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Entertainment
Page 6 University Daily Kansan, November 7, 1980
'Grease' satisfies nostalgia for 1950s
By SHAWN McKAY
Staff Writer
It was the 1980s. Marilyn Monroe had staked a claim as America's quintessential sex-symbol and Ron Howard wasn't old enough to remember the type of character he would play 20 years later in "Happy Days."
Vietnam was still an unfamiliar word and American families sat mesmerized before their black and white sets watching "Howdy Doody."
Celebrating that less complicated era is the popular Boradway musical, "Grease," which opens tonight at the Theater. Theater
Jack Wright, director of the musical, said "Grease" was almost entirely entertainment, without a political note in it.
The play, written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, provides insight into a social atmosphere which denies the importance of the individual and glorifies a youth whose leather jacket bears
"If the musical does make a statement," Wright said, "it's indicative of what leads a group of high school kids to cling together into clubs."
Wright said he used many of his own recollections of the '50s in directing the film.
"The play celebrates a special period of time," he said. "Although the real nostalgia craze of a few years ago is over, it's still a time that was
very close to me — my high school days. It's fun to relive those times of your life."
Like the decade Wright remembers, the musical revolves around the role-playing that was popular among the teenagers of the era. Girls domned brightly colored angora sweaters and crowded them high on the shoulder and crowded their figures into what the director called " rocket bras."
"It was an era when the bosom was discovered," Wright said, and the phrase, "Let's go all the way," symbolized the new attitude toward sex and personal relationships."
"That moment in the play symbolizes the moment in all of our lives when we say goodbye to our Sandra Dee and give up our naive ideas. Our Sandra Dee is doing good things group changes, and we change with it," he said.
The main character, Sandy, grabs these new attitudes during the musical and sheds her old personality.
The play looks affectionately at the decade. The actors are "Greaters" and humorous stereotypes.
Wright said, "The play says 'Look, these are the way things often were.' There was a lot of triviality in people' lives. The sock hop and the ornamental palace were of utmost importance to the kids."
The turbulent decades of the '60s and '70s had a musical when it was first staged, according to Writhers.
"There was a real nontasking for the '50s in
these movies," she said. "They were like the '50s, After the '50s, people were ready
to watch."
to remember a time when life was not so difficult."
As in the two decades that were to follow, parents in the '60s were concerned over the risks associated with smoking.
"People were worried about the developing trend of rock and roll," he said. "Parents saw their kids doing crazy dances with a lot of sexual overtones. Kids were confronted with the real problem of making out. Couples were beginning to ask questions, but the answers the Kids faced all the pressure they do today of extending the balance of their personal relationships."
While the play emphasizes fun and games, according to Wright, there is a slight undercurrent of seriousness. There really were rumbles and people got hurt trying to compete for control of the school or control of the gang, he said.
Wright said that in doing the play he could see a transition from the characters in the play to the bestinks of the '60s and the passive resistance of the '70s.
"What happened to the Greasers? Where are they now? They might be very uncomfortable in our decade. They wouldn't be surrounded by the men. They would be the emphasis on dressing alike," Wright said.
Whether or not the characters of "Grease" would find a comfortable niche in the present is unimportant, for when the play is presented tonight, tomorrow, Sunday and on Nov. 13, 14 and 15, the Greasers are at home and living once again in the '50s.
DREW TOBRES/Kansan staff
Upper left: Lewan Alexander rolls with '50s rock. Left: "Grease" cast presents a high school class portrait. Above: Teenage girls sample the sophistication of wine and cigarettes.
'Stardust Memories' is a noble failure
By MIKE GEBERT
Contributing Reviewer
It is a rare movie that rises above incompetent acting and writing to the point where it can be attacked philosophically. Movies are usually far too stupid to allow debate on what they mean; it's like asking the significance of "another one blits the dust."
Either you grab what fleeting pleasures you can, like the performance of the stars in "Cuddyshack"* or you watch helplessly as "Asd" and the stars away into absurdity through bad dramatics.
"Starstud Memories," the new film by Woody Allen, is unquestionably well-made. And yet, it is by no means an questionably good film. It is infuriating in spots and seems to hold enormous contempt for the people who pay to make it possible. At the same time, it has moments that are among the best of any movie this year, which makes it all the more frustrating.
Like every Allen film so far, except “interiors”—which is, paradoxically, the one it may remind you of-it stars Allen as a thinally disguised Woody Allen. This time, he is Sandy Bates, artistic filmmaker chained to an office, and a teacher at a seminar at a resort (a parody of Judith Crist’s Tarretyown weekends—how many people west of Albany will even know what he's talking
about? where he is lionized and applauded by a
man in man who, it seems, are all great
observements, good people.
HE IS BELEAGUERED by charities, asked inane questions on the deeper significance of simple jokes and hounded by autograph seekers. At one point, he finds a girl in his bed, offering a ring to her. Another man stairs. Another time, Allen's caffeur is arrested, leaving Allen stranded with his Rolls.
Alen doesn't dare make himself a her-in-fact, he's quite often a callous snub—but he's no longer the butt of his own jokes. Imagine how you'd react if Charlie Clinton went from trump to middle class hypocrite, and you get an idea of him. He's going to the underdog suddenly comes out on top.
Before one starts shedding crocodile tears for the hard life of Allen, one should be aware that he frequently makes fun of himself. But his self-inflicted blows don't quite pack the wallop this time. There is never the slightest indication that perhaps he is over-reacting to his fans, in the same way he found great danger in a few stray lobsters in "Annie Hall."
lives. Maybe we'll pay to see it, maybe not. But compared to his comedy, this tragedy seems second-rate. "Starland Memories" is funny, and anything more, but not richer than, anything he'd done before.
THE PERIPHERAL characters aren't that interesting, either. It's hard to tell where one of the film's three women ends and the next begins. And it's a bit odd that Charlotte Rampling, and she's all flashback.
In the opening scene, a fantasy sequence, he is trapped on a rickety train population by refugees from "The Grapes of Wrath" while watching a neighboring train filled with happy-guilty souls who can see and hear anything or at least to art, but because it's so desperate and overdone it is funny (intentionally), I think.
Woody Allen doesn't want to be funny anymore. He wants to show us the tragedy in our
ALLEN HAS THE idea that tragedy automatically rebeels itself. Actually, only comedy—when it's funny—does that. Tragedy dooms itself to self-pity, and a lot of the characters in "The Greatest American magazine ads where four dollars a month will help little Tristan from Bolivia find a new home.
The film is something of a letdown after "Annie Hall" and "Manhattan." It yet points in a direction that could be the most promising Allen has taken, and that road is clearly within the boundary of comedy. What remains clear, even in the face of a disappointment like "Stardust Memories," is that Allen is one of the few who are even trying.
"Stardust Memories" has moments of great comedy — not just hilarious, but telling. It also is overloaded with unwieldy, unnecessary inferences and references that go beyond the end of the hammer that hits you on the head.
American pianist performs concert Monday at Hoch
Staff Reporter
By JANE NEUFELD
Staff Reporte
Peter Serkin, a noted American concert
performer, will be at 6 p.m. Monday in
Boston Auditorium.
Serkin, 33, entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia at age 11 and gave his first public performance, the Haydn Concerto in D Major, one year later.
His performance is part of the 1980-81 KU Concert Series.
In the past year, he has performed as a soloist
with the Pittsburgh Symphony and has taken two sell-out tours across the United States that included recitals in New York's Lincoln Center and Metropolitan Museum.
Serkin is the son of famous pianist Rudolf Serkin, who was his mentor.
Serkin will perform "Sonate" by Stravinky and
Ostrouleles and Coqueilles and Alborata de Granato) by Bavel.
Tickets for the performance are on sale in the Mall Hall box office. Reserved seats are $3 and #7 for the public. Tickets for KU students are $4. Tickets for student seats and #1 for student general admission seats.
Spare Time
TODAY
MUSIC: Janet Jameson Band, 9 p.m., at the Lawrence Opera House. Gerard Erante, clarinet; visiting artists series, 8 p.m., Swarthout Recital Hall
Marla Multar, 9 p.m., Uptown Theatre, K.C., Mo.
Savanna, 9 p.m., G.P. Loyd's West
THEATER: "Greeae," a musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, 8 p.m., University Theatre
ART: Jan Gaumnitz, watercolors, and Betty Lessenden, ceramics, at the Gallery, 745 New Hampshire St.
Martin Cheng, watercolors, Kellas St. 7 E. Seventh St.
"Alkenase," Portrait Photographs from the Collection," "Tokioide: Adventures on the Road in Old Japan" and "The Donald Hatch Collection," at the Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art
MOVIES: "Simon," 3:30, 7 and 9:30 p.m. at the Kansas Union
SATURDAY
MUSIC: Praque String Quartet, 8 p.m. in White Concert Hall, Washburn University, Topeka
The Secrets", with Pedestrian, 9 p.m. at the Lawrence Opera House
Chick Corea, with Gary Burton, 9 p.m. at the Uptown Theatre, K.C., Mo.
Chuck Mangione, 8 p., Memorial Theatre, K.C., Kan.
Savanna, 9 p. at G.P. Loyd's West
THEATER: "Greae," a musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, 8 p., University Theatre
"The Ghost of Andrew Carnegie," presented by the Seem-To-Be-Players, 1:30 p.m., Lawrence Arts Center
MOVIES: "Simon," 3:30, 7 and 9:30 p.m., at the Union
SUNDAY
MUSIC: Keith Branson, organ; student recital, 3:30 p.m., Swarthout Recital Hall
Jimmy Sphereis, 9 p., Uptown Theatre, K.C., Mo.
THEATER: "Greae," a musical by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, 2:30 p.m., University Theatre
MOVIES: "Oliver!" 3 p.m. at the Union
MONDAY
MUSIC: Peter Serkin, piano; KU Concert Series, 8 p.m., Hoch Auditorium
MOVIES: "Only Angels Have Wings," 7:30 p.m. at the Union
TUESDAY
MUSIC: KU Wind Ensemble, 8 p., Swarthout Recital Hall
Heartsfield, 9 p. at the Uptown Theatre, K.C., Mo.
MOVIES: "Shanghai Express" and "Shanghai Gesture," 7:30 p.m. at the Union
WEDNESDAY
MUSIC: Gary P. Nunn, 9 p. at the Lawrence Opera House
Sequela Costa, piano; faculty recital, 8 p., Swarthout Recital Hall
Spyro Gyra, 9 p., Uptown Theatre, K.C., Mo.