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Universitv Dailv Kansan, February 23, 1982
Spare time
"She Stoops" cast conquers vintage script with freshness
By ERLEEN CHRISTENSEN Contributing Reviewer
Directed by John Gronbeck-Tedesco
"SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER" BY OLIVER GOLDSMITH
Directed by John Grounbet-Tedesco University Theatre Performance—February 20th
Oliver Goldsmith wrote "She Stoops to Conquer" more than 200 years ago, but the University Theatre's production of the play has the freshness of a brand-new play. Much of the credit must go to the director, John Gronkeback Tedeschi, who has written and expectations of a modern audience and the vitality and uniqueness of the eighteenth century and Goldsmith's play.
Costuming and manners are definitely eighteenth-century. Rodney Caldwell's Servant Diggory might have posed for "The Rake's Progress" we've seen his crazy queue and
Review
awkward pose in the caricatures in our history books. Mr. Hardcastle's mannerisms are the same ones captured in old pictures of Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Johnson—and they are used to underline the sort of witty authoritarian proclamations we associate with the two men.
The ladies, with their fans and four-foot-wide
dresses, and the gentlemen, in powdered wigs, seem to have stepped from the paintings on the second floor of the Spencer Museum of Art. The illustrator took back into the eighteenth century is strong indeed.
But director Gronbeck-Teedeso is not slavishly reproducing the past. There are plenty of twentieth-century innovations. Servants in pastel costumes do set changes, their work accomplished as a part of a modern dance routine that has a whirling kaleidoscope of gold-brown sets and pastel costumes, of purely entertaining movement and real work, of eighteenth-century music and twentieth-century interpretive舞。
1 one snow has any major fault, it is a temptation to show off this technique. Was this prop or that set change really necessary? Or was it just too much for the use of dance interlude just a lot bigger?
The sets themselves (with the exception of the rather ordinary-looking bar set) are the quintessence of this play's happy blend of the centuries. The lightweight, painted sets give a three-dimensional effect and are quickly lowered and raised on wires. Walls and paintings hang against the blackness of the space behind them, using that space as if it were solid.
This not only gives the set an illusion of great depth, and space, it also subtly underlines the theatrical quality of the stage, the realization that we are watching a play.
The mechanism and the concept of the sets are distinctly modern—but the eighteenth-century illusion is strong. Anyone who has seen actual works by Clement Moore, for example, looking at these sets; not only are the details
correct, the sets have aged into the same colors and tones as old ones have.
From the first scene, the audience gets caught up in the plot.
All the things that can be done with a budget large enough for an opulent production have been done in production as a simulation and opentables set, let extractors and undermine the play itself.
Will pretty Kate make a match with the absurdly shy young man her father hopes she will marry? What kind of complications will the well-meaning but interfering father provide? Will his pretentiously foolish wife foil fair Constance's plan to marry the man she loves? What sort of monkey wrenches that will booby Tony Lumpkin throw in everyone's plans?
Dialogue, often a problem in plays from a few centuries back, is handled well. The actors speak with a precision and projection far from the monosyllabic casualness of everyday twentieth-century speech, but they deliver their lines slowly enough so they can be understood by those in the twentieth-century wit. The sense of class distinction is easily underlined by having the gentlefokel speak in a clipped King's English and the servants in a rowdy country-cockney manner. Heroine Kate, the gentleman's daughter who at one point passes herself off as a barmalde, does a beautiful job of shifting from verse to prose—and it is no surprise that the audience that she is able to sutor Marlow with her ruse.
The quality of the acting is consistently good, but special praise should go to Sturtf Litchfield as the boony Tony and Stacey MacFarlane as the lady who "Stoops to Conquer."
One-man play recreates editor's life
By MATT DeGALAN Staff Reporter
Two KU drama professors have spent the last
month in Kansas. journalist William Allen White is life for them.
"The Sage of Emporia" made its road debut Feb. 3 and 4 in White's home town of Emporia. The play, directed by Ronald A. Willis, professor of speech and drama and director of University Theatre, premiered last March as a University production.
After the shows in Emporia, the play moved to Rockhurst College in Kansas City, Mo., and the Bowls Fine Arts Center in Iola. The tour will wind up with performances March 5 and 6 at the Performing Arts Center at Kansas City, Kan., Community College.
THE ONE-MAN SHOW stars Jack B. Wright, professor of speech and drama, as the editor, White, who owned the Emporia Gazette for nearly half a century before his death in 1944. Haskell, also a newsman, Haskell, who died last July, worked 39 years for the Kansas City Star.
Director Willis describes the play as "a touching portrait of a man who has lived a full life and is preparing for a great uncertainty." The uncertainty, he said, is his impending death.
"The play is a very informal, personal work, with Mr. White sharing his thoughts with the audience. He talks about his life and the people who influence him." Wright explained. "He liked the challenge
who injured him little while. "His assailant,
as an actor, Wright said he liked the challenge
difficult as any role an actor has to try to portray a man who was alive and is still known to many
"IVE ENJOYED IT THOROUGHLY. It's as
To help prepare for this difficult role, Wright went to Emporia and looked through White's old clothing and possessions. Wright said he hoped such research would help bring out some of the editor's obscure mannerisms that might otherwise be forgotten.
"We are trying to shed light on his humanity. That is the point of the play," Wright said.
NO DATES after the March 6 performance have been set for "the Sage of Emporia," despite appreciative audiences and several requests from groups wanting the play staged in their area, Willis said. Wright said the show probably would return to the stage this summer
on campus
TODAY
THE NON-TRADITIONAL STUDENTS ORGANIZATION will sponsor a dutch lunch for members from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Cork II of the Kansas Union.
CURRENT ISSUES IN THE JEWISH COMMUNITY will be discussed at a lunch sponsored by HILLEL at 12:15 in Cork 1 of the Union. David, Jewish Community Relations Bureau, will speak.
**194E JAPANESE FILM SERIES** will present
the films *Battletoads* and *Battleship*. at 7 p.m. in Dyche
Audition.
THE GOSPEL OF MARK will be discussed at
the Episcopal Christian Ministries Center.
THE CAMPUS CRUSADE FOR CHRIST will meet at 7 p.m. in the Jayhawk Room of the
THE LINGUISTICS COLOQUO will feature Robert Rankin, professor of linguistics, speaking on phonemic aspirations at 7:30 p.m. in 108 Blake Hall.
THE TAU SIGMA DANCE GROUP will meet from 7 to 9 p.m. in 242 Robinson.
THE KANAKUK CAMP OF BRANSON, MO.,O.C.
through the Second Cormington" at 8 p.m. in the Ballroom of the Hotel St. Mary's.
TOMORROW
THE UNIVERSITY FORUM, featuring guest speaker Aaron Horton, Universities Field Staff
International, will begin at 11:45 a.m. at the Ecumenical Christian Minstries Center. To reserve a hot lunch call 843-4933 by 4 p.m. today.
THE OFFICE OF STUDENT ORGANIZATIONS AND ACTIVITIES will sponsor a LEADERSHIP TRAINING PROGRAM at 7 p.m. in the Walmart Room of
THE DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS CLUB will meet at 7 p.m. in the Trail Room of the Union.
There will be a VISTING ARTIST'S LECTURE BY SCULPTOR ROCKNE KREBS at 8 p.m. in木ruffruit Auditorium of the Union.
There will be a FACULTY RECITAL BY
BROOKS TOWNSHIP piano at 8 p.m.
In swarthworth Recital Hall.
Special to the Kansan
Alexandra Borrie portrays Lizzie Curry in the Guthrie Theatre's touring production of "The Rainmaker," which will be performed at p.m. tonight in the University Theatre.
'Rainmaker' visits KU
By LISA GUTIERREZ Staff Reporter
Bill Starbuck would have made a top-notch weather forecaster by today's standards—his predictions were never realized.
Tonight, on the University Theatre stage, Starbuck will once again make his hollow prophecy of rain when the curtain goes up for the performance in its production or "The Rainmaker" at 8 p.m.
The touring production is part of the 1982 University Arts Festival and is sponsored by the University Arts Festival.
Founded in the spring of 1963 as the Minnesota Theatre Company, the Guthrie Theater of Mineapolis is the oldest of the regional theatre movement in the United States.
IT IS DESIGNED to serve the art patrons of
suppliers in the company rarely
taught far south as Kansas.
performance planned during the 1982 spring tour.
David Chambers, who recently directed "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., is directing the touring production of the play.
"The Rainmaker," a romantic comedy by N. Richard Nash. centers around the Curvy family
The KU performance is the only Kansas
The play's central character is Lizzie Curry, a woman stranded in a man's world on her broken arm.
Suddenly, Starbuck appears with promises of rain and rainforest. The world of the Currys and his brothers is a whimsical wonderland.
Alexandra Borrie, who recently appeared with Elizabeth Ashley in the Broadway production of *Saturday Night Live*, died peacefully at home.
Joel Colder, who played the title role in the PBS production of "Bartley, the Scrivener," in 2013.
TICKETS FOR THE Guthrie's KU performance are on sale at the Murphy Hall Box Office. All seats are reserved for $$$, $$ or $7. Student, senior citizen and group discount are available.
Feb. 25,1982
Ecumenical Center,
1204 Oread
7-8:30 P.M.
Please bring a dessert.
For further information call 864-3552
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT FOR GRADUATE WOMEN
!Openings for Student Senate Budget Subcommittee! Applications Available in Senate Office Membership Closes: 1 March, 5 p.m.
GLASSWARE SPECIAL!
Mon. Feb. 22, Wed. Feb. 24
5:30-7:00 p.m.
Robinson Gym—Gymnastics Room
TUESDAY, FEB.
(Starts at 2 p.m.)
Pitchers of Bud, Busch, or
Natural Light served with
2 Bud-label Bell Glasses . .
(old south gym)
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THE HAWK
(Pitcher Refills without glasses—$2.00)
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Steve Guenther
842-4387
EVERY TUESDAY
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good only at this location
Sunday Thursday 10:00 A.M.-1:00 A.M. Friday and Saturday 10:00 A.M. 2:00 A.M.