the University Musical Society. Despite the pomp
and glamour of the new season, the DSO remains
shrouded in the political controversy which put a
cloud over its triumphant European tour last
February.
The controversy surrounds a shy 25-year-old
bassist from Lincoln Park. He is Rick Robinson, a
Black musician, something very rare in the 98-
member orchestra. Since 1977, the DSO has had but
one Black musician, but last February, under pres-
sure from state Sen. David Holmes (D-Detroit) and
state Rep. Morris Hood (D-Detroit), the orchestra
was urged to hire another Black musician or lose
their state allotment of funds totalling $1.27 mil-
lion.
This incident unleashed a firestorm of debate over
affirmative action in the arts. The DSO gives blind
auditions for prospective new musicians - the
players sit behind a grey screen and perform with no
shoes so as to not give their gender away. The pro-
cess, the orchestra has said, is the only way to
choose the best musicians while remaining totally
impartial to issues of race or gender. Rick Robinson
was given a full tenure with the DSO without audi-
tion. Is this right?
Holmes and Hood, who once called the DSO
"racist," believe the motivation to hire Robinson
was based only on his abilities. Others who opposed
the DSO's hiring of Robinson said the art world
sold out. They fear that whenever race-baiting
politicians demand affirmative action, the organiza-
tion involved will have to sacrifice its principles in
order to adhere. Whatever the case, the existence of

only two Black players in an orchestra of 98 says
there is something very wrong.
Artistically, the excellence of the DSO has never
been questioned, and the rave reviews they received
while on their European tour lend credence to the
hard work of the players and their well-established
Musical Director, Gunther Herbig. Their Hill
Auditorium concert will also feature world-renowned
flutist James Galway.
Maestro Herbig, many think, has brought the
DSO back to the prominence and greatness it
achieved in the glory years of the late 1970s under
Antal Dorati. If the reports from their European tour
mean anything, then the DSO comes to Ann Arbor
as a world class ensemble. Yet with all of the ex-
citement their visit brings, that cloud still hangs
there. Rick Robinson has done his best to soothe
the tense situation; he doesn't think his presence in
the orchestra should fuel a racial debate.
"Maybe my being in the orchestra can help break
down any unconscious stereotypethat might exist
about the ability of Blacks to succeed in classical
music," he said at the time of his hiring. Torn be-
tween charges of discrimination and a desire for
artistic integrity, the DSO has probably done the
right thing. Minority presence in the arts is an im-
portant goal to strive for, but music must come first
at Orchestra Hall and the integrity and world class
quality of the DSO should never be compromised.
Whatever the case, the art world should be above the
senseless quibbling of politics and race, but sadly it
is sometimes not. This Sunday at Hill, put all the
controversy aside and come hear what the DSO does
best.
THE DETROIT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA WITH
SOLOIST JAMES GALWAY will perform
Mozart's Overture to "The Abduction from the
Seraglio" and Flute Concerto No. 1 and
Shostakovich's Symphony No. 4 at 4 p.m. Sunday at
Hill Auditorium. For tickets and information, call
764-2538.

MA CHINE



Continued from page 8
designer Eric Renschler, and lighting
designer Susan Chute, the space is
transformed into a German
Expressionist version of Cats or
some underground Manhattan dance
club complete with a Euro-pop beat
apd writhing, mechanical dancers.
Unfortunately, the intensity that
quickly draws one into the play
somehow dulls by the end. The en-
ergy droops and the images at times
feel too long because of it. In act
four, an actor introduces the image
of "three naked women: Marx,
Lenin, and Mao," and we are pre-
sented with women in black with
gold trim holding cutouts of the
three leaders' heads. Moments later
when the script states Hamlet "steps
into the armor (which has been on-
stage all along), splits with the ax
the heads of Marx, Lenin, Mao.

Snow. Ice Age," the slow-motion
tapping of the heads with an impres-
sive medievalesque ax pales beside
more evocative images. And there is
no snow. Possibly the industrial
plastic sheeting which hangs from
the scaffolding could have been used
to supply the image of a sheet of ice
burying the playing space.
It may be that the last couple acts
rely more on mechanical and techni-
cal tricks which diminish the initial
surge of power that the live actors
brought to the stage. In any event,
Hamletmachine makes for an incred-
ible non-drug induced hallucination.
HAMLETMACHINE runs this
weekend and next: Sept. 19, 30, and
Oct. 5, 6, 7 at 8 p.m., and Oct. 1 and
8 at 2 p.m. General admission is $7
and student tickets are $5.

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