Wednesday. March 26.1975
University Daily Kansan
5
Abundant tragedy laughs in 'Leaves'
By KATHLEEN PICKETT Entertainment Editor
Entertainment Editor
In life there are many examples of what writers like to call "fine lines" separating things. There is a fine line between fantasy and reality, between sanity and comedy, and tragedy.
All of these fine lines were illustrated in
The House of Blue Leaves, a University
of Florida Press.
"Blue Leaves" was written by John Rowley, the author of the play's theme is humiliation.
"Everyone in the play is constantly being numbified by their dreams, their loves, and their worries."
Such a description would make it seem that the play is quite depressing. It is. It's not the type to see if it ever happens, but it's fine and good times. "Blue Leaves" is a play that takes hold of your
emotions and cruelly throws them around. Even if you don't feel empathy with the characters in the play, you will feel something about the ways they treat each
THE EVENTS OF THE PLAY grab your emotions gradually, so that you don't realize you are being involved until the child is feeling empty feeling in the pit of your stomach.
It would be hard to describe this play as either comedy or tragedy. There are quite a few laughs, but some of these seem to be private jokes at theatrical people. Other jokes show the fine line between comedy and tragedy. It's all right to laugh at the antics of a coef movie star, but it is also hard to tell what he's telling his story. The audience laughed at both of these, and I couldn't help feeling uncomfortable at such levity.
Enough about the play itself. It was easy
to see how successful it was a successful
New York production.
The KU production succeeded in projecting the artist's intent. The idea of humiliation was set up from the beginning, but after a few moments it didn't at first realize what was hampering.
BEFORE THE PLAY starts the main character is sitting at a piano singing perfectly dreadful songs in a perfectly dreadful voice. He continues his singing despite the moving around of the audience. It isn't until the play is underway that the idea of humiliation is clearly presented: He'd been at the El Dorado Bar Amateur
Night, but the outcome was depressing
for everyone he had just walked around
insuming him.
I don't know whether this touch was in Guare's script, but it greatly helped the overall effect. Also helpful was the set, a clattered, depressing atrocity that made it obvious why one character would go crazy and another would want to leave for California.
The play concerns a Queens resident who wants to be a songwriter rather than a zoookeeper. His hopes are encouraged by his mistress, a character unequalled for her beauty and strong driving behavior. The other main characters are the man's crazy wife and his crazy son.
SOME IMPORTANT THINGS about insanity are indicated in the script. The wife, Bananas, played beautifully by Rhonda Blair, Warm, Mich., graduate student, studies in a pathetic speech the terrors of going insane away from home.
The major flaw in the production was the performance of Anne Abrams, Brooklyn graduate student, as Bunny, the mistress. The role was juicy and could have been made either sympathetic or truly hateful. Instead Bunny came across simply as a madman, who had always motivated and her character seemed based on nothing more than an attempt to be cute.
Her bad performance was especially noticeable because Bananas was so good. She had an exceedingly uncomfortable part but carried it off nicely. Her reactions and carriage always showed the delicate manner maintained between madness and sanity.
SPENCER GOLUB, Bentell, N.B., graduate student, was excellent in his minor role as the deranged son. His facial expressions especially were good. His second act scene seemed to go on too long, however.
Some parts of the staging seemed a little odd. It's perfectly suitable to have characters perform asides facing the camera, but the actors play, played, played, played, be an overt performance.
The pacing of the first act seemed a little too slow because there was so much dialogue. But this fit into the overall scheme of the play. At first we just sat and watched, laughing occasionally. Then in the second action, actions pulled us along to the conclusion.
The production of "Blue Leaves" is well worth seeing for anyone interested in the motivations and frustrations that rule people's lives. The only question that may arise is why anyone would be so interested in blue leaves? Why would others often cruel. The only interesting thing about him was how he could so consistently sing off-tune.
The pregnant men in our society are being ignored, Dennis Dalley, associate professor of women's health.
Men participate in women's pregnancies
when women don't often participate in men's
pregnancy.
Prof says 'pregnant men' unloved
"For ages there's been a thing called her pregnancy. Recently there's been a change to our pregnancy. What we're lacking is his pregnancy," Dailey told a group of soon-to-be-parents.
Todd Seymour, executive secretary of the association, said it would be many weeks before he could speak.
Student Senate wants halt of its Hilltop Center aid
Rolfs said last week that this funding responsibility would be relieved if negotiations succeeded in having the building constructed by the construction buy the building that houses Hillock.
Rolfs said that there was considerable controversy over the value of the Wesley Building and that the Endowment Association and the administration were waiting for the assessment of an independent appraiser.
By GREG HACK
“Appraisal is a part of the problem,” he said. “We also have to establish a long-range need for these facilities and consider other factors before making a decision.”
DEL SHANKEL, executive chancellor,
said many details were "still in the air."
Kansan Staff Reporter
"We have always supported special service programs like Hiltop," Rolfs said, "but it's very difficult for the Senate to be prepared to the program to the extent it needs funding."
Langley said Hilltop began in 1972 will $20,000 from the Senate for the purchase of equipment, remodeling of the Wesley Building and the first year's rent. Last fall the Senate allocated $7,000 and the administration gave $4,000 for rent.
The Student Senate is seeking to relieve itself of responsibility for funding the Hilltop Child Care Center, according to Ed Rolfs, student body president.
Hilltop is a nonprofit corporation for the children of KU students, faculty and staff.
It uses fees from parents and the federal school lunch program to finance operating costs but must depend on the University for tuition at Marlton Langley, Hillop administrator.
For three years the senate has supported, through allocations, a section of the University Affirmative Action Plan that reads:
"The University should make every effort to insure that quality child care facilities, available to students and staff, exist on or near campus."
the building, the Senate and the administration would pay rent to the association for about five years, after which the building would be given to the University.
"The University is obligated to take care of this day care center," Roils said. Purchase of the building would show an investment in improving the University to support the program."
Rolfs said that if the association bought
John Beiser, last year's student body president, said the negotiations were started over a year ago, not only to cut the rent paid by the Senate, but also to stabilize the situation and to put Hilltop in a more secure position.
Langley said, "We want a permanent building. We appreciate the University's support, but we still feel insecure. We were not assured funding this fall until one week before classes started and this caused problems and anxiety."
The center primarily serves students, she said. Forty-five of the 63 families served have one or both parents who are students.
SHE SAID HILLIOT TOP provided programs for toddlers, and three, four- and five-year-olds. The five-year-old's program includes a kindergarten, she said.
Also, 17 homes have only one parent,十八妹 said, and the service is especially helpful.
An informal group discussion revealed that men, too, can be pregnant. Several men said they became physically ill when their wives had morning sickness.
Dailey said that because men aren't "physically entwined" in birth after conception, they filled a need to be directly connected to their womb, explaining what it would be like to be pregnant.
Many men fear for their wives' lives, Dalley said. When their wives are in the delivery room, he said, men especially tend to magnify the trauma of birth.
Dailey said that guilt was often a symptom of the pregnant male.
"I don't ever want to put her through that again," a common male reaction to labor problems.
As a result of fear for their wives' safety and guilt that they somehow have done something to harm their wives, many men were put under fire in the 1980s. Dailey said. They become nicer, he said.
"Doors are opened and wives are called
when they ordinarily wouldn't be 'it,
be it.'
a feeling of ambivalence is also common, be said. Many men respond that they don't want to be pregnant when they first hear of a baby and then say it won't be fun, like Daisy said.
Dailey said men's feelings during pregnancy need to be needful with. Many men think they have to maintain their cool at all times during their wives' pregnancies while they are really suffering from feelings of fear, guilt and concern. Dailey said,
He said that wives needed to emotionally support their husbands during pregnancy. Men have the right to be excited and scared and to talk about those feelings, Dalley said. A film about Lumac prepared childbirth, "The story of Eric," was shown at the Museum of Art in New York for natural childbirth in which both the husband and the wife are involved.
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