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 . 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, and get any pizza with 2 toppings for only $6.95 (plus tax). Only at: U-M Central Campus AMA / T 1 1 I 77111 A ppQ it Y i.