Entertainment
Page 6 University Daily Kansan, October 24, 1980
Uncommon women face expectations
Four college women exchange confidences in "Uncommon Women and Others," now showing in the Inge Theatre.
Bv KEVIN MILLS
Entertainment Editor
Kate, a Phi Beta Kappa, likes sex with irresponsible men because it's "exciting, like a trashy novel."
These four women are characters in Wendy Wasserstein's 1975 play, "Uncommon Women and Others," which opened last night in the Chelsea Theatre on October 26, 28, 32, 39, 41 and November 1.
Rita thinks truly liberated women should taste their own menstrual blood.
Leliah worries about her homosexual feelings for Kate.
Carter is a catatonic who wants to "put Wittgenstein on film."
Marcia Grund, assistant professor of theater, is directing the Inge Theatre Series production. She expects audiences to be teening with movies after watching "Uncommon Women."
"They should leave with questions about what women are feeling today." Grund said, "rather than walking away with the sense of having seen a great play.
"Wasserstein really touches on a lot of things about women, expectations that women take on. Expectations about loneliness, sexuality, careers and ambitions."
"Uncommon Women" is actually a play within a play. Five graduates of Mount Holyoke, an all-women college, reunite in a restaurant six years after graduation. The bulk of the play relates memories of their senior year.
Grund said Wasserstein may have written the play simply to "give women a chance to work" in the male-oriented world of theater. All of the characters in "Uncommon Women" are female, with the exception of a male narrator.
"The fact that it was all women was a nice problem to have," Grund said. "When it comes to casting we have a lot of really fine actresses here."
Also, having an all-woman cast created a more relaxed and open atmosphere at rehearsals, Grand said. The lone male narrator was rehearsed separately from the cast.
"I felt from the beginning that it would be easier if it were exclusively women involved," ground said. "We have a woman assistant director, too. This is the first time I've worked for a show with all women, and I found it a very positive experience."
Ground directed the cast through two stages of role development: personalization and characterization. Personalization involved getting the cast acquainted with each other beyond a superficial working relationship. Shaping the individual roles, or characterization, occurred only after the cast members were friends.
"I encourage them to go out drinking together, walk to rehearsal and share
things," Gründ. "So that when they get to rehearsal they had that to build on.
"It makes what's happening on stage so much more connected and true. They don't have to pretend they're talking to one another."
Lisa Heffey, Bonner Springs sophomore, who plays Leilah, found the method successful.
"It works well for me," Hefley said. "It's important in an ensemble piece where relationships between characters are so important.
"When you touch another woman on stage, hug them or any kind of contact whether physical or not, it's so much more sincere. So me the characters aren't just characters. There's an openness, a camaraderie, that makes the final scenes more meaningful."
Audience members may find some of the play's content offensive, Grund said. Its explicit, contemporary dialogue is not common to the stage.
"There's very graphic language in the play," she said. "I politely refer to it as 'tampon talk.' For example, there's a scene where Rita runs across the field, and says 'I tasted my menstrual blood.'"
The cast had no problem accepting the language and content. Grund said.
"We jumped right into it from the very
The issues dealt with in "Uncommon Women" should be accessible to men and women alike, Grund said. University students, particularly seniors, should relate to the dilemma of career decisions and transition that is a theme throughout the play.
"One of the nice things is that the play deals with problems that people in a university environment have to deal with," Grund said. Their future, and what they're going to do when they lives. They'll have to themselves some of the same questions these women are asking."
"One of the reasons I staged it in the round is because the audience has to participate," Grund said. "You can see the people listening to you." It just brings it all very tightly into the present.
Grund has staged the play in the round in Inge Theatre. The action's focus constantly shifts, and audience members are conscious of them on the other side of the room. Ground said.
"When you see actors that close to you it has to affect you. The danger that's possible, anything can happen when you have people there."
Grand thinks the immediacy of theater in the round should enhance the audience's iden-
tity.
society's expectations.
"This play cuts deeply to the core of women.
It's the kind of play that in reading it, the page
She will be leaving KU after next semester. She's tentatively planning to go to New York for acting experience, but she hasn't ruled out another academic position
"Teaching acting is a very personal kind of thing, and requires a lot of individual attention." Grund said. "Working with an individual is not valued by the University. So much of your energy is spent on things that take you away from the individual."
Grund has directed six productions at KU since coming here in 1972, including "HOT L BALTIMORE" and "The Boyfriend." She also is the University choreographer.
Tickets for "Uncommon Women and Others" are on sale at the Murphy Hall Box Office. All seats are general admission and $2 are for the kids with valid IDs. For reservations, call 841-3188.
Winter performed Lawrence gig in perfunctory style
By MARK PITTMAN Staff Writer
Staff Writer
Seasons change and so do men, but the years have not been kind to Johnny Winter. Winter strode into Lawrence late Wednesday night and she described as a half-hearted attentive at mediciority.
Winter is arguably the white blues guitar player to ever hit a turnover chord. Although the Wednesday night gig was unimpaired, the thumbpiece was definitely reinforced. After all, he is still John Dow Jones Winter I.
Most of the 800-odd folks packed into the Opera House expected either the white-hot Texas wind of "Second Winter" or the sweaty Chicago blues he helped make with Muddy Waters.
But like Muddy Waters' Sept. 3 show in
Lake Winnipesaukee, Winter Park was marked by
literature and a commitment of commitment.
According to the Opera House management, Winter did not arrive until after 11 p.m. because of a late flight in from Kansas City, Mo. and a car accident apparently stolen in his luggage. Once there, he contacted the crowd if Lawrence was ready for him because he and his boy were ready for Lawrence.
But he didn't play like that
Wednesday's performance was considerably more subdued. Winter mentioned matter of how that we all should take out our things down to High School, slide work was the best moment of the evening.
But Winter's occasional exhortation to the crowd of "Rock'n' roll" was a tired, hoarse chorus. A sad reminder that more often than not, he wants to go to work any more than the rest of us.
On the album "Second Winter," Winter's version of the Dylan tune seared souls and made God's wrath seem as inescapable as Dylan's songs. His vocal acts演示ed that he had felt its scent.
Fans don't demand that stars put a hand in their hearts and commit suicide right on the stage; they do expect it is confirmation that the music they love is not a 9 to 5 job like it seems to be for Winter.
Winter is an engaging personality on stage. He grins like he had teeth and states soft and slow, "You know what I mean. Yah, you know what I mean."
Dancers exhibit grace,sweat
By the time he added the slide to his little finger for an enclosure of Dylan's "Highway 61 Revisited," he had made unbelievers out of many in what started out to be a solid followi
The crowd knew
They watched his lean black and blue-clad form snake his guitar cord across the floor with the moves refined for 20 years. They shouted encouragement from the balcony, raised hands keeping time in the front row, and stood on chairs for a glimpse of a legend.
Staff Reporter
By VANESSA HERRON Staff Representative
A young woman with long brown hair danced a pas de deux with a pink silk dress as a Beethoven waltz.
Next, she turned to clap hands with a bearded cancer in T-shirt and tights. They danced a light-fired routine.
When the music ended, their bare feet squeaked and thudded on the cold wooden floor and left the room quiet.
"Lights . . music . . curtain," a stage director calmly read from her clipboard.
The director cued the next piece, and four
song pieces from the Valley Dance Theater
piece to the center of the room.
DAVE KRAUS/Kansan staff
WHEN THEY DANCED, they seemed as pale and translucent as the white leotards they wore and as light as the Schumann waltz that filled the room.
After the music had ended, the dancers leaned against the studio's mirrored walls. Their chests rose and dropped, their hands gripping them.
At the director's place, they burst into smiles and stare studied features. They hang again.
The dancers were rehearsing for their presentation this weekend at Central Junior High School, 1400 Massachusetts St. It will be the troupe's fifth engagement since it was formed last year, said Kristen Benjamin, director of the dance theater.
"Curtain . . lights . . music," the director read
A dance titled, "If You're Afraid of Chaos," will be dedicated to Elizabeth Sherbon, professor emeritus of physical education. Sherbon had taught three of the trone's 11 members.
Howard Levenson prepares for this weekend's performance by the Kay Valley Dance Theater.
Their backs glistened with sweat and their hands were glistened with sprinted from one routine to the next without hesitation.
Taut, thin muscles rippled beneath Benjamin's pink tights.
The six pieces they will perform were choreographed by Benjamin Lemoni and choreographed by the troupe of the troupe.
MOST MEMBERS are past or present KU
professor, with professor, and another is a botany instructor.
But three days a week, when they climb the stairs to the Lawrence School of ballet studio,
At Tuesday night's dress rehearsal, however,
none of the dancers seemed to be relaxing.
"When most of us dance, we have to give 100 percent to emplamy said. "It's good discipline," he added.
To break them in and make them supple,
dancers pound their shoes with hammers cut
and shredded.
All that we can eat either, she said.
Benjamin spoke, for example, of the tortures dancers inflict upon each new pair of pointe shoes.
"It's really just brutal, the birth of a pointer shoe," she said with a launch.
Before each performance, most dancers buy two pairs of shoes at about $25 a pair, she said. The dancers in the troupe also buy their own tights and sometimes their own costumes.
Beniamin said beauty had a high price.
"All this so we can be ethereal." she said.
"Right now, the dance theater is funded by her," the door, Benjamin said. "But it just isn't enough."
AT SATURDAY'S 8 p.m. performance and at Sunday's 2 p.m. matinee, adult tickets will cost $3. Tickets for children, senior citizens and students with KU ID will cost $2.50.
However, Benjamin said ticket receipts probably would not be enough to sustain the yield.
This performance cost us $800, and that's "dangling on a shearthing" she said. "We use an airplane hose."
At the rehearsal, about 10 dancers and dance enthusiasts helped run the music and lights. At this weekend's performances, members of the company roll out their own dance mats and carry props.
Only the stage manager and lighting technician will be paid for the performance. Ben Willem, bp
In the future, the theater will apply for federal and state grants, she said.
Benjamin said she had wanted to be a dance teacher for years.
She has taken dance lessons since she was 3, first in Junction City, her hometown, then in Lawrence, as a theater student. She later studied in New York for a year.
"Since this is a college town, it's an unusual school," she said. "The major portion of the classes are adults—students and professional people."
Benjamin said she survived the cattle calls and rejection in New York because she believed in them.
"I just remembered I was there to study, to perform and then to teach to," she said.
UNTIL THEN, BENJAMIN earns he living
from a school in the Lawson School of
Ballet, 200 w. Eighth St.
Many of the students have been dancing as long as Benjamin. In those cases, Benjamin said, they were "very happy" to be there.
BENJAMIN SAID HE was lucky during her stay in New York. She danced with two modern dance companies, performed with the New York Light Opera and was offered a permanent Yping job.
Benjamin followed advice she had heard before her year in New York. "Hold on to your pants," he said.
"Even professionals learn from each other—take from each other," she said. "There's never a time when you don't need to learn."
She turned the job down.
"That would have meant giving up dancing," she said.
Instead, Benjamin returned to Lawrence and took over the ballet school with five other dance teachers.
Spare Time
TODAY
MUSIC: KU Concert Chorale; fall concert, 8 p.m., Swarthout Recital Hall
Guy Bovet, organ; visiting artists series, 8 p.m., Plymouth Congregational Church, 926 Vermont
Barking Geckos Show, 9 p.m. at the Lawrence Opera House
Nice Guys, 9 p.m. at G.P. Loyd's West
THEATER: "Uncommon Women and Others," by Wendy Wasserstein; Inge Theatre Series, 8 p.m. in the Inge Theatre
ART: Elizabeth Layton, paintings, Kellas Gallery "Likeness: Portrait Photographs from the Collection," and "Tokaido: Adventures on the Road in Old Japan," at the Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art
MOVIES: "Fresh Gordon" and "Hardware Wars," presented by the KU Science Fiction and Fantasy Association; 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. in 3139 Wescose
"10," 7 and 9:30 p.m. in the Kansas Union
SATURDAY
MUSIC: Guy Bovet, master class in organ, 9:30 a.m. in the Plymouth Congregational Church, 926 Vermont
Jack Winerock piano; faculty recital, 8 p.m., Swarthout Recital Hall
Nice Guys, 9 p.m. at G.P. Loyd's West
THEATER: "Uncommon Women and Others"
MOVIES: Same listing as Friday
SUNDAY
MUSIC: David Craighead, master class in organ, 2 p.m. Swarthout Recital Hall
Lynch and McBee, 8 p.m. in the Seventh Spirit Club
Arlo Guthrie, 7:30 and 10:30 p.m., the Uptown Theatre, Kansas City, Mo.
THEATER: "Uncommon Women and Others"
MOVIES: "Woyzeck," 2 p.m. at the Union
MONDAY
MUSIC: Richard Reber, piano; faculty recital series, 8 p.m., Swarthout Recital Hall
MOVIES: "For Me and My Gal," and "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," 7:30 p.m. at the Union
TUESDAY
MUSIC: Fine Arts Honors Recital, 8 p.m., Swarthout Recital Hall
Amazing Rhythm Aces, 9 p.m. at the Lawrence Opera House
Jethro Tull, 8 p.m. at Municipal Auditorium, Kansas City, Mo.
THEATER: "Uncommon Women and Others"
MOVIES: "A Streetcar Named Desire," 7:30 p.m. at the Union
WEDNESDAY
MUSIC: University Singers, fall concert, 8 p.m., Swarthout Recital Hall
Morell, with the 9th Annual Jayhawk Cafe "Fright Night," 9 p.m. at the Lawrence Opera House
National, 9 p.m. at G.P. Loyd's West
N.R.B.D. with Lynch and McBee, 9 p.m. at the Uptown Theatre, Kansas City, Mo.
THEATER: "Uncommon Women and Others"
MOVIES: "Night of the Hunter," 7:30 p.m. at the Union
THURSDAY
MUSIC: KU Jazz Ensembles, 9 p.m. at the Lawrence Opera House Nation, 9 p.m. at G.P. Loyd's West
THEATER: "Uncommon Women and Others"
MOVIES: "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" and "Dead of Night," 7:30 p.m. at the Union