M
ARTS
Sunday, July 15. 1984 The Michigan Daily
Page 10
Comden & Green
throw quite a
party for 400
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By Susan Makuch
T HERE IS nothing that can make or
break a party like the host and
hostess can. If the party-giver is a real
bore, it's more than likely that the fest
will turn sour. But when the host is cor-
dial and entertaining, well there's
nothing quite like it. Luckily for about
400 guests at the Power Center Friday
night, Betty Comden and Adolph Green
were the perfect hosts.
Comden and Green, the well known
musical comedy writing team, threw a
fun shebang in which they simply enter-
tained for almost two hours. A Party
With Comden and Green stopped at the
Power Center as a part of the Ann Ar-
bor Summer Festival.
The vastness of the Power Center
(which seats 1,414), did not seem like it
would offer a very intimate party at-
mosphere, but it did. Comden and
Green were very successful in making
everyone feel right at home. The stage
was a living room where Betty and
Adolph reminisced about their past, all
the while throwing in musical numbers
from many af their mast successful
shaws.
The "we're all friends" attitude
allawed the "guesta" ta averlook the
fact thattneither Comden or Green has
a very good singing voice. Comden's
voice was, at times, almost unbearable.
Her shrill, zero-range soprano was dif-
ficult to listen ta an such wanderful
songs as "I'm So Lucky to be Me" and
"Make Someone Happy."
The only thing that tarried the
listener through the duration of the
songs was the attractiveness of the
numbers. But even on a beautiful com-
position like "I Get Carried Away"
(from the Broadway show On The
Town), Comden's grating vocals
becam just too much.
This was the only flaw in a cabaret
show that is best described as simple
entertainment. Comden and Green oc-
ONE NIGHT ONLY
DETROIT CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS
Presents
"TAMBOURINES
TOGLORY"
A Musical Comedy by Lonston Hughes
Featuring a Cast of 25 Singers
and Dancers in a
LIVE ON-STAGE EXTRAVAGANZA
SATURDAY, JULY 21
8:00 P.M.
Michigan Box Office
Theatre 668-8480
Reserved Seating: $7, 8.
Students & Seniors: $5, 6.
cupied a sparse stage which contained
two microphones, two stools, and a
piano (complete with pianist). The con-
versational manner in which they
communicated with the audience
created an atmosphere of friends just
talking about old times. And that's just
what they did.
Camden and Green began with a few
numbers from their "Revuers" days.
They wrote skits and songs as well as
performed in the touring variety show.
Other members of the group were
Leonard Bernstein and Judy Holliday.
Later in their careers, Comden and
Green collaborated with both Bernstein
and Holliday again on such shows as
Wonderful Town and Bells Are Ringing.
Comden relayed an amusing anec-
dote about Wonderful Town, which
starred Rosiland Russell. Russell told
them that "I've got a voice with exactly
four notes and you have a right to all
four of them. The song has to go 'da da
da da, joke ... da da da da, joke ...' Get
it?" So the songwriter pair came up
with "One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose
a Man."
Comden, doing a solo, really did
comedic justice to this satiric tune.
"Just be more informed than he and
you'll never hesr 'a Promise Me,"
Comden sang hilariously. She mugged
just enough during this take-off to avoid
the classic chaunvinistic cliches of such
a song.
Adolph Green also had his chance in
the spotlight with a humorous song
from Peter Pan. Comden and Green
were summoned during the out-of-town
rehearsals for the Mary Martin play
because some dynamite songs were
needed to complete the show.
"There's nothing better than being
called in on someone else's show,"
Green joked. They happily obliged and
wrote the comedic "Captain Hook"
number for Cyril Ritchard. "We can't
show you how Martin and Ritchard per-
formed these numbers -, so we'll just
how you how we looked auditioning
them," Comden laughed. Green then
began jumping and leaping about the
stage, singing such lines as "Who's the
swiniest swine in the world ... Captain
Hook!" Again, like Comden before him,
he performed this lighthearted number
with just enough humor that it didn't
seem overplayed.
One particular highlight was from a
song called "Simplified Language,"
which they wrote for an off-Broadway
review. It concerns the future, where
children are taught a no-gender
language.
"We don't say meet my husband,
meet my wife," they sang, "we say
meet my attache." They also sang
about how "they used to have a penis
and vagina, now they call it a penina."
This ridiculous word drew many laughs
from the receptive audience.
There certainly was never a dull
moment in this entertaining show, but
Camden and Green intended it that
way. They were the perfect hosts.
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Eddie Murphy, preparing-for the opening of his newest film 'Best Defense,'
suffered a bruised lip when he initiated a fight with patrons in a Los Angeles
restaurant yesterday.
Eddie Murphy gets
brulsedli p in brawl
LOS ANGELES, (UPI)-Actor- said Phillip Shumway, who was
comedian Eddie Murphy was treated working for a promoter that leased a
for a bruised lip suffered in an early room upstairs at the restaurant
morning brawl yesterday at a West Carlos' and Charlie's, suffered a cut
Hollywood restaurant that led to a on the left forearm from a drinking
battery complaint against him, sher- glass thrown by Murphy.
iff's deputies said. Murphy suffered a bruised lip and a
Murphy, of television's "Saturday third person, whose name has not
Night Live" and the films 48 Hours, been released, was treated at Cedars-
and Trading Places, was in a Sinai Medical Center and released.
restaurant in the Sunset Strip area Shumway, 26, filed a battery com-
with friends shortly after 1 a.m. plaint against Murphy. Shaw said the
yesterday and became involved in a comedian was not arrested because
fight with other patrons, deputies the complaint will be presented to the
said. District Attorney's office for con-
Sheriff's spokesman Richard Shaw sideration.
Records
What Is This - 'Squeezed' music of Cream, Jimi Hendrix (OK, so
those two are sorta "psychedelic," but .
(An Andreas) . .) and King Crimson to give them a
Squeezed is a record that gets better direction to go in.
with each repeated listening., The Funny thing is, most of it works.
brainchild of What Is This, a four-piece, There is a gleeful unpretentiousness to
multi-ethnic, widely influenced band Squeezed that makes it refreshingly
from Southern California, this five-song easy to listen to. The opening cut, "I
"mini album" shows the potential for Am A House," gives a ready im-
growth that is to be found in the guitar- pression of what's to come: gurgling
happy realm these guys dwell in. bass, a steady neo-danceable drum-
Surprisingly, What Is This don't en- beat, Alain Johannes' bluesy tenor, and
cumber themselves or their music with the insistent, lurching interplay bet-
the popular psychedelic vibrations ween his and Hillel Slovak's guitars,
beaming out from the West Coast these
days. Instead, they gaze back at the See RECORDS, Page 11
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