2s ie Micnigan uanly Monday, teDruary 1, 199b Drama debates until 'The End o By Sheila Wisely For the Daily Wayne State University's produc- tion of "The End of the Day" will heighten your social and political con- sciousness, but whether it will keep you The End of the Day Wayne State University's Studio Theatre February 5, 1995 When: Today at 4:30 p.m. Tickets: Free. Call (313) 577-2972 entertained is another question. In ris- ing young playwright Jon Robin Baitz's Michigan premiere, he challenges his audiencewith somedifficult moral ques- tions. Considering that the play is sup- posed to be a sarcastic comedy, Baitz's way of addressing the issues is a bit heavy-handed. It turns out to be more a play about issues than characters and plot; the comedy part seems more like an afterthought than an integral part of the performance. The story is about Graydon Massey (Keir Cutler), a British ex-patriot who moves to America to get away from his upper-class family. Once here, he stud- ies psychiatry and marries Helen (Sa- rah Percy), the valley-girl-esque daugh- ter of a California businessman. His attraction to America stems from what he describes as the opportunity it gives toreinventoneself. However, after leav- ing his bride to work at a state-funded cancer clinic, he, realizes that reinven- tion is difficult, if not impossible. At the clinic, he encounters Jonathan Toffler (Jonathan Ozias), a terminal patient who has left his wealthy family, swindled his friends, and is left to die alone. Graydon feels sorry for the young man and tries to be compassionate to- wards him. At end of the day, however, Graydon finds that he cannot escape his selfish friends and family and must make a decision to become like them or continue his compassionate ways. The problems in this production are not with the cast, as there are several very good performances, nor are they with the director, Melissa Wolff Gallant. Gallant, who is doing this play as the thesis project for her Master of Fine Arts Degree in Direct- ing does an excellentjob, which some- what saves the play. Rather, the problems exist within the script itself. The problems that Gal- lant cannot control are that it's not that f the Day' funny, it moves too slowly and Bait, does not quite achieve what he sets out to do. There are a lot of unanswered questions about Graydon. We do not know if he is a good or bad person, why he left his wife and psychiatry practice, or what ultimately pushes him to make his final decision. Although there is probably meant to be some ambiguity abouthis character, the play would have' been more interesting if there were something about him that made view- ers identify with, or care about, him. Despite these script flaws, there are some good parts to the play. Although the action starts out slowly, it does pick up in the second act, including some surprising and interesting twists at the end, particularly Graydon's final choice. But by the time "The End of The Day" finally comes around, you may be just as confused as when you started. 'Boys' shows a sappy side By Sarah Rogacki For the Daily Girls, leave the boys at home for this one. We're going on a cross- country road trip to rewrite Kerouac without sacrificing ourselves to the Grand Canyon. Akin to "Thelma and Louise," "Boys on the Side" resurrects the fe- male buddy movie against the back- drop of tolerance and diversity. In the wake of personal and professional problems in the East Village, Jane DeLuca (Whoopi Goldberg) answers a newspaper ad for a traveling com- panion to Los Angeles. After meeting Boys on the Side Directed by Herbert Ross with Whoopi Goldberg and Mary-Louise Parker At Briarwood and Showcase. uptight real estate agent Robin Nickerson, Jane finds herself in a mini-van headed west with "the whit- est woman on earth." On a pit stop in Pittsburgh, the two women rescue Jane's old friend Holly (Drew Barrymore) from her abusive boy- friend. During a whirl-wind journey of female bonding, the three settle down as a family in an off-beat Ari- zona community reminiscent of "Northern Exposure." "Boys on the Side" has the best itentions. It's nice to see Hollywood appealing to female audiences while dealing with national issues such as homophobia and domestic violence. But, don't forget your tissues. Herbert Ross, director.of "Steel Magnolias," pulls off another sentimental weepie suitable for the women's flick hall of fame. Quality dramatics by Goldberg{ and Parker barely save the film from soap opera tragedy. Goldberg deliv- ers hard-edged one-liners that make a perfect compliment to Parker's anal level-headedness. Even Barrymore makes a tolerable performance as the giddy glue that keeps this alternative family unit together. While the film deals with timely issues, screenwriter Don Roos bites off a bit more than he can chew. Although the film tackles Holly's in- volvement in a violent relationship, it is only dealt with as a depthless plot development. Jane's homosexuality becomes an ambivalent detail, which causes confusion to whether she ever has a romantic interest at all. Robin's illness deals the final blow to the viewer's patience in this p.c. hodge- podge of a movie. "Boys on the Side" should change its name to "Women on the Side." With the exceptions of the soundtrack and executive producer Patricia Karlan, the whole creative project comes from the imagination of men. On Hollywood's plate of masculine ventures, women's stories are little more than a novelty side dish like carrots. When will Goldberg direct? Only when the talents of female di- rectors and writers surface in the main- stream to tell their own stories will women's films make the transition to women's cinema.I Award-winning commercials show a path to video utopia By Sarah Stewart Daiiy Arts writer In a utopian world, every TV adver- tisement would be artistic, funny and at least as imaginative as the program- ming it's sandwiched between; the on- WORLD'S BEST COMMERCIALS Where: Michigan Theater When: Tonight lage of commercials is its ability first to make you forget that ads sell prod- ucts and then to make you believe, at least until the next time you turn on the TV, that "commercial break" is more than a euphemism for bathroom break, snack break or nap break. In "World's Best," there's no break, just one commercial after the other, and no warning as to what's coming next. Actually, keeping viewers in the dark has a lot to do with good commer- cials; some of the best hide the product's identity until the last possible moment, leaving viewers with an ambiguous, somewhat less-commercialized (if that's possible) short film, punctuated by a product-revealing punch-line. An educational message to stay in school, sponsored by New Zealand's Music Channel, consists only of a young man standing at a conveyor belt, drumming his hands to the rhythm of his walkman and picking up an occasional can that has fallen on its side. It's the most boring 90 seconds in the film, until the last-second "stay in school" message explains that it's supposed to be. While the "stay in school" ad is New Zealand's only winning entry, 29 out of the 81 comprising "World's Best" hail from the United States. Watching this filtered representation of the Ameri- can ad industry is a reassuring reminder that TV isn't all bad. It has its moments, one of them being the Pepsi ad featuring Shaquille O'Neil and the kid with nerve enough to tell him, "Don't even think about it." Even if you're not a basket- ball fan, you'll be amazed at how big Shaq looks next to this little boy, how small the boy looks next to Shaq and how you can't help but say, "yeah, that's a good commercial." The United States may have the advantage of bigger-than-life stars, but countries like Spain have the ad- vantage of not enforcing strict regula- tions that keep nudity off the screen. An ad sponsored by the Spanish Can- cer Prevention Campaign features woman's breasts - the real things - in an ad for the prevention of breast cancer. Some people might consider the nudity gratuitous, but its effec- tiveness is undeniable. Of course, it's more common for commercials to take the humorous route, often in the form of the bizarre, ridicu- lous or clever, or better yet, a combina- tion of all three. The California Milk Processor ad features a man eating pea- nut butter and listening to the radio. fe knows the answer to the radio trivia contest, but as luck would have it, he's out of milk and all that comes out of his mouth is "arwhe beh," in placeof Aaron Burr. Milk-"it does a body good" - and so do a few decent commercials. going battle for the clicker would end and the remote control industry itself might even become obsolete. Unfortu- nately, we are not blessed by utopia but can sample a slice of it by watching "The World's Best Commercials," a compilation of the winners of the 1994 Cannes advertising festival. The charm of this fast-paced col- Roth's 'Goodnight' reunites playwright with actor Birkenhead By Shane Michaels For the Daily Peter Birkenhead, who is currently portraying Louis in the first national tour of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America," will be landing in Ann Arbor tonight. Birkenhead, on a short break from "Angels," is flying in to play the central character in University profes- sor Ari Roth's latest play, "Goodnight Irene," which will be read tonight in the Rackham Amphitheater. This is not the first time that Birkenhead has been in- volved withoneof Roth'splays.In fact, the two have a longtime friendship that began with Birkenhead's role as Josh in Roth's "Oh, The Innocents" at the GeVa Theatre in New. York. "(QOh,Thelnno- cents') was seri- ously the best expe- rience I've ever had in theatre," said Birkenhead, before adding, "well, I guess running neck and neck now with 'Angels.' But it really was this sort of magical experience ... you read plays that you fall in love with and that are about things that you are concerned with, but you don't often read a play that has all-of that, and sounds as if you were writing it as you read it. It was in my own language, which was really a sort of strange and wonderful experience." Birkenhead, a GOODNIGHT nativeNew Yorker, IRENE has had a remark- able career thus far, Where: Rackham playing Stanley in Amphitheater the Broadway pro- When: 7 p.m. duction of Neil Tickets: Free Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" and then going on to three more Simon plays; two more were on Broadway, including "Broadway Bound" with Ja- son Alexander, Joan Rivers and Jonathan Silverman. ("I was really afraid I was becoming the Yul Brynner of the Neil Simon trilogy," said Birkenhead.) Throughout the development of both of their careers, Birkenhead and play- wright Roth have remained close friends: "I think we're each other's biggest fans - there's a lot of honest scrutiny and support." Roth's previous play, "Born Guilty," had successful pro- ductions at the Arena Stage in Wash- ington D.C., the American Jewish The- ater in New York and the Red Orchid Theater and the Famous Door Theater in Chicago. Birkenhead, who has been involved with two previous readings of "Goodnight Irene," believes the play is a fitting next step: "This is by far Ari's most ambitious play and he's not over- reaching at all; I think he's deserving of that ambition. "The play's just really thrilling to me, because in life-- in the political, the social, the economic, the-personal, the race and gender relations - all these things merge... You can have a moment that on the surface is one thing and one thing only, but is buzz- ing around you in a thousand differ- ent ways, and out of that sensation you want to make art. So I think to create a play like ('Goodnight Irene') - and it's something that it shares with 'Angels' -is to really go for the big brass ring. It's to try to do the big things that art can do, to try to articu- late that complicated buzzing." great scores... Kaplan helps you focus your test prep study where you need it most. 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