Page 8-The Michigan Daily - Thursday, September 20, 1990 Wilderness hits our Arbor - - by Mike Kolody These days, the seemingly innocent question,"Ya wanna go see a play?," is often met with harsh responses. Many imagine radically experimental art forms, featuring depraved individuals shouting Marxism into megaphones and rolling their scantily clad bodies in chocolate pudding. Though certainly thought provoking, this probably wouldn't be a good first date. Not to worry. Besides the off- beat, Ann Arbor has entertainment that would appeal to just about any- body. Eugene O'Neil's only true comedy Ah, Wilderness!, playing at the Ann Arbor Civic Theater, is just that kind of benign work. As di- rector Susan Morris attests, "I'd rec- ommend this play to anyone, of any age. It provides a nice perspective, illustrating multiple vantage points on family life from characters of all different ages." Set in the early 1900s, Ah, Wilderness! is O'Neil's nostalgic look back at family life in the ideal American fashion. We follow the Miller family through a typical Fourth of July holiday that has all the ordinary ups and downs of any good-sized family gathering. The eldest male, Nat, rules with a loose grip, and a loving touch - presiding over a hoard of sisters, uncles, cousins and kids with cheerful pa- tience. Nat's sister, Lily, a self pro- claimed spinster, has flirted with Nat's brother-in-law Sid on and off for years. This year Sid is bound and determined that he will marry her, while she is just as set on reforming him. Adding to the confusion, Nat's 16-year-old son Richard gets entan- gled in a love relationship of his own, as a series of events plops him into the lap of a wanton woman. Meanwhile, Essie, the ever-patient mother, takes each crisis one at a time, never taking any one of them, too seriously. O'Neil makes sure the play al- ways has a soft romantic edge - it never descends into the blackness his later works did. One gets the feeling that all the family members love each other, and that no matter how rough the roller coaster ride gets, ev- erything will work out in the end. "The play doesn't really fit into O'Neil's lexicon per se," says Mor- ris,"The most we ever see [of his more dramatic works] are glimpses. It's just kind of a little nostalgia at mid-life." World Party Goodbye Jumbo Ensign/Chrysalis As the current retrograde slouch of radio nostalgia has all too clearly pointed out, there are artists who write classic songs - and those who write songs that are merely classic- sounding. Usually, the difference between the former and the latter amounts to about 20 years in age. But World Party, mercifully, is one of those rare new groups who belong in that first category. Goodbye Jumbo, the second release from this loose English collective led by former Wa- terboys keyboardist Karl Wallinger, gives ample evidence that - as far as songwriters working in the '60s idiom are concerned - its creator is as close to the real thing as we've seen in a long, long time. "I've got rare '69 Beatles," sings Wallinger in "Sweet Soul Dream," and you'd better believe it: working on his own protracted schedule in a self-built London studio, the multi- instrumentalist has spent the last three-and-a-half years building his sprawling vocabulary of pastel chops by rehearsing the entire catalogues of groups like the Fab Four, the Beach Boys and Bob Dylan. Sometimes, Wallinger's immer- sion in these old sounds results in a low-tech sound that can grow te- dious, at least compared to the band's stunning 1986 debut, Private Revolution - whose Prince-like funk gestures bridged a certain gap between the '60s and the '90s. But even without the modern trappings, new songs like "Show Me To The Top" distinguish World Party from retro-designer copies like the Black Crowes or the Front. The scope of Wallinger's musical influences out- stretches the obvious "classic" (read: white)-rock staples (The Rolling Stones, The Doors) to embrace un- sung heroes like Sly and the Family Stone. But the quality that truly puts Wallinger in a class with the greats - and sets his potentially trendy environmentalism apart from the neo-hippie "love, man" musings of anachronisms like Lenny Kravitz - is the unexpectedly apocalyptic vi- sion of his lyrics, compounded by arresting clues out of musical his- tory. "There's breeding in the sew- ers.../ all the sheep will have two heads/ And Thursday night and Fri- day will be on Tuesday night in- stead," sings Wallinger with palpa- ble dread over the ironically uplift- ing, Stones-in-Waikiki guitar loco- motion of "Way Down Now." And as the song barrels to its conclusion, the band fades by be-bopping the haunting "woo-woo" chorus from "Sympathy for the Devil." A chord- sequence quotation from the Byrds' "Turn, Turn, Turn" suggests that the major-key optimism of "When the Rainbow Comes" may not be so naive after all; and atop the ploonk- ing machine percussion of the album opener, "Is It Too Late?," the bluesy vocal phrasings borrowed from Van Morrison's "Baby Please Don't Go" imbue a global lament with personal implications - before Jeff Trott's careening slide-guitar sirens bring the track to a powerful climax. Unfortunately, the second portion of Goodbye Jumbo - by and large lacking such rocking highlights - sinks into a rut of well-written, but tepid ballads. Out of World Party's mellow moods, though, emerges a classic: "Ain't Gonna Come Till I'm Ready," a languid, plodding master- stroke of falsetto vocals and staccato brass which recalls vintage Isley Brothers. In his finest moment, Wallinger sets off a timeless groove with lyrics of mysterious reproach and an ominous admonition ("But sometimes you have to be nice/ Or there'll be hell to pay"). Unlike Private Revolution's seamless conception - every song standing as a complete idea on its 0' AH, WILDERNESS! will be playing at the Ann Arbor Civic Theater, 1035 S. Main St., Thursdays thru Saturdays, Sept. 20 - Oct. 6. Show time is 8 pm. General admission is $6, with Thursday tickets two-for- one. Karl Wallinger and World Party appear tonight at St. Andrew's Hall in Detroit Tickets are available at Ticketmaster for $12.50 (plus evil service charge). Tickets at the door are $15 and the doors open at 9 p.m. own - Goodbye Jumbo is a bit too T mellow overall to fully initiate one in the musical breadth of Wallinger's urgent visions. But these shortcom- ings are most likely due to the sub- jectivity of extended studio hiberna- tion. If World Party's past live shows are any indication, the sup- port of Karl's cohorts will indeed demonstrate that he can work it out, on the stage. -Michael Paul Fischer U STATE Continued from page 5 poisonous venom. The Enlighten- ment ultimately failed because it ne- glected the power of myth in its quest to rationalize the world. Myth is able to strike chords in the human unconscious, a much more powerful ::". {. { impulse than drumming in dictums r . through dogma. Hls id The campaigns of HelmsWild-.. mon, Gore, Pierce, etc. against the >',::