8
Friday, February 15. 1974
University Daily Kansan
Irish Brogue, Whisky Flavor 'Playboy' Play
By JAY GLICK
Kanan Reviewer
Irish broughe and Irish whisky flavor "The Playboy of the Western World," which opened at the University Theatre Wednesday evening.
The play, by John Millington Syngge, a playwright of the Irish renaissance, is set near a village on the wild coast of Mayo, a county in northwest Ireland.
The story is about a youth who has run away from what he believes to have been his murder of his father. The boy fearfully recounts the incident and is held in heroic esteem by the villagers. For two and a half acts, the boy enjoys the adoration of every female in the village and elicits fear in every male.
Just as the boy and his love, Pegan, are to consummate their wedding vows, the boy's father makes an untimely entry. The boy is reduced to a laughing-stock.
A fight between the boy and his father ensues. The boy again thinks he has killed his father, as do the villagers who wish to kill him. But again the boy's father returns to life.
The boy leaves the village with new self-
esteem. Pogen, after he leaves, realizes
that he is no longer a villager.
Syngne said in 1907 of "Playboy" that it "is not a play with a 'purpose' in the modern sense of the word, but although parts of it are, or are meant to be, extravagant comedy, still a great deal more that is typical of a serious venus when looked at in a certain light."
Both the comic and the dramatic sides of "Playboy" are explored in the production. Early in the play, the humor is inviting. In the latter sections, the seriousness of the drama is somewhat moving. But the play has some problems.
the irish brogue, while it adds to the atmosphere of the play, tends to muddle and obscure the dialogue. The father, played by David Cook, best handles the dialect. In fact, it is the inevitable comparison between Cook's delivery and that of the other actors that causes the audience to realize that the play is too muddled and intelligible and still be brugu
*"Playboy of the Western World" will be
born at 5 p.m. Feb. 13-15 and 2:30 p.m.
March 9.*
National Lampoon Adapted to Radio
Radio humor lives!
By MIKE RIEKE Kanaan Reviewer
Actually, despite popular belief, radio humor never died. After its big days in the Thirties, radio humor was sent into a comosate state by World War II. Except for occasional signs of life from such people as Bob and Ray (Ellott and Goulding) and Stan Freberg, radio humor has been dead for a long time.
But recently radio humor has been revived on the weekly "National Lampoon
with the words, "Mission Impeachable."
with the words, "Mission Incompete.",
"Good morning, Mr. Hunt." a voice said.
Democratic party are attempting to seize control of the government of the United States by legitimate means. They plan to use a free press, open discussion of the government's actions, and offer effort to win the presidency. Should they succeed, all our efforts toreal the Bill of Rights, compel the Supreme Court with right-wing motions, intimidate the media, suppress dissent, halt social progress, promote democracy and crush the Congress will be destroyed.
reviews
Radio Hour", broadcast at 6 p.m. Sundays by KUDL-FM. The show is produced by the National Lampoon magazine and is written by many of the same people who contribute to the magazine. If you are familiar with the magazine, you know what to expect
As in the magazine, some of the best central on the "Radio Hour" is the one for the "New York Times."
"Your mission, E., should you choose to accept it," the voice continued, "is to stop these men once and for all by insuring that the weakest of them, Sen. George McGovern, wins the nomination, and then sabotaging his campaign by any possible means. You will have at your disposal electronic bugging equipment, burglary surveillance, video recording device, camera disguised as a tobacco pouch, forged documents, a safewife, 500 loyal but clumsy Cubans and $2 million in $100 bills.
"As always, if any member of your CIA
force is caught or killed, the President will disavow any knowledge of your activities. This Administration will self-destruct in 16 months."
"Good luck, Howie," the voice concluded. A take-off on Bell Telephone commercials was set against a superb sound effect background of machine guns, rocqueing bullets and screams. The narrator, speaking in English with a Spanish accent, spoke of a festival in his country sponsored by an American company.
"El Almene is dead so that your phone won't be," the narrator concluded.
Not all the humor is political. A segment of the program two weeks ago was entitled "Philosophical Inquiry," and was hosted by the University of Spokane. The object of the program, the professor said, was to answer age-old philosophical questions through empirical research. The question for that program was, "Where is there no air to hear it, in that forest and there is no air to hear it, in that forest."
The professor explained that he had placed a microphone next to a tree in a room, and that he would click the button in the radio studio, the professor caused the tree to fall by remote control.
When the microphone failed to detect any sound from the falling tree, the question was finally answered.
"Tune in next week," the professor urged us audience, "when we will answer the inquiry, 'If God is all-powerful, can he make a rock so big he can't lift it!'"
The "Radio Hour" is interpersed with advertisements for self-improvement correspondence schools such as Academie D'Irianapolis de L'Accent Academie D'Irianapolis Academy of the French Accent) and who train training courses for Laamp-Lapa training.
The quality of "Radio Hour" varies from week to week. Last Sunday's show was a demonstration by the Lampoon Radio Hour"; a collection of the first few months of its existence. The show had some good material but didn't include any original, regular show had been the previous week.
A word of warning is probably necessary for some listeners who are offended easily. Some bits on "Radio Hour" are in bad taste. But often that material deserves the biggest laughs. Enjoy what you like and forget the rest.
Rapid Art Changes Now Traditional
Lecturer Says Extremes No Longer Avant Garde
By CAROL GWINN
Kannan Reviewer
The avant garde in American art has ceased to exist, according to Irving Sander, last night's speaker in the Humanities Lecture series.
Sandler, the author of "The Triumph of American Painting: Abstract Expressionism" and a contributing editor to Art in Magazine magazine, said that so many styles existed during the sixties that novelty, or the avant garde, became a tradition, and, as a tradition, could no longer be considered avant garde.
Sandler alternately read his lecture from a text, smoked, cleared his throat and siped water. His lecture, entitled "The Art of the Singer," was written as Art," was too technical for anyone not knowledgeable about art. Terms weren't defined for the layman in the audience, and the lecture often seemed a confusing series of rules, who weren't adequately identified
Sandler began his lecture with slides of the impressionist Edouard Manet's "Olympia" and the postimpressionist Paul Gauguin's "Self Portrait."
Beginning with Manet and Gauguin emphasis was placed on truth and honesty, Sander said. Gauguin, he said, was the first French artist to recognize in his postimpressionist paintings.
Gamun, he said, was the first to consciously identity himself with the avant
Sander said that during the 1920s and 1930s, art took two different routes: "the use of paint was taken over and as seen in works by Salvador Dali, and geometric abstraction, seeking to find forms in the universal tradition, the "universal" sense," he noted, "seen in Peter Mundani's work."
During the 1960's, Sandler said, one style followed by another made novelty the main value in art. Today more emphasis is placed on the playful nature of the scene. Much of the avant garde can't be distinguished from everyday life, Sandler said, sitting Andy Warhol's paintings of rows of Campbell's soup and "Three-Cents-For Pads," a painting of boxes of Brillo pads.
of art, often considered avant garde, was now a tradition.
"The limit is reached," Sandler said, when art comes as close as possible to being considered.
Sandler said that advancing to the limits
Sandler said that even an anti-art phase ended up being shown in museums.
"There's just no way to arrive at art, and no way not to," he said.
Now innovations are met with nods of approval, Sandler said. The public no longer responds with anger at the new because they have been exposed to modern art in the museums and they are also, for the most part, college educated, he said.
Sandler said that Jackson Pollock, whose abstract expressionist paintings are often streams of paint that Pollock has run down, is one of the most iconic blacks the Hueper" in a particular magazine.
Now that magazine claims to be the first to have recruited him, Sandler said.
Sandier said that the change to college-educated masses was one reason that novelty and rapidly-changing styles were permitted by the public.
S.U.A. Fine Arts & University Friends of Art Present Kenneth Clark's CIVILISATION FILM SERIES
MAN—THE MEASURE OF ALL THINGS FEBRUARY 17
In this film the great names are Botticelli, Masaccio, Bellini, and Giorgione, with one Northernner of like ideas, Van Eyck. The place is Italy and the time, the early Fifteenth Century. The discovery is man, not as God's servant but in and of himself.
Woodruff Auditorium 7:00 p.m.
Critics have acclaimed LEMMINGS as hilariously funny, a theatrical triumph, wonderfully talented, remarkable, as having absolutely no respect, and the list continues. It is truly unsettlingly hilarious.
Student Union Activities presents a satirical, joke-rock, mock-concert, musical comedy, semi-revue, theatrical production. Sounds confusing? National Lampoon LEMMINGS will be presented in Hoch Auditorium on Saturday, February 23, 1974, at 8:00 p.m. LEMMINGS, an off-Broadway production now touring the college circuit, contains the wit, humor, parody, and satire that is associated with the National Lampoon Magazine. Much of the original cast has been retained for this road engagement and their "... wicked parody of the world of rock, spoofing the talented along with the pretenders, their absurdities, conceits, and affectations ... goes straight for the satirical jugular vein on many fronts, much in the reckless manner of the late Lenny Bruce."
All seats are reserved and priced at $2.50 and $3.50.
COME FLY WITH US
sophomores, juniors, aviation training with summer openings, no obligation until completion of officer candidate training.
check it out with jim robson in the kansas union february 18-20 from 9 to 3 or call collect anytime 816 374 2376.