Page 6 University Daily Kansan, October 3, 1980
Entertainment
Uncommon American women examined in dramatic 'Choices'
Rv KEVIN MILLS
By KEVIN MILLS Entertainment Editor
Entertainment Editor
KATHY BRUSSELL Staff Reporter
But they only tell half the story.
American history books are teeming with the exploits of such men as Daniel Webster, Ralph Waldo Emerson and the "father of our country." George Washington.
Conspicuously absent are tales of Mary Harris "Mother" Jones' crusade against child labor abuse, Deborah Sampson's service in the Continental Army, Arvazena Cooper's pioneer trailblazing and many other acts of courage by them, the legacy of a hitherto male-oriented society.
Joanne Hamlin has set out to redress the imbalance. Last night in Swarthout Recital Hall, the actress-playwright presented her onewoman show "Chick." On Saturday, the actress of American Women," featuring vignettes of 14 American women, the show is an informative blend of history and theater.
Hamlin conceived the program 10 years ago after finding the negative portraits of women in 20th century drama depressing. She chose the characters on the basis of their choices made in life, some controversial or unorthodox, others conventional.
"I wanted to pay tribute to those women who made their mark before the 20th century," Hamlin said. "The women of today are already getting a lot of attention from the women's characters I outlive had no help or support from society, yet they were pioneers in their fields."
Hamlin, who researched and wrote the show, has performed "Choices" all over the country. The show also has been adapted into a series of radio programs aired on National Public Radio's "The Spider's Web." It received three national awards, including the Armstrong Award for excellence and originality in FM radio broadcasting.
Last night, Hamlin appeared in a blue calico dress on a stage populated only with a Victorian chair, table, lamp and desk. With books and the adversity faced by these remarkable women.
From 17th century unorthodox Puritan Anne Hutchinson to 19th century women's rights advocate Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Hamlin's portraits were constructed to evoke empathy as well as educate. In this respect the program was a success.
Hutchinson, for example, lived in an age when a man "could even punish his wife, provided he use a stick no wider than his thumb." After conducting a series of meetings in which she espoused her unorthodox views of religious grace, she was brought to trial and convicted.
Not all of Hamin's women met with such misfortune. Deborah Sampson wanted to fight for the Continental army during the Revolutionary war—so she masked her femininity and enlisted as Robert Shurtliff. She fought for 18 months and was injured once in the thigh. Rather than reveal her secret, she plucked the bullet out with her own hand.
After the war, Sampson conducted a lecture in tour when she related her war experiences to the audience.
While Hamlin's program succeeded in delivering its message, it was lacking somewhat as drama. Hamlin's narration dominated the content, and her characterizations were sometimes so brief as to be indistinguishable. But that is a minor point, and to enlarge the dramatic aspect might detract from Hamlin's message.
It is unfortunate that Swarthout was not packed. Considering that the program was sponsored by the departments of speech and drama, history, and English, the Women's Studies Program, the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center and the University Theatre, the lack of attendance is hard to explain. And, ironically enough, there were few men in the audience, reflecting the continuing lack of awareness of women's concerns.
New exhibit, lunch tour highlighted at Spencer
A new exhibition of photography and the resumption of the "Brown Bag Tours" highlight next week's activities at the Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art.
"Likeness: Portrait Photographs from the Collection" spans the history of portraits in photography, from an 1840 daguerrotype by John William Draper to the 1978 Bicentennial portrait of Goodman The exhibit opens tomorrow in Lake Gallery and will hang there until Nov. 23.
Thomas Southall, curator of photography, culled the photographs from the museum's collection. The exhibit comprises works by Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, Oscar Gustav Reijlander, Joseph Judd Pennell, Lewis Hine, Edward Weston and others.
Photography's initial impact was felt not in art or science but in popular portraiture. Until photography was developed, only the affluent could afford to hire artists to paint their portraits. A decade after photography's inro-
sition in 1890, he began by a portrait of
himself or himself as a quarter.
Family photograph albums become a popular
way to preserve the images of
friends and loved ones.
Photographic portraiture also became an important supplement to newspapers and magazines, eventually spawning such picture magazines as Life, Look and People.
Southall will conduct a gallery tour and lecture, "The Art of the Photographic Portrait," at 2 p.m., Friday, Oct. 12, in the Museum Auditorium.
Elizabeth Brund, curator of prints and drawings, will conduct a Brown Bag Tour at no Wednesday. Clder and coffee will be served in the Room, and everyone is invited to print a bldg.
After lunch, Broun will introduce "American
Artist" in a new South Gallery
display called from the museum.
Spare Time
TODAY
MUSIC: The Secrets, with the Morellis, 9 p.m. at the Lawrence Opera House.
Norman and Incl Bashar Paige, voice; faculty recital series, 8 p.m. at Swarthout Recital Hall.
THEATER: "An Evening with David Mamet," featuring "Sexual Persuasion in Chicago," "Rewunion," and "Mr. Happiness," 8 p.m. Inge Theatre in Murphy Hall.
ART: Elizabeth Layton, paintings, Kansas Arts Commission touring exhibit, at the Lawrence Arts Center.
MOVIES: "Hail," 3:30, 7 and 9:30 p.m. at the Union.
"A Clockwork Orange," midnight at the Union.
SATURDAY
MUSIC: Beau Arts Trio, 8 p.m. at Swarthout Recital Hall.
The Secrets, with the Morellis, 9 p.m. at the Lawrence Opera House.
THEATER: "An Evening with David Mamet," 8 p.m., Inge Theatre in Murphy Hall.
"A Gypsy Melody," presented by the Seem-to-be-Players, 1:30 p.m. at the Lawrence Arts Center.
ART: Likemene Portrait Photographs from the Collection," in the White Gallery, Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art.
MOVIES: Same listing as Friday.
SUNDAY
MUSIC: Beaux Arts Trio, 2:30 p.m. at Swarthout Recital Hall.
John Robison, tutel, visiting artist series, 8 p.m. at Swarthout Recital Hall.
THEATER: "An Evening with David Mamet," 8 p.m., Inge Theatre in Murphy Hall.
ART: Raymond Eastwood, paintings, and Jim Bass, sculpture, Kellas Gallery, Reception from 3:30 to 5 p.m.
MONDAY
MOVIES: "Forty Second Street," 7:30 p.m. at the Union.
TUESDAY
MUSIC: KU Wind Ensemble, Jeffrey Moore and Randall Raines, conductors, 8 p.m. at Swarthout Recital Hall.
MOVIES: "Henry V," 7:30 p.m. at the Union.
WEDNESDAY
MUSIC: Ossian, 9 p.m. at G.P. Loyd's West.
Jayne Frager, soprano, master's recital, 8 p.m. at Swarthout Recital Hall.
ART: "American Prints and Drawings: Noon Brown Bag Tour," noon, reception room of the Helen Foresman Spencer Museum of Art.
MOVIES: "Les Enfants du Paradis (Children of Paradise)," 7:30 p.m. at the Union.
THURSDAY
MUSIC: Ossian, 9 p.m. at G.P. Loyd's West.
The University of Missouri faculty woodwind quintet; visiting artists series, 8 p.m. at Swarthout Recital Hall.
MOVIES: "Cry the Beloved Country," 7:30 p.m. at the Union.
By MARK PITTMAN Staff Writer
"The doctors ask me what I thought of the American fire. Squared off, told them if they asked him. If they asked him, I hadACK"
William Burroughs' vision of America is an acid-singed nightmare in which imbeciles sing the music.
Staff Writer
Burroughs view of life is more than jaunticed. It is positively cancerous.
William Burroughs, author of "Naked Lunch," delivers his state of the galaxy address to an appreciative Lawrence crowd.
Burroughs berates society
Burroughs shared the stage with his longtime associate, Allen Ginsberg, and the Lawrence-based band, Thumbs. He is known as the misanthropic author of "Naked Lunch" and
"This galaxy is simply a gob of grease on its way to the floor. Burroughs哟tured Tuesday morning," she said.
Burroughs looks up at life from the cracks in the sidewalk, sees the heart of darkness in man and slinks on. At least that seems to be his writing method.
That view is from the eye of a needle packed
William Burroughs
"The doctors asked me what I thought of the American flag. I told them that if they soaked it in heroin, I'd suck it . . . This galaxy is simply a gob of grease on its way to the floor."
with opium derivatives. Burroughs is the elder statesman of the druid culture.
in such, we rails against what he terms "shits"—defined as people who mind the business of others. Tuesday brought a diatribe against fundamentalists such as Jerry Failwell, leader of the Moral Majority Coalition, who Burroughs said deserved the death penalty.
In contrast to Ginsberg, Burroughs has not mellowed with age. If anything, there is more bile rileing in his throat, more bitterness in his skin, less irritation than cunicinic infection his ancient ex-funkie's bones.
Burroughs, replete in his trademarked rumple beige suit, created his microcosm of the
world: a drug rehabilitation clinic. The people in charge of this world, Burroughs said, are lunatics operating with rusty scalpels. They remove uterine cancers with their teeth and perform appendectomies with empty sardine cans.
There are "do-goods" who seek only to ingratiate themselves with incompetents and
receive the ultimate reward: extra medication.
The "do-bads," those who won't capitulate, are forever locked in the bowels of the hospital, never to see the light of day.
Burroughs is a "do-bad." His attitude of stubborn defiance makes him a marked man, a Cain in a society of Abels. As such, Burroughs is doomed.
Ginsberg's tirade lacked conviction
He is a metaphor.
Allen Ginsberg is not a prophet.
Commentary
His Blakeian visions of death, destruction and nuclear holocaust serve not as a reminder of our peril in civilization but as a personal warning that age mails. Give us all 30 years and we'll
come back as outrageous shadows of ourselves,
cursing to shock. Aning to appeal.
All hail the Great Ginsberg, Friend of
Austin, Cassady, of Burroughs, of Kesey,
The Dade King.
Yet, there was none of that creative lunacy apparent in the appearances he made in
1963.
Ginsberg's howls were met with polite, complacent appreciation, although his nature had always been to challenge the conventional, to subvert the cultural assumption.
The Beats, like Kesey's Pranksters, lived on the edge. Their motto was "dig it" and their way of experience. Perhaps it was a function of their youth, their alleged indestructibility, that made them dare. But have the years made them join the book-signed college lecture circuit?
Ginsberg has always appeared as a freak show attraction on the stage of cultural happenings. In the '60s he graced the war demonstrations. The '70s he fought against the ominous present plutonium, the poison in us all.
The political sympathies and the raw poetic talent of Ginsberg remain. He is a political paranoida and a poetic master. Like most good writers, he has an uneasy connection between his word and his gentilism.
Allen Ginsberg
Perhaps what I couldn't stand was his stage presence.
His strength lies in his reading ability. Mere marks on a page carry neither the range nor the scope of his message. His inflection, subtle tone and phrasing color the oratory, painting in the poem's sketch.
The man was wired for sound, video cameras rolling. A tiny bald man in shiny black shoes. A suit and tie. What once was a very dangerous man is now co-opted by society for its own use. An anomaly in Western civilization, kept for his nostalgic value.
H
'Hair' evokes '60s turbulence, naivete
There are some movies you know are going to be bad before they are made, like a musical of Beatles' songs performed by the Bee Ges, or a biography of Clark Gable staring James Brolin.
By MIKE GEBERT
Contributing Reviewer
A version of the hippie tribal-love rock musical "Hair," made in the waning years of the disco craze, would seem to fit that category perfectly, just like a musical set in Nazi Germany, as was "Cabaret." But "Babet" is an excellent film, and so Isil Moyers' 1979 film "Hair."
"Hair" will be shown at 3:30, 7 and 9:30 p.m.
today, and tomorrow in the Kansas Union's
national arena.
Avoiding both the cuteness of "Grease" and the liberal platitudes that damaged "Coming Home," "Hair" manages to recreate one of America's most troubled times while remaining true to its origins as an energetic and entertaining rock musical.
The key to the adaptation by director Forman ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") and screenwriter Michael Weller is the recognition that the political issues of the time are pretty much settled now—the hippies having been proven right about the Vietnam war, prejudice and Richard Riordan, the emphasis on justice and carefreeness, somewhat irresponsable, but undeniably appealing, lifestyle of the hippies, expressed through lively music and dance. As a result, the characters
preserve their naivete while the filmmakers retain control.
Review
losing sight of the fact that these were people who believed in something, fought hard to avoid dehumanization and ended up crushed in victory.
Along the way, though, Forman and Weller probe the hippie lifestyle, exposing its narcissism (as 'Tom Wolfe pointed out, do you own your own thing'), naivety and irresponsibility—never
Perhaps only from the retrospective of a decade can we appreciate these people. And perhaps only a non-American like Milos Forman can chronicle it for us. For Forman, whose career began in Czechoslovakia in 1967, all wants to portray his characters as people, not political symbols. That was clear in "his characterizations of mental patients in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and is even more evident in "Halr."
Discussing "Hair" in this manner, however, can make one lose sight of the fact that it is a musical, and an entertaining one at that. The songs of Gustavo Dudamel are strongly evoked the '80s. Twila Tharp's choreography, too, is designed to stress energy and exuberance above all else, and
though it begins pretentiously it soon reaches the same level of youthful excitement.
The film has a stronger plot than the stage show, as it should. This journey to the past is seen through the eyes of Claude (John Savage), a farm boy who heads for New York to join the Army. En route to the Empire State building, he encounters a group of hippies led by Berger (Treat Williams) and an heirs on horseback (Beverly D'Angelo). The hippies laugh at his countrified ways—until he proves to be the only man in town who rides a horse. Friendships made, the hippies aid Claude in his quest for the soon-to-be married heirs, and attempt to talk him out of joining the Army.
The cast is diverse, reflecting the split nature of the film. Savage is the hesitant, slightly overwhelmed Claude, while Williams, a rubber-faced, little leader, dominates the dancers. Great pains are taken to delineate all the characters, and it pays off by the film's end.
In a series of free-form scenes, they demolish the heirs' wedding party, land in jail, get bailed out, take LSD (in what is probably the only moderately convincing or interesting story), and follow Claude all the way to the Army base, only to have the '60s 'foul harvest brought to them.
But "Hair" is not a political statement. It is an evocation of an era, warts, and it isn't realistic, and like the hippies, it has its faults. But it is authentic and artistic, and a thought-provoking place to start an examination of that period of our history.