ENTERTAINMENT
The University Daily KANSAN
March 30,1984 Page 6
Whimsical 'Die Fledermaus' waltzes on stage
Page 6
Holly Rudkin, Shawnee senior, prepares for a dress rehearsal of "Die Fledermaus," a comedy operetta by the KU department of music and University Theatre. The elaborate play
will feature more than 45 actors and nearly 100 costumes. It will open at 8 tonight with performances tomorrow and April 6 and 7 in the Crafton Prayer Theater in Murphy Hall.
By JAN UNDERWOOD Staff Reporter
A series of mistaken identities and improbable coincidences mark "Die Fledermaus," a comic operetta about an extravagant waltz party of young German teenagers made of make-believe are the chief entertainment
The music that won Johann Strauss Jr. the title "Waltz King" serves as a backdrop for "Die Fiedermaus." The operetta, set in Vienna in 1874, is a "sophisticated low comedy with never-ending appeal," according to stage director Kennis Wessel.
The operetta will be performed Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 on March 30 and 31 on and off.
WESSEL ATTRIBUTES THE play's popularity to its music, which is classical without having the heaviness of other operas. The flamboyant 19th-century costumes, elaborate set and festive waltz music reflect the high ballroom style of the opera.
"Die Fledermaus" is the joint production of the University Theatre and the KU department of music. There are more than 45 actors and musicians, but critics have called the prettiest of all oneras.
"Everything is a dance," Wessel said, for the plot revolves around the waltz party, and the characters pull a song and dance routine every time they get into trouble.
The plot of "Die Fiedermann" bounces along from one mishap to another as the singers tril their way out of one awkward situation and into the next.
The operetta is the story of the wealthy Baron Von Eisenstein and his wife, Rosalinda Eisenstein is about to serve a prison term when Doctor Falke, his best friend and Rosalinda's lover, whisks him off in incognito to the party of a mad girl, face, where the guests take haths in champagne.
UNEBKNOWNT TO HER AMES husband,
Robalalmia is also planning to go to the party
with her.
However, he leaves her, her old flame, Alfred, appears. He is a rotund opera singer who climbs over garden walls and through windows two. Rosalinda with quips from famous opera
The characters have their final confrontation in prison, when they anwash and they succeed in getting the prison governor to release them.
She tells him she only loved his for his voice, but she can't get rid of him until the prison warden comes along and, mistaking Alfred for Eisenstein, carts him off to jail. The warden then goes to the soiree himself, disguised as a Frenchman.
Falkel plotted this scheme to get revenge for the night Elsienstein got him drank at a costume party and made him walk home in a hat. Elsienstein, in "means" means "the hat," which is Falkel's nickname.
Meanwhile, Rosalinda's chamberbird has also managed to appear at the ball, pretending to be a
NONE OF THE CHARACTERS know that the whole scheme was arranged by Doctor Falken, as a tremendous practical joke on Eisenstein. He had invented an illusion of the sense of entertaining the bored Russian prince.
Wessel said that the characters were appealing because they were "accessible"
"The characters are individually and precisely drawn and have a real identity," he said. "In the midst of all the gaiety, fidelity and innocence there are people with real human feelings."
The opera is performed in English and Wessel said it was geared to an American audience.
Lecturer's experiences help illustrate Paris art
"THERE ARE MANY VERSIONS of this opera, and many liberties have been taken with the text through the years," he said. "However, we do not want to limit ourselves and we do not retain the Viennese flavor."
Wessel said that the comedy had a universal appeal, because it described "the motive force which drives each and every person in this world." He compelled its compassion to enjoy yourself, to delight in life.
By MELISSA BAUMAN
Staff Reporter
And her anecdotes are not limited to artists that she knew.
As a lecturer, Rosamond Bernier has been described by Vogue magazine as an "art-talk spellbinder." As a performer, the New Yorker has said, she is a "fiery redhead with the speed
As a speaker on the Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art's Paris and Modern Art exhibit, she was described by the curator of painting and sculpture as "perfect."
Bernier, a well-known lecturer for New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, will speak on "Great Artists in Close-up" at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Woodruff Auditorium of the Kansas
"We wanted someone who has great popular appeal in addition to being able to speak to an audience of 50,000."
MARLA PRATHER, THE CURATOR, said that the museum chose Bernier as a speaker because of her two-pronged appeal and her familiarity with the subject matter.
Prather said that Bernier was particularly qualified to speak on Parisian artists because Bernier knew many of them personally as a member of the avant-garde and as publisher of the art magazine L'Oeil.
"This lecture is about a very good-looking man with rather thin legs who was born just under 500 years ago and had ideas about hospitality which most of us would find it hard to understand. I began a lecture on Frances I of France, who was a collector of art, the New Yorker reported.
FRANCOIS I WAS known for lavish parties
and the stylist fashion in which he entertained — a fashion that royalty could afford. Prather
“Her lectures tend to be sort of flashy with lots of anecdotes, but also with substantive comment about the artists and their work. You don't get to see them on art or art magazine by gossiping.” Prather said.
Prather said that she expected a large crowd for Bernier's lecture.
"I don't know that she's a household word, but everywhere she goes she seems to attract large numbers."
Bernier's biography reveals her expertise in Parisian art.
Working for Vogue in 1946, Bernier lived in Paris and became acquainted with several well-known artists of the period, such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro and Mariet Hatisme.
AFTER BUILDING A number of acquaintances with well-known French artists, Bernier and her former husband began publishing L'Oeil in 1955.
"It was really because I got to know the artists and the writers and what was going on in Paris that it became possible to eventually start my own magazine," she told the New Yorker.
Bernier told House and Garden that she had gathered more material than Vogue could publish, thus beginning her own art magazine was inevitable.
After she and her husband divorced, he took possession of the magazine and she began lecturing in 1968. In addition to lecturing, she has appeared and has published several books
Bernier also won a Peabody Award for television journalism as narrator of the now iconic *Polaris*.
BLOOM COUNTY
BY BERKE BREATHED
ror movie filmed in Lawrence by director Herk Harvey and written by John Clifford, local residents. The film will be shown tonight and tomorrow in Dyche Hall.
A car driven by Mary Henry, played by Candace Hilligoss, goes off the Old Lecompton Bridge and plunges into the Kansas River. The scene is from "Carnival of Souls," a 1961 hor-
Local horror flick comes back to haunt KU
Bv JAN UNDERWOOD
"Carnival of Souls," directed by Herk Harvey, is an eerie movie about a woman who drowns in the Kaw River, but whose soul continues to live in the real world.
After being forgotten for 15 years, unknown except to an occasional late-night television viewer, a horror movie filmed in Lawrence is surfacing again — an event which its director says is "kind of like having a bastard and suddenly having the world made aware of it."
Staff Reporter
THE FILM, WHICH will be shown by University Film Society at 7, 9 and 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the auditorium of Dyche Hall, is a documentary story that was filmed in Lawrence in 1961.
Although Harvey is somewhat embarrassed by his first feature film, he is pleased that the film is successful.
"Carnival of Souls" is the story of Mary Henry, a passive, rather nondescript organist whose car plunges into the Kaw River just outside Lawrence. The character of Henry is underplayed as she sleeps into and out of this mysterious organ that invisible, never realizing that she is dead.
Actress Candace Hilligess purposefully played the role without a great deal of emotion, explained Harvey, "since all of the things hap-pened on my mind," Mary's understanding of what was going on."
HARVEY PLAYS THE role of a ghoul who
follows Mary. He and screenplay writer John Clifford. Lawrence and work for the law firm.
Mary is a girl who has never really lived, Harvey explained.
She never had friends when she was alive.
After the accident, she refuses to die, because
she wants a second chance. However, she finds
that she doesn't do any better the second time.
Mary's social ineptitude is clear in her inability to deal with the other characters in the movie, such as her smarmy neighbor John Linden, played by Sidney Berger, who was chairman of the KU theatre department in 1961.
The movie achieves its haunting effects through eerie organ music, foreshadowing and ironic references to Mary's "soul" by characterization that do not realize that she really is only a spirit.
She finds herself surrounded by ghouls, who chase her down and drag her into the underworld with them. In the movie's final scene, she escapes from the Kaw River, now with her body in it.
Here, Mary has her final encounter with the man she has been chasing her throughout the movie.
"ITS LESS A FILM that makes you scream, than one that continually sends nasty little shivers up your spine," Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine reported.
In addition to the scenes in Lawrence, part of the movie takes place in a spooky old dungeon where the characters are forced to
If he had the chance to remake the film.
Harvey said he would pick up the pace of "Carnival of Souls."
HOWEVER, HE SAID, the dream pace of the movie was typical of films made 20 years ago. He also said "Carnival of Souls" had less horror than it normally less violence than the horror films of todda.
Although the film uses some artful cinematography, Harvey said his film was technically amateurish, but it was the film's ideas, not its style, that made it worthwhile.
"It's the idea of being in life, but not being a part of it, of being in another dimension," he said. "That's the point."
Harvey and Clifford experienced some difficulties in making their movie. For example, the bridge they used to stage the car accident was on the Douglas and Jefferson county lines, and Harvey had trouble getting the counties to give him permission to use the bridge.
WHILE SHOTOING a later scene in which Mary had to be discovered dead in the car, Harvey had a difficult time convincing a local highway patrolman that he was only making a
Described by Cineafantastique magazine as an "overlooked gem," the movie was made on the absurdly low budget of $30,000 and released as a drive-in theater horror film. Most of the actors were local townpeople and KU students.
The film played for seven years, until the company that owned the copyright went out of business. It has since appeared only occasionally.
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