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Friday, April 7, 1978
University Daily Kansan
Staff Photo by TIM ASHNER
japanese theatre
A twin bill of one-act plays opened last night in the William Ingue Theatre. The plays combine Japanese and Western theatre techniques to form a new dramatic style. In a scene from "The Missing Lamb," an adaptation of "The Second Shepherd's Bush" by James Kavanagh, the villains will be called a student. This play and "Buffalo Bill's Fall" will be performed at 8 each night through April 15.
Brooks' Hitchcock tribute hangs on by thin thread
Reviewer
Bv MARV MITCHELL
Mel Brooks' "High Anxiety" hangs by athread run thus the villain did in Alfred Hitchcock's "Sabotateur." The film liessomewhere between the sparkling hilarity of Brooks' first movie, "The Producer," and the base humor of his "Bazing Sadd"
"High Anxiety," is an off-hand tribute to that master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. Yet if this is the only way one looks at the film, many of them look like "The Birds," dedicated Hitchcock fan, Brooks' references to "Psycho," "Vertigo" and "The Birds" are quite obvious. But takeoffs on lesser Hitchcock films—Spellbound, Spellbound Jr., Narrative—are quite well concealed.
Without trying to uncover all these references, the movie is entertaining enough. But some of the scenes lack spontaneity and some of the humor is in bad
In the opening scene, the height-fearing Brooks (Richard Thorndyke), as a Harvard professor of psychiatry, is shown grimacing with a knife at his back in a rocky land. Once on the ground, he presents the stewardess with a bag of vumet. On in, a spoof of "The Birds," he becomes covered with bird droppings. Such scenes as these are not often seen, and show Brooks pennant for cuter humor.
Yet Brooks, who wrote, produced, directed and starred in the movie, proves that he is a skilled performer. Especially good is his imitation of Frank Sinatra, singing the title song, which Brooks wrote and scored.
Familiar faces from Brooks' other films crop up in "High Anxiety." A blonde-haired Madeline Kahn turns in an engaging performance as the koooky heroine, Vicki Cormier. In "The Fear of Being Leaseman (Nurse Diesel) is buried amid some heavy-handed scenes. Harvey Kornan (Dr. Charles Montague) as a prisy psychiatrist begins to wear on one's nerves as the film proceeds. Charlie Cullis 'part as a scene-skeeter' finds his a cocker spaniel is a scene-skeeter.
the Very, Nervous. A very nervous Brooks becomes the head of the institute, much to the chargin of Diesel and her lover Montague, who are keeping healthy people prisoners and bleeding their families and estates of money. The film moves to San Antonio, where a final score in the institute's tower, where Thornycki conquers his hush anxiety.
Much of the film takes place in Los Angeles at the Psycho-Neurotic Institute for
Despite the cheap humor, "High Anxiety works out rather well. Camera shots from under tables, between chairs and in the Hitchcock style are skilfully handled. The film's best景色 is a camera shot through a window, where the camera edges closer and longer until it reaches the ceiling.
Though "High Anxiety" is rampant with madcap art, it makes a serious comment about America's predilection for instant medical enlightenment—whatever the price. The movie grappies for new heights of comedic brilliance and almost succeeds.
Dramas to use Japanese forms
BvMARY TERESA DOYLE
Staff Writer
A pair of one-act experimental dramas which will be shown tonight in the William Ingle Theatre attempt to combine two high-style stimated Japanese theater forms with a contemporary production, and a theatrical style, Andrew W. Tusabuli, director, said recently.
The plays—"The Missing Lamb" by Sister Mary Francis Peters, O.S.F., and "Buffalo Bill's Well" by David Brian Foster—were written by KU theater students as part of an associate professor of theater. Tsabuki also is an associate professor of theater.
The experiment was made to see how effectively the characteristics of the Japanese theater forms of No and Kyogen could be applied to Western stories. The plays were prepared for the experiment that he decided to stage them. Tasbaki said.
IN JAPANESE TREATMENT, Kyogen and No were two forms of theater that were always performed hand in hand. They
The first of the plays, "The Missing Lamb," is an adaptation of the religious play "Second Plain," from the Witchcraft Play, on the Witchcraft Play, from the Witchcraft Play,
The play involves two shepherds, Gib and Col, whose lamb was stolen. They suspect a third shepherd, Mak, took it away and start for his house to confront him. In the meantime, Mak comes home to his waiting wife with the lamb, Knowing that Gib and Coll will soon come, Mak and his wife decide to hide the lamb in a cradle and pretend that it's their child. When the shepherds come, they find Mak's wife in child labor, and fixing, they give him a gift to the child in the cradle and they return to do so. Upon looking in the cradle and finding the lamb, they first want to kill Mak, but then decide to punish him and his wife by making them walk together like a pair of yoked oxen forevermore.
THE FARCIAL ELEMENT of this piece is represented in the mode of Kyogen, which was designed to give comic relief to the audience from the more intensely lyrical and serious No. 1 material characterized by its humor and realistically real music.
"In Buffalo Bill's Will," the ghost of a Christian priest, who accompanied the Spanish Coronado expedition of 1341-1542 and was killed by Quervain Indians near Herrington, North Carolina, Indians and William Mathewsman (known as Buffalo Bill).
The ghost of Padilla doing good for the living people is a far more active role than the normal No here. But the play seeks to capture the fundamental nature of No in its lyrical tone. This nature expresses reality in a poetic and symbolic manner aided by dance, chanting and musical accompaniment of a flute and drums.
THE MOST UNUSUAL feature of this production is the staging of the plays, Tsuuki said.
No calls for a square stage with a long bridgeway for entrances and exits. But an oval stage surrounded by a runway is used instead for this production to provide a more realistic atmosphere.
Efforts to introduce Western realism also are apparent in the simple Western unix constumes. However, Tsukaki he chose to retain the No Kyoen characteristic use of masks in "Buffalo Bill's Well," but with a slight twist. In traditional no theater only major characters wear masks, but in this production the chorus also wears them to symbolize the transitions to Indians, Spaniards and setter's service is reminiscent of the choruses from ancient Greek plays.
"IN BUFFALO BILL'S WELL," the mood of the music is a strong factor supported by a western guitar and banjo combined with the traditional Japanese drums and flute. The bass line, however, employs only chanting to achieve its lyrical quality.
Tsubaki said that performing the Japanese forms was difficult because the Western theater is not accustomed to Japanese stylization. With the added interpretation of Western theater, the end product is a performance of exaggerated but graceful dance movement, he said. The actors must control the stage and its limitations in all environments in order to help the cast capture the mood of the Japanese theatre by showing films of it and giving them records to listen to.
TSUARIK ASKED Richardo Timalleas, professor of ethnomusicology from the University of Hawaii, to attend a rehearsal and judge the production. Timalleas was at the University to give a Koto recital of Japanese music. As a performer and director, the Queen theatre forms, he said, had the quality and production in terms of its interpretation of No and Kyogen.
Timalles discussed one of the greater problems with staging such a production at college level. Audiences of Japanese theatre, or an interpretation of it, should not expect "Giget's First Date," "Waiting for Godot," or even "Adam Sultanum" to make sense. Because of its high stature and intense exaggeration, the theater does not represent real life. Rather, it symbolizes it.
IN THIS EASTERN-WESTERN incorporation of theater forms a style has been created that retains vital authentices of No and Kyogen theater but draws on levels of exaggerated Western reality that are readily recognizable to a Western audience. Timalas said. He recommended to see these plays, if for no other reason, he said, than a play based on real life. The audience will be able to appreciate it, only after realizing that the goal of the plays is to create a new form, he said.
Performances are at 8 p.m. through April 15. Tickets are available at the University Theatre box office, Murphy Hall, for $1.75 each. Admission is free to students who present their IDs at the box office.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Arts & Leisure
German filmmaker coming to KU
He is a filmmaker whose first effort in the United States earned him an Academy Award nomination. His picture was called an "existential bridge" by Time magazine, yet he still has an enormous following. He is the American film community. His name is Wim Wenders.
when German cinema is mentioned, the names that come most readily to mind are Fritz Lang, Ernst Lubitsch and Werner Herzog. However, in the current decade, German cinema has grown from a virtual zero base—thanks to the World War II antics of the Nazis—to a respected plateau in world cinematic circles.
One of the handful of leaders in this amazing rise is 34-year-old Wenders, a Dusseldorf native who is the only member of the current clique of the German filmmaking—at the Academy for Film and Television, in Munich.
WENDERS, who has been in San Francisco filming the factorialized life of writer Dashiell Hammett, will visit the new movie studio at 218 W. 65th St.
series of his films being exhibited by the SUA. His Oscar
titles were shown twice during the series, on April 9 and on April 16.
wenders work is distinguishable by strong American themes, unusual for a German filmmaker, and most remarkable for a European filmmaker with a fashionable disdain for the American cinema.
"All of my films have as their underlying current the Americanization of Germany," he has remarked. "I saw the German films of the '30s, for instance, only after having seen a thousand American films. I see my own films as American movies, even though they don't tell American stories."
HIS FILMS, perhaps, are just an extension of his lifestyle. His house in a Munich suburb is filled with American, including a collection of Coors beer cans and a joke box. But it is his infatuation with American music that most notably hits his films into an American mold. One of his first films, a short subject entitled "Alabama," was
inspired by Bob Dylan's song, "All Along the Watcher". Another short made the same year—"3 American LPs" was structured around the music of Van Morrison, Harvey Mandel and Credence Clearwater Revival. His first feature, in 1970, was "Summer in the City: Dedicated to the Kinks."
WENDERS is a rising young director in American filmmaking circles. His Hammett film is being produced by Francis Ford Coppola, the man who also produced "Graffiti" for George Laucy, lately of "Star Wars" fame.
Whether there's a "Star Wars" lurking in Wenders' autumnal scene, but he's off to a flying start with an American friend.
Hashinger shows aimed at pleasing Maggie
The people in Hashinger are interested in a variety of art forms, Cary Rogers,
Margaret Hashinger won't roll over in her grave, but she may roll her eyes as the residents of Hashinger Hail celebrate her's Renaissance" tonight through April 15.
Canadian Brass to close Concert Series programs
The Canadian Brass, a quintet combining classical music with playful theatrics and will be featured at the last University of Kansas Concert Series program for this season at 8 p.m. Saturday in Hoch Auditorium.
Raymond Stuhl, faculty adviser for the
University of New York at a private
party in New York last year.
"I couldn't rest until I made arrangements through the concert committee for the group to come and play here. I've never heard a program which is even remotely similar to the one they'll play on," said a composer of beauty and fun, he said recently.
The ensemble will play a program that includes several Bach pieces, a jazz piece by Jelly Roll Morton, a group of comedians performing traditional Chinese songs and work by
composers Rimsky-Korsakov, Purcell, Gabrielli, Calvert and Vivaldi.
The Brass members are Graeme Page, horn; Ronald Romm and Fred Mills, trumpet; Charles Daellenbach, tuba; and Eugene Watts, trombone.
Dvaellenbach said, "We try to make any concert informal. It's not totally the responsibility of the audience to enjoy a concert."
All the members are first chair players
All the Million, Canada, Philharmonic
Orchestra
"Regardless of how far apart they are, they always play together," he said. " their shenanigans are done with great precision, virtuosity, style and artistry."
Stuhl said the group often talked to the audience and moved around the auditorium.
11 tickets are available in the Murphy Hall box office or at the door before the concert.
Highlights
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE MISSING LAMB* by Sister Mary Francis Peters and “BUFFALO BILL” WELL* by David Grey.
*ALICE IN THE CITIES* — a documentary directed by Wim Wenders, will be featured with a pera-
tion of the film.
*KING LEAR*, a Shakespearean play adaptation by Grignon Knottenstein, will be featured on Wednesdays.
"VIE LE TOUR" and "THE MARATHON" two
tenure awards will show on Tuesday.
This Week's
Theatre
Concerts
**PICKPOKET** : a movie loosely based on Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment, will be released."
Films
A POPS CONCERT will initiate 'Maggie's Renaissance' at tonight in Hastings Hall.
DAVID WEHR, pianist will preview the program he will perform at the Tchaikovsky International
Piano Competition at 4 p.m. tomorrow in Swan-thout Reall Hall.
ED SHAUHNESSY, a drummer on the 'Tongtown Show, will present an all-day perfusion clinic
THE CANADIAN BRASS will perform at 8 p.m.
tonight in Bloor Auditorium.
GARY GRAFFMAN will conduct master classes at 9:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. Thursday in Swainboro Reach Center.
THE KU CHAMBER CHOIR and the LAWRENCE CHAMBER PLAYERS will perform at 3:30 P.M. on Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2019, at The University of Pittsburgh.
THE KU CONCENT CHORI will perform at 8 p.m.
Madisonville South Church Hall
Rogers said she thought Margaret
themes of the festival and have liked
the Renaissance festivus.
Fxhihits
THE COLELIQUIM MUSICIUM will perform at 8
a.m. Sunday in Second Hall
"I'm sure she's proud. There's something special about her spirit in Hashinger,"
THE HELEN FORSEMAN SPENCER MUSEUM OF ART is featuring "The Hidden World of Muscerecs" through April 18. A new exhibit – in Art Painting and Calligraphy – opens tomorrow.
All events are open to the public, and all art trees are except for the theater performance,
Hashinger, program coordinator, said Tuesday, "Maggie's Renaissance," named in honor of the benefactress for whom the museum received a dedication decoration that involves a variety of art forms.
THE GALLERY. 745 New Hampstead St. is displaying porcelain, wood sculpture and weaving by Betty Lessender, Glen Lessender and Eileen Murphy
HASHINGER HALL will feature "Maggis" an
arrangement with works by having Hashinger
throughout the hall.
THE LAWRENCE ARTS CENTER is showing photography by Ruth Brantham, jewelry and metals designer. (Credit: Wendy Glebe)
A DANCE REVUE at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, including舞戏 forms from ballet to disco, and a poetry and mime performance, at 7:45 p.m., on Wednesday. Dale McKinney, former professor at Oaklaoma State University, will conduct two seminars, on "Electronics", Mechanics and Art" at 7 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday, will be open to residence halls students only.
THE LAWRENCE PUBLIC LIBRARY is featuring
WATSON LIBRARY in displaying "Swiss in
Mexico." The WATSON LIBRARY is displayed "Swiss in
Mexico."
"Vantities," a three-act comedy by Jack Heifner, will highlight the weekend.
play, will feature Hashinger actresses, is about three women as they are seen in three stages of life. The play explores the growth that the women experience as they progress from high school to college and secure opportunities to careers in the New York area.
THE RENAISSANCE will begin with a pops concert at 8 p.m. tonight in the gallery of Rogers. The performance a variety of original and commercial music, including pop, show and folk selections, Rogers said. A reception and formal opening of an art gallery display will take place on Friday.
A classical concert featuring Karel Blasa, professor of music, on the viola, will finish the weekend. The performance is at 6 p.m.
April 15.
Rogers said "Vanities" emphasized the false values of the women.
until 7 p.m., featuring activities such as jousting fournements, medieval dancing, lacemaking and costuming. Hashinger will be decorated to resemble the interior of a medieval castle, Rodgers said, and the event will remain in the hall throughout the week.
THE KANSAS UNION GALLERY will open
"Juried Exhibition of Art," the results of the 11th
annual exhibit. (PRINT)
THE KENNETH SPENCER RESEARCH LIBRARY will exhibit "Kansas Portraits" in the Kansas Museum of Art, featuring both Main and North Galleries, and "Aud Ways and New Aspects of Scottish Culture" in the Archives.
Tomorrow, the Society for Creative Anachronism and Medieval Festival from 16 "00"
Steff Photo by TIM ASHNER
Renaissance vanity
Emily Tany, Winneka, Ill., sophomore; Anne Ivey, Omaha sophomore and Sue Blair, Kansas City, Mo.; sophomore, Maggie Cunningham, Kansas City, Mo.
Renaissance," a week-long celebration of the arts sponsored by Hashinger Hall. The play will be performed at 8 p.m. April 14 and 15 in the Hashinger lounge.