ARTS
OThe Michigan Daily,
Thursday, September 19, 1991
Page 5
i
Four people play two
parts in Duet for One
y Mike Kolody
When someone gets hired, fired,
invited to her best friends wedding,
invited to her own wedding, goes to
a funeral, gets in a car accident, loses
a fortune, first succeeds and then
does not... how does one react?
Sometimes quick, instinctive ad-
justments need to be made in life -
*>ften with long lasting repercus-
sions. Abrupt changes and huge
consequences.
Duet for One is a play about
looking back - and thinking.
The Ann Arbor Civic Theatre's
double-casted production of Tom
Kempinski's Duet for One hopes to
evince this process for its audience.
With only two characters and a sto-
ry that does not physically leave a
psychologist's office, the produc-
tion promises to present cognitive
rather than visual fireworks.
Stephanie (Wendy S. Hiller,
Mary L. Petit), a successful, happily
married violinist on the brink of
fame, suddenly finds that she has
multiple sclerosis. The play focuses
on her attempts to come to terms
with changes that the disease will
bring about in her life. Faced with
the possible loss of her career, her
marriage and even her ability to play
the violin, Stephanie reflects upon
her losses with the aid of a comfort-
ing psychiatrist, Dr. Feldman (Pe-
ter Bellanca, Tim Morely).
Feldman steers Stephanie
through what director Simon Ha
calls "a series of revelations and
discoveries," through the denial, de-
pression and confrontation of her
problems. "For this play, the recall
of experience... how she came to be
what she is... is more significant
than experience itself," Ha ex-
plains. "(I hope to) make (the
drama) so real that we can make a
dramatic leap over the physical - a
crystallized experience."
An alternating cast promises to
give the show a slightly different
turn each night. Ha says that the
strength of the actors' auditions
prompted him to explore different
characters' nuances with equal
depth.
The bulk of the acting and pro-
duction staff are part-time thespians
'(I hope to) make it so
real that we can make
a dramatic leap over
the physical'
-Simon Ha
Director, Duet forOne
from Ann Arbor. The playwright,
Tom Kempinski, has won interna-
tional fame. The play won the
London Drama Critics Award when
it opened in England in 1980, and the
London Daily Mail called it "as
moving a piece of theater as you
could wish for." Ha comments on
the strong impact of the text, stat-
ing that Kempinski "seemed to have
a lot of first hand clinical experi-
ence and a sense of profound under-
standing."
"Because of its (unique) nature,
this is one of those plays that is not
often produced," continues Ha,
adding that "adventurous students
may greatly enjoy the production."
DUET FOR ONE will run Thursdays
through Saturdays at 8 p.m.,
September 19 through October 5 at
the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre, 1035
South Main Street. Tickets are $7,
Thursday tickets are two-for-one.
For more ticket info. call 662-7282.
Maggie (Lisa Zane) is wowed by Freddy's (Robert Englund) elastic capabilities. "Gee, Freddy, you know what
they say about guys with really long arms," she whispers in his ear, as she playfully puts him in a headlock.
if
Works of weaver Terry O'Toole
'loom over the Ann Arbor area
by Laura Howe
As a weaver who works out of her
Saline home, Terry O'Toole thinks
of the Ann Arbor area as one of the
better places to be an artist. "People
*don't look at me like I'm an alien
when I say, 'Yes, I'm a full-time
artist,"' O'Toole says. Ann Arbor is
reportedly an excellent receiving
community for O'Toole's woven
wall hangings and scarves, as well
as for other fiber arts such as
quilting, basketry and spinning.
Unlike other "macrame artists"
of the '60s, O'Toole came to weav-
ing simply because she was bored
with jewelry making in high school.
Later, she took classes at Eastern
Michigan University and also con-
tinued to weave on her own, learn-
ing through experimentation. Many
of her early works were wall hang-
ings which incorporated feathers
and weeds into the design, keeping
abreast of the whole macrame scene.
O'Toole is adamant that fiber
artists should be considered more
than just crafts people. She ac-
knowledges that people can come to
fiber arts with an academic agenda,
but insists that the very artistic
form of working in the fiber arts
cannot be ignored. "There's a whole
level and span of things and there's a
lot of incredible fiber art out there
that is very much an art form,"
O'Toole says.
In fact, the proliferation of this
artistry has generated the Ann
Arbor Fiberarts Guild, which holds
sales at the Matthaei Botanical
Gardens every fall and spring - a
very popular event, O'Toole says. A
collective booth at the Art Fair has
also been successful. Currently, the
Guild does not have any gallery
space, but the members meet period-
ically. O'Toole has her own booth at
the Art Fair, but doesn't travel to
exhibit at as many art shows as she
used to.
O'Toole herself does not ne-
cessarily approach her work from an
academic standpoint. Her envi-
ronment, natural and human-made,
is the basis from which she draws
her color schemes. She works regu-
larly with jewel tones and espe-
cially enjoys black dyes, using a very
exact Japanese technique of hand-
dyeing called ikat.
The precision O'Toole uses in
See O'TOOLE, Page 9
Alas, our
Freddy's
finally
left us
Freddy's Dead:
the Final
Nightmare
dir. Rachel Talalay
by Brent Montheit
Having never seen a "Freddy"
film, it was with great trepida-
tion that I went to Freddy's
Dead, the last in the Nightmare
on Elm Street series. Surely, this
sixth film in a slasher series
could not keep my monocled eye
open for very long, but toll the
bell: Freddy's dead, long live
Oscar - for both Robert
Englund and the (wet) dream
warrior Lisa Zane. Ooomph!
Englund's complex portrayal
of Freddy Krueger makes
Anthony Perkins' psychotic mo-
tel manager seem as mild man-
nered as Bob Newhart's. Mr.
Krueger's attacks in teenagers'
dreams is an indictment of the
apathy and sleep-like existence
of today's younger generation.
The creator of the Nightmare se-
ries is telling our youth to wake
up to reality or die a gruesome
death, such as having their in-
nards sucked out with a veg-o-
matic while their eyeballs are
skewered and barbecued. Mr.
Krueger'ssardonic wit during
their spiritual torture empha-
sizes their own lack of quick
thinking, while his disfigure-
ment mocks their own scarred
souls.
Taking a cue from David
Lynch's Wild at Heart, Freddy's
D e a dpays homage to an
American classic when Mr.
Krueger appears on a broom and
threatens a teenager, saying, "I'll
get you, my pretty. And your lit-
tle soul, too!" The film also
nods to other classics when a
group of teenagers returns to the
original Elm Street house
(Scarlett's return to Tara in
Gone With the Wind) and during
the surreal dream sequences (the
Dali-created dream in Hitch-
cock's Spellbound).
The story is set ten years in
the future, when all but one
teenager in Springwood, Ohio
have been killed. This Omega
Child, John (Shon Greenblatt), is
the key to Mr. Krueger's past and
the key to Mr. Krueger's escape
from Springwood. Could he also
be the key to Mr. Krueger's
forthcoming death? No. John
thinks that he's Mr. Krueger's
child, when in fact the child is
actually female; John thus
thinks that he's a woman. This,
no doubt, is caused by Mr.
Krueger's trademark razor fin-
gerblades, a signifier of the cas-
tration complex all male teen-
agers endure. Mr. Krueger, how-
ever, bears no such complex, as
indicated by the scrotal charac-
teristics of his face. He embodies
the sexuality that permeates the
dreams of all adolescents.
Kudos to Roseanne Barr, her
It's Tom Arnold and Roseanne Barr doing a cameo in The Final
Nightmare. Sorry, they're not brutally killed on screen by Freddy.
ilt
husband Tor Arnold,, and Alice
Cooper, who mock their stardom
by appearing in bit parts that are
unmemorable and also uninter-
esting. Lisa Zane is equally for-
gettable as Maggie, who rede-
fines the Elektra complex when
she brings Freddy/Father out of
her dreams and impales him with
a phallic object which promptly
explodes during the film's
exciting "climax."
This ending appears in 3-D, an
effect that is ingeniously worked
into the movie. A dream expert
gives Maggie 3-D glasses to
wear, explaining that they hold
no significance in real life but
can be anything she wants in her
dreams; the audience puts on the
glasses when Maggie does and
experiences the "Comin' at ya"
effect along with her (good
thing the expert didn't give her
sunglasses or it would've been
too dark to see the film).
The death of Mr. Krueger
will surely have as big an emo-
tional impact on the public's
conscious as the death of John
Updike's Harry "Rabbit" Ang-
strom or the death of MASH's
Henry Blake. "Alas, poor
Freddy. I knew him, Ebert."
FREDDY'S DEAD: THE FINAL
NIGHTMARE is playing at
Showcase and Fox Village.
I1
s
I~. I~I ~I - m
Footloose in
Washtenaw County
edited by Ruth Kraut
The Ecology Center
Tired of the same old walk in the
Arb? Curious about the town you
live in and the campus you study on?
Looking for study breaks ranging
from 45 minutes to an entire week-
end? Then the revised Footloose in
Washtenaw County, published by
Ann Arbor's Ecology Center, is the
book for you. In 34 walks that range
from a short tour around Central
Campus to a challenging 35-mile
hike on the beautiful Waterloo-
Pinckney Trail, Footloose offers
you a chance to spend a gorgeous
See BOOKS, Page 9
5TH AVE. AT LIBERTY 7614700
SODAILY SHOWS BEFORE 6PM
EAL EPALL DAY TUESDAY
The Doctor(PG.13)
Barton Fink (R)
BUY A 22 OZ. DRINK
AND GET ONE
CUWFree 4T oz. Popcorn
PESENTTHS COPONWMTH PURCHASED
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The work of Ann Arbor-based artist Terry O'Toole includes wall
hangings, scarves and Teddy Bears. Don't wanna be your tiger...
After Midnight ..
Since 1948 za
LATE NIGHT SPECIAL-
Call after midnight, mention this flyer,
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