University Daily Kansan
Fridav. October 19. 1979
All his world's a stage design
By KATE POUND Staff Reporter
From a tiny, renovated janitor's closet bucked deep in the corners of the University Theatre have come the colors of Constantinople, the magic of a fantasy kingdom and the dark settings of death, all created by Delbert Unrhub, associate professor of the
Unuruh, head of the stage design program has spent a year developing his role to the stage. His job at KU is to design sets for University Theatre productions and to teach undergraduates
In his office filled with theatre posters, sketch pads, fabric samples and set models, he prepares materials for productions as "Candide," "Homme and Juliet," "Southern Pacific," "Equus" and "Astro."
HE MAY SPEND several weeks designing a set, while conferring with the director of the show daily, Unruh said this week.
"If you're honest and want to do a good job, you have to live with the thing when you do a play," he said.
Unruth's unbelief the work is the set for Michael Cristerist's "The Shadow Box," which will finish its run at 8 tonight and tomorrow night in the University Theatre.
Directed by John L. Groubeck-Tedesco, the drama is set in a research hospital for the terminally ill. The action takes place in the hospital grounds in the California mountains.
Unruh's set for the play consists of joined platforms of varying heights. They are designed, Unruh said, to give the impression of a wave of footages, all made from the same blueprint.
The platforms are surrounded by tall, dainty trees, which give the impression of a park. An old building, Unrush, is subdued, he said, to look like the fadion afternoon sun filtering through the trees.
"EVERYONE HAS had an experience of being alone in a forest," he said. "It's peaceful, beautiful. I wanted to capture that feeling."
"I also wanted to capture the feeling of isolation that the dying characters feel." The feeling of being enclosed and protected and also being lost."
To design the set, Unu said, he first had to determine the meaning of the play. To do his he had to become familiar with the characters and the plot.
"For me that's the most important thing, I can be able to visualize what the play is saying, and I can also play with the play so that the set is not a passive thing that the parade sector in of, but, if I were to make it more active, the
UNRUH THEN draws his ideas and makes detailed models of the set. Often, Unruth said, research is needed for a good food and furniture are researched, he said.
"For Shadow Box, I went to places that sell cheap building supplies, to get a feel for
Each show has different requirements, he said. The set for "The Shadow Box" is modern and streamlined, but his next project is the set for Wagner's "Das Rhingeold," an opera about the king of the gods, which will require a totally different set.
the casual, mass-produced type cottage I envisioned "Urlaub said.
"Think of it," Urhahn said, "you can't get any higher than the king of the gods. What kind of environment is inhabited by the king of the gods to do with realistic cottages or trees."
THEE ARE problems involved in the use of a designer. In sex and difficulties in construction often occur. The worst thing a designer can do, he is said to try to solve problem sets too much.
"When you hurry, you risk losing the image you started with." Unruh said.
Set designs and difficulties are often smoothed out by using past experience and the ideas of other designers.
"There are new shortcuts everytime you do another show or see one done," Unruh said.
Set designers use the ideas of other artists and designers in their work.
"An honest designer will tell you they 'borrow' ideas all the time," he said. "That's one of the great things about this business, there are no copyright laws on borrowing from others only on borrow from the best—use the ideas to the best painters, sculptors, designers."
Scene setter
Shadow班," by Michael Cristofor. Unurh, the head of KU's stage design program, also teaches classes in set designing.
Spare Time
Music
FACULTY RECTAL SERIES
Swarthock Reacall Hall
James Moeser, organist, 8 p.m.
Monday.
FALL CONCERTS
KU Chamber Choir, Chair Ralston,
conductor. 3:30 p.m. Sunday, University
Theatre. KU Concert Choral, William
Anderson, concertor. $8 p.m. Wednesday.
LAWRENCE ARTS CENTER Ninth and Vermont streets
Opus, evening of contemporary music 8 p.m. tomorrow.
LAWRENCE OPERA HOUSE 642 Massachusetts St.
MEMORIAL CAMPANILE
Gatemouth Brown and Southern Fried,
tongate. Hank Thompson and the Caney
River Booge Band, tomorrow night. Carl
Burns will play from 10 a.m., Door
5ors at 8, music begins at 9.
MEMORIAL CAMPANILE
Albert Gerken, University carillonneur, 3 p.m. Sunday and 7 p.m. Wednesday
OFF-THE-WALL-HALL 737 New Hampshire St.
737 New Hampshire St.
Rosie's Bar and Grill, tonight. Bottom of the Barrel, tomorrow night. Doors open at 8; music begins at 9.
PAUL GRAY'S JAZZ PLACE 926 Massachusetts St.
Open Stream, tonight. Tommy Johnson Experiment, tomorrow night. Doors open at 8, music begins at 9.
PENTIMENTO COFFEEHOUSE AND CAFE
613 Vermont St.
611 Vermont St.
Tom Jacobs, 8 tonight. Helen Stuck,
10 tonight. Tom Dougherty, 8 p.m.
tomorrow. Susan Tank, 8 p.m.
tomorrow. Susan Tank, 8 p.m.
Sunday. Tom Russell, 10 p.m.
Sunday. Tom Russell, 10 p.m.
VISITING ARTIST SERIES
David Harris, clavichord, 12.30 p.m.
today, Art and Design Gallery, Visual Arts Building.
Theatre
INGE THEATRE SERIES Murphy Hall
"The Ink Smeared Lady-Scapin," 8 p.m. Thursday through Oct.28.
UNIVERSITY THEATRE SERIES Murphy Hall
"The Shadow Box," by Michael Cristofer, 8 tonight and tomorrow night.
By RICK HELLMAN
The latest Rolling Stone magazine Top 100 albums chart shows 17 new wave albums doing well in competition with disco, rock, country and other kinds of groups.
But are these strong national sales reflected in the Lawrence area?
Kansan Reviewer
Their songs concern seemingly mundane subjects like food, shelter and love. Byrne expresses a wide range of moods like fear, anger, pride and joy.
According to Steve Wilson, buyer for Kie's Discount Records and Stereo, 25th and Iowa streets, several new wave artists are selling well here, including the Talking Birds, the New York City Carrham Parker. Other groups enjoy steady, large not support in Lawnery, he said.
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
New wave inspires record-buying
The husband-and-wife combination of drum Chris Frantz and bassist Tina Weymouth is strong and inventive. They use a wide range of materials copyled by Weymouth's sinuous bass lines.
The recording business is experiencing an industry-wide slump and recording and distribution of music is going thing to boost sales. A bright spot in this dark picture has been the strong sales of CDs.
Their first album, "Talking Heads 77," released in 2014, was followed by success received with their second album, "More Songs about Buildings and Food," which contained the hit, "Take Me to the Music."
CURTIS REINHARDT, general manager of the Lawrence Opera House, 642 Massa-
PERHAPS THE most striking feature of the Heads' sound is leader David Byrne's vocal and lyric style.
On top of this foundation is Byrne's percussive lead guitar and Jerry Harrison's keyboards, giving the Heads a catchy, driving sound.
Arts and Entertainment
He said the increasingly fuzzy line between new wave and rock music had helped the movement.
Counter to their lyrics is the Heads' musical style. They are not a mile-a-minute, three-chord group, like some other early punk bands.
"The more we show we do, the more we'll be able to bring people in so that when they hear of a band they're not familiar with, but when they see it they're amazed and a good time last time," Reinhardt said.
"THE MORE these acts get into rock and roll, the more you can dance to it and the better it is," he said.
Bryne's voice owes much to the swooping style of Berry Fryer, a member of Roxy Music, a British band that influenced Bryne. In her music, Bryne Byrnes his lyrics in terse phrases.
The Talking Heads have achieved a style that manages to be intellectual without taking itself too seriously. They are a major audience of the press. They have a sound and a message all their own.
Rinhardt said the response to these two shows could determine the future of the show. He added that artists he said he hoped to establish L.A.'s stop on a regular circuit for wave-type shows.
chusets St., has booked a new wave dance action to the halle and mime plans for several nights appearing at the Opera House on Sunday, 4, and the Buzzocks are tentatively scheduled.
Three Rhode Island School of Design graduates formed the group and became part of the emerging punk scene at New York's CBG club in the middle 1970s.
Area rock fans will have a chance to hear one of these groups at 8 onight when the Talking Heads play at Memorial Hall in Kansas City, Kan.
Burgess . . .
From page one
three weeks after he had become "greatly troubled" with the growing occurrence of juvenile crime.
He said did not like the film and was shocked by "to much vulgar display" in it. But he thinks the film was well-made, with good camera play.
Many critics of the film and of the novel
claim that it is violence for the sake of violence and that Burgess is "the father of all evil."
His words were as important as what he created, Burgess said. The language he used was less formal than the ones designed so the hoodwuns would be "international things," speaking a language he knew well and not at all familiar.
THIS IS THE type of literature that Burress said was characterized by opacity, literature in which the language tends to thicken.
would never grow old because it had never been used.
"The language in this fiction is not important. It is not obstructive. This work is just aching to become film." he said of his novel, *A Clockwork Orange*. He surrounded a *AClockwork Orange* was due to his work not being conducive to cinema. He did not work with Kubrick on the
film, although he had worked with the artistic director or the Tyrone Guthrie Theater in Minnesota in the late '60s.
Besides writing novels, Burgess transits somets, writes essays for British and American newspapers and engages in second activity." He lives with his wife and son in Monaco, a principally on the beach resort of Fuerteventura.
"I don't feel old," he said. "I still have much energy as I've always had. And if only one thing goes right for me, my day is made."
SayCheese!
Senior Pictures have been extended until Oct.26
Call the Jayhawker Yearbook for your appointment.
864-3728
Only $1 sitting fee