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Fridav. October 24, 1975
University Daily Kansan
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
TREATING THEATRES
Swinging homecoming planned
By BILL KATS Staff Writer
The King of Swing will be in Lawrence Saturday night. Benny Goodman, 66, will perform at 8 p.m. in Hoch Auditorium in a homecoming concert sponsored by SUA.
Most college students are probably slightly familiar with Goodman's music, having been able to it through their parents.
But, for young people in the period from the mid-1830s to the early 1940s, Benny Goodman's bands were symbols of a way of life. The period was known as the swing era.
During the swing era jazz took its most significant stride away from its reputation as an unmannered form of music, more appropriate for brothels or burglar bars than for concert halls.
Goodman came along at a time when America had undergone six years of depression and was on the brink of recovery after the fatous years Coulidge Coolidge administration.
The depression years were marked by the syrupy, selfpicking music of the popular
bands of the time. Goodman's bands caught the American public at a time when spirits were on the unswine.
Probably the main reason for his vast success, however, was that he recognized what the music—music it could dance to.
By late 1935, the nation's young people, wearing page-boy bobs and saddle shoes, were being bugging to Goodman's music.
But the swing wasn't without its disagirers. A New York Times article in 1938 quoted a psychologist, on the basis of an empirical influence of swing." He explained that by being exposed to swing, "young people, presumably unfamiliar with the ways of the world, . . . can reasonably be expected to swing." The breakdown, he said, would "lead to moral weakness."
Goodman grew up and
The show gave the band national exposure. But the band was unaware of the impact of the exposure until the show hit the Palomar ballroom in Los Angeles in August 1935.
received his early training in classical music in Chicago. When he joined the Ben Pollack band, he suddenly billed as musical prodigy.
He formed his own band in 1934, which struggled along until it received its first break—"Broadway's broadcastance!" radio show in New York.
That night the swing era was officially launched. The young audience gathered around the stage and screamed its delight for each of the Fletcher Henderson arrangements.
The scene was repeated in halls around the country when the band sprang into numbers like "King Porter Stomp," "Stompin" at the Savoy, and "Sing, Sing, Sing."
One of Goodman's crowning achievements came in 1937 when he played at Carnegie Hall, the first jazz band ever to do so. That night Carnegie's cultured walls rocked back and forth with Count Basie kicked off a
Gunn aims at categorization of best science fiction writers
By KAREN LEONARD
ALTERNATE WORLDST: THE
ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF
SCIENCE FICTION, by James
Pritchel Prentice Hall, 1975,
82%
THE END OF THE DREAMS,
by James Gunn. Scribners,
1975, $6.95.
A character in one of Kurt Vonnegut's novels once commented that he loved science fiction writers because, "You're the only ones zany enough to agonize over time and distances without limit, over mysteries that will never die, over the fact that we are right on the way to space voyage for the next billion years or so is going to Heaven or Hell."
The history is a heavily illustrated coffee table edition entitled "Alternate Worlds." And although Gunn may be
Now, James Gunn, professor of English, himself a science fiction writer, has written a history of the agonizings and challenges their dark visions and great expectations. A hardback collection of three short stories previously published by Gunn, The End of the Dreams," has also appeared on the market.
stretching his point when he lists Homer's "Odyssey," Plato's "Republic" and Cervantes's "Don Quixote" as precursors of science fiction, he has compiled a scholarly study of the development of the science fiction Collections on science fiction's growth are interspersed with notes on the significant technological and social developments of the times.
Gunn talks about the effect of pulp magazines and their editors on the development of science fiction. He discusses science fiction writers and their works. He discusses the various themes and styles of science fiction writing from its early popularity in the gawdy dime magazines to its present era with mainstream literature.
The book includes 34 pages of color illustrations, mainly of old science fiction magazine literature from the 1960s and white illustrations heavily.
Unfortunately, the book's $29.95 price tag puts it beyond the means of all but the most devoted, or the wealthiest, science fiction fans. The book would have been much more expensive than it is now, and publishers had sacrificed some of the illustrations and other
outward aesthetics in favor of a more reasonable price tag, like a paperback version for $2.95.
In his other book, "The End of the Dreams," Gunn has presented three examples of his work in the development of science fiction.
The first story, "Space is a Lonely Place," is a basic story of an adult in a small years together in a small spacehip. The accompanying conflicts and a mysterious crew are in a loin cloth are explained
The other stories, "The Joy Ride" and "The Immortal," portray two versions of the future of planet Earth. "Joy Ride," a Brave New World interpretation of the future, is the movie in It, Gunn tells the story of one man on a mission to "save the universe from happiness."
The last story, "The Immortal," describes the world after modern medicine has made immortality possible for a chosen few. Local readers will be particularly entertained by Gunn's description of the Kansas City Lawrenz firm, which predicted the future. Granted, it's no gem now, but wait till you see what's coming. You may want to pack up and move to Emporia.
riotous jam session on the piano.
The Goodman bands always had recognized talent—names like Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Gene Krupa and Ziggy Elman. But the bands' successes were the result of his decision to unsecessarily orchestrate them.
Much of the high turnover among musicians in the Goodman bands can be explained by his desire to obtain perfection with his groups. He constantly searched for someone who could do a better job for him.
The search for perfection was evident in the goodman's instrument. It is a superlative musician even by the most rigorous of conservatory standards. His music has an unfaced, liquid surface.
By the early 1940s Goodman
showed an increasing desire to extend his playing into classical music. He attracted more than 10,000 people to Philadelphia's Carnegie Hall in 1936 to perform a Mozart concert with a symphony orchestra. In the mid-40s when his jazz bands began to wane, Goodman tunes and classical lessons his endless effort to improve his technique.
Although Goodman is no longer a major force in jazz, listening to his music is still pure pleasure. The show Saturday should be especially emphasized when theados Jose Benson will be a member of Goodman's backup band.
Also playing with Goodman will be Hank Jones on piano, Warren Vache on trumpet, Uribe Green on trombone, Slam Connie and Connie Kay, former Modern Jazz Quartet drummer.
BENNY GOODMAN
Although the film is poorly paced and underproduced, these normally fatal defects don't deprive "The Hound of the
Thus, it's hardy surprising that 20th Century Fox has reissued the 1939 film "The Hound of the Baskervilles" starring the bumblebee as Holmes and Nigel Batson as his "Dear Watson."
Bv CHUCK SACK
Critic inspects slew of sleuth film addicts
Numerous reissues of Doyle's short stories and novels have been published, and a chewing gum commercial on television stars a familiar figure wearing a cape and a deerstalker.
Reviewer
Also, "Sherlock Holmes," a revival of William Gillette and James Patterson between the title character and his infamous adversary, Professor Moriarty, has been playing Broadway for the last decade.
However, for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective, this sad state of affairs won't last much longer. It will never master sleuth to detect the renewed interest in Sherlock Holmes.
In 1983, film director Billy Wilder said, "The three greatest figures in fiction for the screen are Robinson Cruse, Tarzan and Sherlock Holmes." But the last time that any of the movies from the 1960s Sherlock Wilder's 1968 flop, "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes."
Lest year, "The Seven Per Cent Solution," a new Holmes story purporting to be taken from Dr. Watson's files, was prominently featured in the best-seller lists. The just-released paperback edition promises to sell as well.
Baskervilles" of its status as a film classic.
The plot, which hinges on a young lord's inheritance, is true. But the world he inhabits has a gallery of suspicious characters, plus a supernatural hound, an escaped murderer, a dog, and a machine from the Fox lot.
The picture was the debut of the Rathbone and Bruce who the public still identifies with Holmes and Watson. After "Hound" came "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," and then a series of a dozen pictures which were set, not in reality, to be published but been, in the early 40s. In the later films, Holmes is detecting Nazi spies and other modern villains.
Despite its faults, the series was popular.
The first Holmes film was made in the United States in 1920, and the Tarzan novel was written. In the next decade came a series of French, Danish, German and Swiss films based on the character, Holmes.
Sherlock Holmes was portrayed both on stage and in films by William Gillette, a famous stage actor of the early 1900s, who worked with Conan Doyle. He was followed by John Barrymur, Clive Brook and another actor, others, so there were plenty of versions with which to compare the Rathbone characterization.
Yet, Rathbone became Sherlock Holmes in the public eye, and newer films that starred Christopher Lee, Peter Kean and John Neville in the role haven't been able to change that image.
Premiere limns search for truth
Twins and plot twists
By EVIE RAPPORT Entertainment Editor
What may well be the most experimental—even adventurous—play produced at the University of Kansas in years opens Tuesday in the Inge Memorial Theatre.
"Congersonas," the University Theatre's entry in the American College Theatre Festival's original script directed by James Ingemar Memorial Theatre. It was written by Paul Lim, assistant instructor of English, as a study of the malignancy of human beings, although Lim also describes it as almost a murder mystery.
"The literal meaning of "is mask," is "Lim says." "Someone with a Spanish background might think of it as having a Latin backlight with a Latin backlight might think of it as 'against mask.'"
FOR GOOD MEASURE, the play also contains words of word games—hidden meanings,entendres, puns and comundrums. Even the title is capable of several interpretations.
"The word games are constructed so that the obvious level can be understood. Perform a game, and the background may see more in them, and if that works, it's marvelous." Lim says. "But I think, I hope, that everyone will enjoy and enjoy the games."
malignancy of human confidences. These people are constantly asking for—demanding—the truth from each other in the form of confidences."
"It's also, in a lot of ways, a play about con men, about the
But a play can't succeed on the strength of the playwright's verbal inventiveness, although that's an important quality in all good writing. The conflicts, characters in a play and characters in a play must project at least a dramatic plausibility.
THE ACTION BEGINS on a Thanksgiving evening. The artist has invited three people to his New York apartment for a dinner and a meeting, dinner and, minutes before they arrive, commits suicide.
have separated them for 15 years.
The principle characters in "Consponsas" are two brothers, one a successful businessman and the other a priest, whose vocations
THESE WORDS GAMES are typical of the kind Lim uses throughout the play, in part, he because he enjoys them so much.
Throughout that evening and most of the following day, the priest seeks to discover why his brother had invited these two brothers to be part of that particular evening, when he knew he would commit suicide. The priest's demands for the truth reveal the emotional and psychological impact of being placed on themselves and the delusive quality of their relationships.
The guests—a middle-aged European, a woman copywriter in the artist's firm and her teenage daughter—arrive, only to be buried in upon by a frank declaration that he who has received a psychic flash warning him that his brother was in danger.
"ONCE I HAD DECIDED that and had worked out a plot, a priest became necessary to the action. Lim says goodbye to the priest, and evil, and a priest was essential in that case. The kinds of decisions a priest must make in this situation and the struggle he must undergo are of greatest interest than a lay person's."
of a pair of twins interested him in the visual conflicts of such a relationship.
Lim says that "Conperasan" was originally a short story, but that his acquaintance with one
"All three of them were committed in one way or another to the artist," Lim says. "The priest is a second chance for them. They can relive their relationship with the artist through him because they're identical twins."
Lim wrote "Conspersonas"
during the first part of 1974 and
admits that he is no longer as
conspirant, but that he was in a
search for truth as he was then.
The play examines the guests and their characters as well as the priest and his brother.
"In my case, maybe what I said about the aspects of truth that interested me in Conway," she wrote. "I make it now," he says.
If you choose instead to wait for next year's release by reading either National or Sherlock Holmes, or by going the national touring company's production of "Sherlock Holmes, which stars Orson Welles as aristocrat, you run a great risk.
"EVERY NIGHT, AS I listen to these rehearsals, I think 'Did I write that?'. If all the copies of today, I shouldn't rewrite it."
"Perhaps later I'll want to examine other aspects of truth.
And he's very pleased with the production of the play, which, he says, is a highly literate, verbal play.
"Dave cook, the director, has done wonders with blocking and movement, so that the action flows marvelously with the word games and verbal conflicts," he says.
Greg Hill, instructor of speech and drama, designed the set, and Cathy Corum, Rayton, Mo, senior, designed the costumes, Stuart Lawrence graduate student, designed the costumes.
Cook, a Lawrence graduate student, directs a cast of four in the two-act play. They are Paul Hough, Phillipsburg graduate student, as the twin brothers; Peter Miner, St. Louis graduate student; Elisabeth Schlozman, Overland Park freshman, and Rhoda; and Nancy Flagg, Pittsburg junior, as Shelagh.
For without Rathbone's image to help you take the celluloid Sherlock seriously, you need another 1976 release, Gene Wilder’s "Sherlock Homes" Smarter Old Brother," with Wilder, Marty Feldman, with Wilder, Kahn and Dom DeLuise?
1976 will test Rathbone's hold on the role. NBC will present a two-hour special with Robert Shaw as Holmes in three of the original stories. A greater challenge to Rathbone's will be when Universal Pictures makes its new release.
The movie, to be directed by Herbert Ross, is the film version of "The Seven Per Cent Solution." Shooting was scheduled to begin last Monday in Europe, with Nicol Williamson playing the coveted role as the lead actress the cast are Laurence Olivier, Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Arkin and Robert Duval.
In all likelihood, the new film, however bad it is, will be more
Theater
"Oh, Watson! The needle!"
(Tonight and Saturday night at 8, Sunday afternoon at 2:30 in University Theatre.)
HIGHLIGHTS
ANNE GET YOUR GUN-
Irving Berlin at his funnest best gets a feist, polished treatment in this main stage production. You are as likely to show as it probably never was romance as it almost always is.
CONPERSONAS — Premiere of an original play by KUG grad student. Paul Lim. Twin and different conceptions of each.
BILTHE SPIRIT—Noel Cardeno's 1930s winty fluff about a medium's message to the audience. Spirits run high in this one.
(Opening Tuesday, Oct. 28, in Inge, Memorial Theatre.)
(8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday In Hashinger Theater. Next weekend, same time.)
Exhibits
PHOTOGRAPHS AND SCULPTURE - Recent acquisitions, made possible by patrons' endowment for the Arts, sconce.
ROSS M O F E T E T
MOSTYPES-MOTYPES, mostly seaside
scenes around the beach town,
scented with Moffitt.
most of his creative life.
(Opening today in Kansas Union Gallery.)
DESIGNER - CRAFTSMEN
EXHIBIT—Mostly regional
artists, jewelry makers,
artisans.
(Through Nov. 23 in Museum of Art.)
Concerts
This Week's
UNIVERSITY SINGERS— Select group of student singers in another of their consistently fine periodic performances.
BENNY GOODMAN—The ageless King of Swing with a six-man group of fellow master jazzzm. Don't miss it.
Films
(8 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29 in Swarthout Recital Hall.)
(8 p.m. Saturday in Hoch Auditorium.)
THEY CAME TO ROB LAS
VEGAS—This one ends with an
explosion, but it's evident long
before. Why is it on campus?
Why is this film on campus?
DAVID  COPPERFIELD---
MGM does a dickens of a job with this classic. W. C. Fields plays Micaher. Bath R炎-Heine May Oliver is Aunt Bety; all are excellent. Very entertaining and polished production.
Directed in 1935 by George Bennett. In 1934 BESTOPING THE SHOW, a will be BETTY Boo cartoon.
CAMILLE-Greta Garbo.
Robert Taylor and Lionel
Barrimore in a lavish MGM
play, which was extremely talented-maybe at her very best, which is one of the greatest possible compliments—but the movie is beautiful by George W. Moore in 1932.
SIMON OF THE DESERT -
short, surreal Luis Bunuel film,
with antiCatholic overtones
alto studio Brook and
Svila Pinai.
FUNNY LADY—Herbert Ross directed this over-lang, slowsequence to "Funny Girl," his single notable feature is that there is not one memorable character in her Bra Strieland and James Cape.
places that the Whi's rock score isn't overpowering. Russell's images are, with Roger Dairly, Ellton John, Tina Turner, a talented Ann-Margret and an amazing Joan Baez soaps, chocolates and beans.
TOMMY—Ken Russell goes berserk with gaudy colors and gauche effects. In the rare
LET'S DO IT AGAIN -Sidney
LEET'S AND Bob Cooley star in
this animated film,
"The Sling." The acting is
pleasant, straight for word.
JANIS—Another rockumentary. This one seems to be a delightful one, especially in the market. As with "Jimi Hirox the material" is neither interesting nor revealing. The movie's interview and Janis's Monterey Pop appearance make it Janis Joplin in a major phenomonon. This film can't change that, but it doesn't reinforce the
THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES The 1939 release, *Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce weren't even mentioned in the ads. Now their portrayals of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Strange reason for seeing the film. Check advertisements for theaters and radio.
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