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Entertainment
University Daily Kansan, October 10, 1980
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'The Fool' makes world debut at KU
Four guest artists lend talents to Michael Moodv's 'The Fool'
By CHRIS COBLER Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
Excitement is a word so often used when describing theater that it smacks of triteness. But the people in the University of Kansas theater program think the world premiere of Michael Dorn Moody's "The Fool" should generate bona fide excitement.
"The Fool," a swashbuckling saga of the navigation of the globe by Sir Francis Drake, is scheduled to run Oct. 10, 11, 16, 17 and 18 in the University Theatre.
Four guest artists are at the University working on the play and their presence has provoked excitement. The artists are Moody, author of the play; Joe Numally, a New York director; and George Dzundza and John Herzog, professional actors. They have all come to KU with hopes of perfecting the play for an eventual opening on Broadway.
Their test run for Broadway should benefit the theater program, according to Ronald Wills. His influence on Broadway
"This is an attempt to work on the play while at the same time giving us a lot of advantages from the whole creative process that occurs with professional director and playwright." Wills says.
A world premiere at a university is not common but has some precedent, Willis said. Mark Medoff's "Children of a Lesser God," which won the Academy year, opened in New Mexico State University.
"I're really a major event," Willis said. "We always think what we do is exciting, but when you have five guest artists (including playwright Aurand Harrington who wrote and directed "A Toby Show") on campus all at the same time, it's really something special."
The play was brought to KU by New York producer Ken Marsolais, a 1988 KU alumnus. Marsolais was in New York and available for comment. But according to Charla Jenkins, University Theatre public relations director, the play "Fool" to KU after a visit to the campus last year.
The facilities and capabilities of KU's theater program impressed Marsholos, Jenkins said. In addition, opening a play at a university theater rather than a professional theater requires much less money and means much less pressure from the media, she said.
The two main characters in the play are portrayed by Dzundza and Herzg. Dzundza, known for his performance as a bartender in the 1978 movie "The Deer Hunter," plays Sir Francis Drake. Herzg, who had the lead role of Claude in Los Angeles and New York productions of the musical "Hair," is cast as Bacon's best friend, Thomas Doughty.
The rest of the cast, made up of students and one faculty member, is excited about being in or out.
"As a beginning actor, you always try to model your character after what’s been done before."
who plays musician-sailor John Brewer. "You can
share that here. You're formulating the
character."
"Out of any of the productions, this is the one I wanted to be in most. You get a chance to be in on it."
The only woman in the play, Bonnie Cullum,
Overland Park pamphomore, said that watching
and learning from the professionals was an
invaluable experience.
However, Burt Folksy, Indianapolis, Ill., should importance be put into a proper persuasive speech.
"I don't want to slight this, but I don't want to slight the rest of the program either," said Wagner. "I don't want to have first time the theater department has done original work, nor is it the first time it's done work with a nationally-known playwright, nor is it the first time it has brought in professionals." It was the film.
Still, working with a playwright is "a thrill all by itself." Rolsky said.
Moody also has something to gain from this professional-collegiate collaboration. The success of "The Fool" here will determine his future.
"Since this is the first production, the script changes in your hand," he said. "Every night you're forced to re-evaluate the script. That's the challenge for the theater, to have a work growing in your hands."
"The way I feel about the play is that it could be the turkey of all time or it has a good shot at becoming a major theatrical event," he said. "I don't believe there will be many who say, 'It was sort of interesting.' They'll either love or hate it."
"I want to speak to the audience through their guts and through their hearts," he said. "I would like them to walk out of the theater feeling that they are successes as harper belters."
The success of "The Foo" is contingent on the
success of "The Cube". The plausible message
will be presented in a xigexer version.
However the audience receives his message, Moody said he would continue to live "an adventureless life." He is a commercial fisherman who plies his trade in Maine waters so dangerous he is "never certain I will come back."
"I'm not a safe writer because I don't live that way," he said. "I'm an adrenaline addict."
For the past two years Moody researched "The Fool" in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego in South America. Before that, he was alternately a cabiner, cab driver, prop man and barbler.
Moody's only other produced play was "The Shortchanged Review," presented by Curt Demosther's Ensemble Studio Theater in New York in November 1975. The New York Times said, "The work establishes Moody as a playwright with an impressive talent."
Tickets for "The Fool" are available at the
Ticketmaster. They are free for K1.
K1 students with valid IDs.
DAVE KRAUS/Kansan staff
Actor John Herzog is one of four professionals involved with the production of Michael Dorn Moody's world premiere, "The Fool."
Director of 'The Fool' working with unknown
By SHAW NM McKAY
Staff Writer
As director of the play, Michael Dorn Moody "The Fool," Nunally has taken a cast of 23 actors, most of them inexperienced students; and molded them into a unified crew.
In 1577, a small band of pirates under the direction of Sir Francis Drake set sail around the world. Today, Joe Nunally has embarked on a similar unknown voyage to explore the seas. With playful skill setting up Broadway,
“It’s very difficult trying to do a major play that has never been performed before,” Nunnally said. “The characters are being created for you, and you really never know how good it is until you do it.”
Directing a world premiere has given Nunnally the opportunity to shape the play into an artful and compelling story.
"You're out there making the decisions—the first choice as to what the play is really about," he said. "If you're right, the play will be a success. If you're not, the play ves buried."
Nunnally said it was not uncommon for a director not to know how good a play really was. He once asked the director of the original game that he worked on, "How knew he knew powerful and exciting the play was."
"The director said he never really knew," Numally said. "And that's what makes it so exciting—you never really know the play you want to do, nothing, but the live production is often another."
"But it's worth it," he said, "because each night Ive been a student study group and an honestorous sentient character."
Nunnally said the University was chosen because it gave the crew a place to work away from the pressures of the media and away from the problems it would encounter in a major city.
Nunnally said the biggest problem he faced was trying to direct a large cast of students.
The play deals with Drake's voyage around the world in 1577.
"In a sense, we've been given an opportunity to keep the play from the eyes of the outside world."
"The play is really about a bunch of pirates," Nunally said. "The two men set out on a voyage that would change the world, but only one would return."
The play tells the story of two men—Drake, a man of action, and sailor Thomas Doughey, a man of ideals—and the conflict between those two men. he said.
"In any period of crisis, the man of action will persevere over the man of ideas," he said. "Doughy was filled with the new thoughts of the Renaissance and wanted to search into the past."
Nunnally said the playwright dealt with larger issues than had been dealt with in most modern plays, but also added a new dimension.
"I'm dealing with the problem of a black canvas," he said. "Whether you're a Picasso or an art student you start out looking at a blank canvas and try to turn that canvas or script into a living play."
Clean packs British power, politics
Staff Writer
By MARK PITTMAN
The Clean are four men who can't buy liquor legally but can pack the wallop of a Wild Turkey and Quaalude cocktail. Their brimming enthusiasm and concern for their audience mirror the motives of their chief inhabitants.
The influence shows, as it does in most beginning bands, from 19-year-old lead singer Shaken Kelly's British working-class phrasing to the political sentiments expressed in the band's original material.
But there are other forces at play when the Clean take the stage. Guitarist Jay Francis, 19, windmills like a latter-day Townshend, drummer Jim Slocumb, 19, pounds his set's flesh with the ferocity of Ginger Baker and bassist Todd Kitchen, 19, smiles and bounces like McCartney used to.
"We're not the Clean." Kelly said sardonically after a recent gig at Off-the-Wall Hall. "We are all these girls."
If the band is searching for an identity, it seems to have found in it Kelly, a tall, engaging fellow with the flat-top hat.
"Please don't stick us with that tag of 'punk' or 'New Wave'." Kelly pleaded. "We just play rock'n' roll."
Right, Shawn, and the Sex Pistols had day jobs playing Muzak recording sessions.
Clean songs stick to the theme of rebellion and alienation that made the English invasion's second wave meaningful to the few in America who were listening. When the war was over, the queen was raped while the powers that be stood by and watched.
They play the "60s anti-war anthem, "Eve of Destruction," with a ska beat that sends couples scratching to the ground.
In "My Town," Kiley muses that there will be "no one to tell the tale" of his town after the bomb has dropped.
That is not to say that the Clean are all politics and no play. They run through the Beailles "Twist and Shout" and Carl Perkin's "Blue Suede Shoes," but the emphasis is on original material.
plan to go beyond this stage, playing in small halls and bars."
a tattered Stars and Strips drapes the organ where he plays a "No-Draft" sticker is emblazoned on Fragen's laptop.
Kelly says the band is firmly committed to touring in the future and to securing a record contract. Kelly, Kitchen and Francis quit school this semester to "work on the band."
But the Clean are a long way from stardom now. They practice in an Oread neighborhood basement where the lightbulbs are exposed, the wiring runs overhead and a set of box springs rusts in the corner.
‘The difference between us and every other hand in
daily life is that while watching the Clean's
equipment being loaded, we are more aware of it.’
They say they can't afford to go to the "Thumbs route" to their business, financed by their own money, as lawyers have thumbs.
"Hell, we can't even afford strings," Kelly said. "How hungry are you? Pretty damn hungry."
Desire notwithstanding, the Clean seem to have the components for at least a seminal role in rock. They have the verve, the brains an instinctive grasp of stage music, and the head-heard movie that is essential for a beginning band.
The crowd shouts its demands to the Clean takes the stare. "The Clash!" they implore. "The Wheel."
Kelly moves to the mike and simply answers with: "The Clean."
Pragmatism, not mysticism, guides composer
By JANE NEUFELD
Staff Reporter
If the first strains of music are nectar to a performer, then the notes played at a music recital tonight will be ambrosis for John Prescott, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., senior.
He will hear his own music being played and also will perform some of his compositions.
Prescott is majoring in music composition, and to graduate he must arrange a recital of his work. Five of his pieces will be played at 8 tonight in Swarthout Recital Hall, Murphy Hall.
"It's in front of God and everybody," Prescott said. "It's gonna be great."
He is anything but worried by the event.
Prescott plays trumpet and piano and will play a trumpet sonata and perform in a brass quintet tonight.
He doesn't have to perform. But he wants to, an indication of the enthusiasm he shows for the recital.
He decided to remedy this situation.
For example, Prescott said he thought student and teacher were poorly attended because the public didn't know about them.
"I handed out about 100 invitations to my recital," he said.
That's not an ordinary nervous reaction. But Prescott
demonstrates the stereotyped of a torture and tem-
perature deterrent.
"I don't believe in mystic processes," Prescott said. "Toome't it a job, and it's the same process as sitting down and writing a report on James Joyce. It just something else. At the same time, I wouldn't be doing anything else."
He does not light incense or pour libations to the Muse before sitting down to compose.
He usually sits at the piano to compose, Prescott said,
and he experiments with different melodies until he finds
the one that works.
"It's a lot of work getting started, I've found," Prescott said. "Sometimes you have to be in the mood to compose. Sometimes you have to force yourself to be in the mood to compose."
Mental blocks don't bother him, he said, but sometimes he finds it difficult to sit down and start composing.
Steady work is necessary in his business, Prescott said,
"If you're George Brett and you're in a slump, you still
can be funny. And you're a comer-
gression, you might miss out on some money."
and composers can't allow themselves the luxury of a dry smell.
Prescott said that although the process sounded easy, an ability to hear the music in one's mind was essential.
After the music is created, the drudgery begins, he said. "A large part of composing, and the really boring part, is copying all the music parts," he said. Copying the master piece is a major individual music part by hard can take several weeks.
So it's not all Bach, Beethoven, golden inspiration and eloquence.
Prescott said that it theoretically was possible to make a living by composing but that he planned to teach composition and trumpet at a university and publish music as a sideline.
"There are certainly more lucrative jobs around," he said. "I tell people who ask my advice that they should not go into music unless they couldn't possibly be happy doing anything else."
but he doesn't question his own noteworthy calling.
He thinks the right decision has been made.
Spare Time
TODAY
MUSIC: John Prescott, original compositions, student recital, 8 p.m., Swarthout Recital Hall.
Little Jimmy Valentine and the Heartmurmurs, 9 p.m. at the Lawrence Opera House
Courtesy of the Center for Performing Arts
THEATER: "The Fool," world premiere of Michael Dorn Moody's play, 8 p.m., University Theatre.
ART: Elizabeth Layton, paintings. Kansas Arts Commission touring exhibit, Lawrence Arts Center.
"Likeness: Portrait Photographs from the Collection," Helen
Foresman Spencer Museum of Art
Academic Museum of Art
Raymond Eastwood, paintings, and Jim Bass, sculpture, Kellas
Gallier
MOVIES: "La Cage aux Folies," 3: 30, 7 and 9: 30 p. m., at the Union.
SATURDAY
MUSIC: Lynch and McBee band, 9 p.m., Lawrence Opera House,
Ossian, n. at g.P. Lloyd's West.
MUSIC: Lynch and McBee band, 9 p.m., Lawrence Opera House,
Ossian, n. at g.P. Lloyd's West.
THEATER: "The Fool," by Michael Dorn Moody, 8 p.m., University Theatre,
theater mall at Dorn Moody theaters to be closed.
"A Gypsy Melody," children's theater by the Seem-to-be-Players, 1:30 p.m. at the Lawrence Arts Center.
MOVIES: Same listing as Friday.
SUNDAY
vocals: University Symphony Orchestra, fall concert; George Lawner, conductor, and Jack Winer, piano solo; 3:30 PM
ART: "The Art of the Photographic Portrait," a lecture by Thomas
Walcott, curator of photography, 2.p.m., Spencer Auditorium.
MUSIC: "Along the Road," a musical from
MONDAY
MUSIC: Richard Berry, voice, faculty recital, 8 p.m., Swarthout
Recital Hall
MOVIES: "Gold Diggers of 1933" and "Fashions of 1934." 7:30
p.m. at the Union.
TUESDAY
MUSIC: KU Chamber Choir, fall concert, James Ralston, conductor, 8 p.m., University Theatre.
Any Braaten, cairnet, and John Lewis, trumpet; student recital, 8.
p.m., Swarthout Recital Hall.
MOVIES: "Major Barbara," 7:30 p.m. at the Union.
WEDNESDAY
MUSIC: J.T. Cooke, 9 p.m. at G.P. Loyd's West
*The New Art Library: Noon Brown Bag Tour*, noon, reopen
*Art Museum: New York University Spencer Museum of Art.
MOVIES: "Cleo from Five to Seven"