Page 10-SturdayJune 19; 1982-The Michigan Daily
Sharpe and Danek set out for windycity
(Continuedfrom Page?7)
$50 - low ticket prices - 'we
deliberately tried to keep it affor-
dable," says Sharpe - and most of all
good productions. By the time they had
done their second show, Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf?, in the fall of 1980, they
were self-sufficient.
For the most part, they were able to
do the things they wanted to do. Sharpe
is disappointed that as "guests in
residence" at the Loft their control over
the choice of plays was limited, and
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they weren't able to do as much new
American material as they had hoped.
But they did deal with relevant issues
such as apartheid in Sizwe Bansi is
Dead, religion in Papp, and women's
problems in Ladyhouse Blues.
They also took chances - "We failed
a few times," Sharpe admits, but "90
percent of our risks succeeded" - and
they- gave chances - over seventy
people were listed as members of the
Stage Company on the No Exit
program.
Danek sees communication with the
audience as well as among performers,
directors, and theatre technicians as a
large factor behind their success. With
more time, says Danek, they would
have liked to open up an office shared
by all the performing arts groups in
town that have traditionally suffered
from a lack of communication.
Sharpe fears that artists of all sorts
will continue to flee the city unless they
receive more attention from local
people. "There are so many good ar-
tists here," he says, being passed over
4
Members of the Stage Company, including William Sharpe, center, perfor'
med in 'Hold me!' last September.
by the press and the public in favor of Tonight," which may be revived there.
University or national performers. They'll act, and maybe at some point
They don't know what they will be resurrect the Stage Company idea. It
doing in Chicago. They have produced will take time, says Sharpe, but "I think
a cable T.V. show,. "Ann Arbor we'll do okay."
Records
O'Bryan- 'Doin' Alright' (Capitol)
I must admit that I do like the hit single, "Gigolo," despite
its rather obvious debts to Prince and Rick James. However,
there's little use in making excuses for the rest of this album.
O'Bryan tries to pull the same blatant cross-breed trick on
the rest of this record, except that instead of Prince and Rick
James he goes for a blend of Stevie Wonder's undertow. As
with "Gigolo," he manages to achieve a functional com-
bination of two without realy rising to a synthesis that would
justify his sound as unique unto itself.
What's more, the tracks not directly produced by Soul
Train Mawstro Don Cornelius are bedevilled by'somewhat
lifeless and predictable arrangements. Cornelius steps in to
save most of the cuts by furnishing the grooyes that sure
'nough make you want to move real smooth, but you yeally
have to wonder why he bothered with this in the first place.
No matter how lofty the professional merits of this record
maybe, there's no hiding its lowly commercial motivations.
-Mark Dighton
Thanks to Schoolkid's Recordsfor providing some of
the albums reviewed in this column.
'Blade Runner' talks too much
(Continued from Pageu)e
slaves who try to pass themselves off as
human.
Called replicants, these genetic won-
ders are designed for the harsh
physical conditions of work in outer
space. Hence, it is difficult to spot
them, and even harder to Kill them.
As the film opens, four top-of-the-line
replicants have just escaped from their
space station and have mingled into life
on earth. Deckard is called in to seek
and destroy the prodigal sons.
There isn't that much more to the
plot. The film spends most of its run-
ning time letting the city's punk
inhabitants and all too familiar streets
unfold on the silver screen.
The city is dirty, the rain is con-
tinuous, and the streets are filled with
bizarre traffic. While the setting
resembles the future, Scott has kept the
production design guys in check and
nothing looks too outlandish.
So, with a good director, good produc-
tion, and good Acting from Ford, how
could the move miss?
All too easily. For some reason,
either through bad artistic decisions or
because management couldn't under-
stand the film, a sappy narration by
Ford wends its way along the movie.
Sometimes it sounds like Philip
Marlowe talking to himself but most of
the time it just gets in the way of the
plot.
If Blade Runner needed narration for
an audience to make sense of the film,
alright. But there's just not that much
that needs to be explained. The
narration ends up analysing charac-
ter's motives, something a person
should think about on his own, and
something that is fairly clear anyway.
At the pre-screening I attended, most
people were spellbound by the grimy
atmosphere Scott had conjured, but
whenever Ford started talking to him-
self, hisses and catcalls were the
response.
If there is a god, someone will have
removed this narration before the
general release. In that case be
prepared for a moody, deliberate look
at a punk world of the future. If not,
wear earplugs.