University Daily Kansan
Friday, March 1, 1974
5
Plav Set in Irish Strife
By DON CREACH
KansanReviewer
"The Experimental Theatre production of "The Flats" is an American premiere. More important, the play will provoke discussion about the undercard of 1,000 years of war in Ireland.
There have been few depictions of war that have seemed more real to me than "The Flats." The Irish war is a civil war. Few wars have been more senseless. It has been used inward that the purpose of the historic chars and drums really is "waking the dead."
The play is especially moving because so many of the people in it are "characterists" in the sense that they are memorable people, the ones we tell anecdotes about and do special favors for. In a discussion after the play, John Boyd, the playwright, compared them to one's own
To me, there are few especially memorable lines. That's partly due to a lack of practice in playing Irish, which would have meant more to me had there been no attempt at Irish and British accents. Unfortunately, I was conscious of the sound Irish or British during all the speeches.
As I concentrated on the lines, I noticed more physical characteristics. These were what convinced me of the values of the characters. The juntity walking of Alan Scherer, the presence of his shoes by Beth Bush, junior; and the smoking from the side of his mouth by Jeff Tamblyn.
I accepted and appreciated these people and I was impressed to see what they did in the play. I saw how much the play comes from understanding the development of the different attitudes toward war and seeing what effect the characters' different, legitimate attitudes.
The most striking attitude is that of Katherine Donellan, played by Busy Her. Buffie pacificize, humanitarian outlook immediately changes when she faces a threat which threatens her home life. The biggest challenge of the play is to make that interest consistent. Consistent. Busy handles it perfectly.
Prairie Village junior, were tremendously authentic. There were innumerable exchanges of glances and expressions that brought my smile of recognition.
But were left with a terribly complex situation of tension. Boyd says "authors don't offer solutions," and there's no attempt here to present a simple solution. There's just the question, "Who's responsible for the experience of presenting the play in Belfast, the audience has come away with 'ashes faces' and an expression of 'mea cuba.'"
As an American, I think it could just as easily be me; so I can't escape feeling culpable. I never thought I could feel guilty about a war in Ireland. But there's always a
"The Flats" will be performed at 8 tonight and tomorrow night in the Expo.
Solzhenitsyn's Career Traced by Countryman
By CAROL GWINN
Kansan Reviewer
"TEN YEARS AFTER IVAN
JACKSON Zion 1972
(202 pages; Knot 1972; $4.50)
Alexander Solzenhtsen's exile from the Soviet Union this month culminates "Ten Years After Ivan Denisovich," an analytical study of censorship of the arts in Russia through the specific example of a prominent document and outspoken writer, Solzenhtsen.
Art serves a different function under an oppressive rule from what it does in a free
reviews
state because it provides a release, an emotional outlet for the suppressed.
Medvedev traces the literary career of the obscure Solzenitsyn from Ryazan in eastern Russia to the Solzenitsyn who has become the major voice to the West among dissident Russian artists and scientists in the 1970s.
Zhores A. Medvedev, a Russian biochemist and friend of Solzhentzin, examines the life of the artist under the police state by describing the specific author, Solzhentzin, who has written "One Day in the Life of Ivan Ivashov," first published "August 1914" and most recently "Gulag Archipelago."
Solzhenytzin is unusual not because he has spoken so loudly against Russian censorship, but because he has been able to reach the West as a universal literary hero.
No one, Medvedev writes, can fight censorship alone, and he describes the help Solzlenntsy received, especially from the Russian literary magazine "Liver," as publisher of the Russian literary magazine, Novy Mir, was the first to publish "One Day in the Life of Ivan
The censorship bureau in Russia is autonomous; it cannot be challenged by even the most powerful of political leaders. It is against this censorship bureau, Medvedev writes, and not against the communist regime or the political leaders, that the state should be a military force.
The organization of censors, the artists claim, has no concept of literary ability and indiscriminately slashes works with any political overtones.
Medvede describes the political pressure put on Solzhenitsyn after he wrote "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich," which was widely interpreted as better apartment was refused him. There were house break-ins and thefts of the unpublished manuscripts of Solzhenitsyn and his friends, the pirating of those manuscripts, and mass graves through the underground to the West.
The explanation of manuscript pirating is perhaps the most important in the book, for it makes it clear that works are published illegally outside of Russia are considered to have broken Russian law. Besides the resulting political harassment, the authors receive no money from the publisher.
"Ten Years After Ivan Denisovich" is a quick-reading book which provides an excellent background for an understanding of contemporary Russian censorship, the political overtones in writers' organizations, the house searches and the general frustration of writing a book in Russia:
Book a Glance Back at Recent Past
By STEPHEN BUSER
Kansas Reviewer
"LOOKING BACK" by Joyce Maynard
(160 pages; doubledbl. 1973; $9.95)
Jovey Maynard meticulously retraces the events of her life from the days of Silly Putty and Hula Hoops to the present when a virgin is put in the same category as Sesame.
"Looking Back" isn't just a 20-year-old Yale c枚ed's journal; it's a combination of a history and yearbook for the "Leave It to Beaver" generation. Who else but an Exclever family buff would condone hours spent before the television.
Maryanad has a special talent for depicting the perfect setting of any era in her life. "The Kennedy's were our fair-tale heroes," she writes, "integration and outer space and The Bomb the dramas of our first school years."
She describes the fourth as the year of rationality, the calm before the storm. "Boys still had cooties and dolls still tempted us." she remarks.
"Looking Back" also covers the fantasy period of high school when students are guided by yearbooks that list club memberships. Maynard says it was this period when the desire to be thin (eating bird-sized scoops of cottage cheese) began to haunt girls of her genera group. In an article published that students cherished their membership in the Woodstock nation and refuted their title as a consumer bloc for acne medication, she writes.
She gradually delves into the period of sex education, steady romances, being popular and sleeping on plastic curlers. Besides providing humorous anecdotes of junior high school activities, she landed on the topic of sexual contraception in America a first television generation.
This was no small accomplishment, she being raised in the age of the THINK she
"I can turn on 'I Love Lacy' reruns and turn off the real world," she writes.
Serious social comment replaces her frivolous remembrance when she leaves her teen years. Her observations center on the basic contemporary issues pertaining to sex, drugs, women's liberation and morality in general.
The "playing poor routine" is a result of the present generation's complex for not having experienced a Depression or acute poverty, she says.
Maynard says this is manifested by the stubby overalls on the college campus loosely.
Maynard flays her generation for no longer striving for eloquence and she denounces the new language that permeates the youth culture of today.
"The words of the new language are few."
There are not enough to fill a dictionary page but enough to build a vocabulary book. They make like and of course, you know," she writes.
She challenges why what is normal and natural suddenly becomes "low" when compared to "high" from pot. She says that society has put a virgin in the same body, capable Orthopedic Shoes, Lawrence Weak, Billy Graham and the Republican party.
"Whether you are a virgin or not isn't the point; the question is what kind of a virgin you are, and whether you are what you are outside standards," she retorts.
Maynard asserts that the methods of the women's liberation movement turn her off.
Maynard wrote "looking Back" on the premise that man is unable to determine where he is without a glance, at least, to where he has been. Maynard has retraced not only her life during the '60s but also the lives of millions of contemporaries.
Although her moral convictions and social comments about her generation may be
Daffodils & Daisies
for the Coming of Spring
9th & Indiana
Owens Flower Shop
S. U.A. Fine Arts & University Friends of Art Present Kenneth Clark's
CIVILISATION
At the close of the Fifteenth Century Gutenberg'a printing press came into its own. Rome revelled in luxury, while the Northlands shivered in doubt and fear. Great names include Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, Holbein Cranach, Martin Luther and William Shakespeare. Spurred on by the doubts, the Reformist and the new faith, Protestantism, set about smashing the graven images of Roman Catholicism.
PROTEST AND COMMUNICATION MARCH 3
FILM SERIES
Woodruff Auditorium 7:00 p.m.
---
perusal of anyone interested in the history and plight of the "Lease I to Beaver"
contested, she has made a profound contribution to the current nostalgia trend in advertising.
APPLICATIONS Being Accepted for Positions of Resident Director & Resident Assistants NAISMITH HALL FOR "74"-"75
Check your local radio listings for time and station.
Tune in,
drink Bud.,
have fun!
ANHEUSER BUSCH ING. * ST. LOUIS
CLEARANCE!
ON ALL BFGoodrich TIRES!
At Ray Stoneback's Tire Dept.
EVERYTHING MUST GO!
We checked our stock and you're in luck. We're a little over-supplied for this time of year, and that means super savings for you on the tire of your choice.
CLEAN-UPSALE
Bias-Plies! Belteds! Radials!
SAVINGS UP TO 50% ON ALL SIZES
COME THROUGH CITY PARKING LOT ENTRANCI BEHIND WOOLWORTH'S FOR TIRE DEPARTMENT
Open 8:30 a.m. Daily
"Come to Where the Quality Is"
929 Massachusetts
Ray Stoneback's
Phone 843-4170
B. F. Goodrich Steel Radials Now 50% Off List While Stock Lasts! Hurry
HI-SPEED ON CAR
HUNTER $250
BALANCE