The Michigan Daily - Monday, February 26, 1990 - Page 9
GUILD
Continued from page 8
Warrior Review and in her own
book of poetry, Lucky Sleep. Her
imagination blossoms when touched
with the light of other disciplines,
shown by her translation into poetry
of her husband's "calling," mathe-
matics. "I used to find papers with
equations all over them, and I love
them they looked like cave draw-
ings," she says.
REVIEW
Continued from page 8
footlights as the high families of the
town bear down on the two
landowners who are to become the
scapegoats for their abasements of
the past 24 hours, the ugly -side of
the corruption seemed thrown into
relief.
There were some good perfor-
mances, particularly James Ludwig
as Khlestakov, the young man mis-
taken for the inspector, and his
manservant Osip (Christopher Pent-
zell), who in contrast to the rest of
the cast actually seemed somewhat
real, albeit frivolous. By and large
the rest of the cast excessively over-
Octed parts that were supposed to be
merely overacted, such that the hu-
mor began to wear out in the second
act. Khlestakov was enjoyably naive
and flippant, making his character
consistently vain and silly through-
Out a play whose other performances
which waxed and waned. Pentzell got
a slow start, but became witty in the
second act as he knocked down his
master's pretenses left and right.
It was upsetting that the script
Klautsch used was altered to use
modern vocabulary, because the orig-
inal is fine as it is. Frequently in
modern plays profanity of varying
orders is used in order to shock or to
represent "real" life. In the case of
The Inspector General, it was ab-
solutely unnecessary; the modern
modes of speaking came off like bad
acting. The script should have been
left alone.
-Beth Colquitt
Ministry doesn't
#sell out
First of all, there was the ticket
problem. Something somewhere
went wrong and the whole ticket-
selling system thought the show
was sold out by Thursday. How-
ever, this wasn't quite the case -
there were at least 200 tickets left as
of Friday afternoon. Then there was
the weather. A bunch of snow
dumped on us Friday night which
made driving (and walking) on Sat-
urday difficult, if not impossible.
Nonetheless, the show went on.
The chain link fence which was
part of the stage set-up cane down
early. Although it remained up for
most of KMFDM's set, stagedivers
(or rather, "fencedivers") were having
a ball with it. By the time Ministry
took the stage, all that remained
were two support poles. The fence-
divers made do with what they had
and became poledivers, creating a
steady stream of falling bodies
throughout the show. The stage took
up most of the dance floor,even
without the cauldrons of fire or any
video screens. Oh well, no big deal
- the music was still great.
KMFDM's hour-long set com-
manded attention from the crowd.
Unlike most opening bands,
KMFDM proved to be a match for
the headliner. The music was tight,
driving and powerful. The band
seems to have a sharper sound on-
stage than on record; some of their
songs, such as "Disgust,"awere
played so fast they became almost
unrecognizable. Still, this is a minor
complaint as the band turned in a
good performance.
After a huge array of equipment
was lugged onstage, Ministry began
their two-hour set. For the most
part, the eight members stayed on-
stage with only a few changes. The
material focused on the two latest
records and included songs such as
Burning Inside," "Thieves" (which
seemed like it would never end), and
an inspired version of "Stigmata."
The band also played a few songs by
Pailhead and The Revolting Cocks;
however, their reading of Skinny
Puppy's "Smothered Hope" was too
hurried and sloppy to do the song
justice. Overall though, the set was
great as the band turned in ferocious
versions of its songs.
The audience responded with a
frenzy. Although the open space left
on the floor was too small to get a
* astipg slam pit started, the crowd
sure tried. Poledivers rained down
Halgren uses the past tense to de-
scribe her poetic "inspiration" be-
cause she has traveled from the
Oldsmobile-littered, ever-changing
landscape of her poetry, to her cur-
rent mode of expression, fiction.
"Certain parts of life fit (better) into
fiction than into poetry," says Hal-
gren, who reads from both genres
tonight.
While Halgren was taking in in-
terdisciplinary, scenic views on this
side of the world, Richard Terrill was.
on the other side gathering material
for his recently-published Saturday
Night in Baoding: A China Memoir,
which won the Associate Writing
Program's Non-Fiction Award.
Terrill, who also graduated from
the University of Arizona's M.F.A.
poetry writing program, found teach-
ing English and American Literature
in the China's "gray and brown...
repressive system" heartbreaking,
wonderful, and critically challenging,
in a "small city of half a million."
Terrill portrays the natural land-
scapes, and their effects on an ob-
server from a different culture, in his
descriptions of Baoding. He reveals
the joys and sorrows of befriending
Chinese students whose "fates are
decided " by their party leader. Fasci-
nated by these people, Terrill is a
modern Ulysses, opening himself up
to the heartbreak of being limited in
his ability to help students suffering
from the "lack of motivation" caused
by the totalitarian society. But Ter-
rill refuses to let his memoir range
close to the epic because of his un-
willingness to make judgements typ-
ical of many Chinese narratives.
"It's inevitable that we're going
to... see things through American
eyes," says Terrill, who allows for
cultural differences in his work.
However, he affirms that "human na-
ture precedes culture - if I hit you
in the face it's going to hurt."
Terrill, also a poet at heart, im-
plicates his love for language in the
memoir. He will also read both po-
etry and fiction this evening.
STEPHANIE HALGREN and
RICHARD TERRILL will read at
Guild House, 802 Monroe at 8:30
p.m.
Nghtbreed:iterally scary
Nightbreed
dir. Clive Barker
by Mike Kuniavsky
It's been a while since horror
film has had anything to say other
than "Bang! You're dead!" (or
"Crunch! You're dead!" or "Slice!
You're dead!").
In the tradition of literary horror
rather than its film equivalent, Clive
Barker's horror doesn't confront the
viewer with disconnected, untouch-
able, supernatural events. His is the
realm where the supernatural is just
that: nature taken to extremes. In the
same vein as Lovecraft's dream-like
horrors, Barker's characters embody
catalyzes the final revolt against
humanity (and, contrary to what
you'd expect from the standard ro-
man numeral flicks, she doesn't have
to be rescued from anything). Fi-
nally, Nightbreed tells our story,
the story of our hatred for what is
different and strange. In the end, that
lack of understanding will doom not
only that which we do not under-
stand, but, finally, ourselves.
Adapted from a long book, the
film suffers many of the problems
that such conversions face, espe-
cially when the original author with
his single perspective also writes and
directs. The film tends to concentrate
on plot exposition, and winds up be-
ing a little incoherent because the
film has no time for much of the
Altered States) plays the sadistic
sheriff of the town near Midian, the
leader of the good ol' boys. He sums
up his philosophy with the chilling,
"Whether it's commies, freaks or
third-world Y-chromosome mutants,
we are there: the sons of the free."
Unfortunately, it's not just the
hicks. If we look at today's Soviet
Union, at India, and at our own
backyard, we see that he is right. We
are there.
Nightbreed is playing at Fox Vil-
lage and Showcase.
Nightbreed tells our story, the story of our
hatred for what is different and strange. In
the end, that lack of understanding will doom
not only that which we do not understand,
but, finally, ourselves.
the dark parts of our psyche - what
we fear in ourselves.
On this philosophical framework
hangs Nightbreed's complicated
plot. Based on Barker's novel Cabal,
the film tells several stories but fin-
ishes none. Primarily, it's the story
of Boone (Craig Sheffer) who, like
his namesake at the Alamo, leaves
our "Natural" world for the under-
ground city of Midian. There he
meets the Nightbreed - a nightmare
team of immortal outcasts from hu-
manity living in mockery of the
aboveground world. After becoming
one of the Nightbreed, he must ul-
timately rally his fellow freaks in a
final battle against the true evil -
the blind hatred of good ol' boys
with shotguns and flame throwers.
Also the story of Lori (Anne
Bobby), Boone's girlfriend, Night-
breed follows her as she pursues
him into Midian. She ultimately
book's textual description. But these
two factors don't prevent it from be-
ing cohesive, inspiring many levels
of interpretation.
Surprisingly, chief bad guy Dr.
Decker, psychiatrist, is played by
David Cronenberg in his first non-
cameo screen appearance. You may
remember Cronenberg as the writer/
director of such demented and
metaphorical films as Scanners,
Videodrome, Dead Ringers and The
Fly. As Decker, he's the most evil
thing in the film although we never
see him commit any crimes. He's
the epitome of our post-Reagan so-
ciety: cynical, calculating, cruel,
heartless, uncatchable and unstop-
pable. When he says "I was born to
destroy the Nightbreed," we hear the
squish of dioxins sinking into the
earth and smoke rising in the air.
Charles Haid (Hill Street Blues,
David Cronenberg is simply damn cool. Not only is he an amazingly
demented writer/director , but he's bringing his inhrent creepiness
onscreen as well with his acting debut in Clive Barker's Nightbreed.
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