Visiting director focuses on triumphs in career
By ANGELA POTHETES
Fine Arts Reporter
John Reich, guest director at
the University, Theater-designed screen-ware
university Theatre, doesn't mince words,
"I'm here because after making a long career and after lifting the Goodman Theatre in Chicago from nowhere to its present eminence, I felt that I've made my career and made my name and that what I should do with my life is help other people," Reich said recently.
Reich is directing the University of Kansas' production of "Right You Are If You Think You Are," by Luigi Pirandello, which will open in April.
Reich has indeed made his career and name prominent in today's theater.
He retired two years ago as director of the Goodman Theatre and its School of Drama at the Art Institute of Chicago where he produced or directed 93 major productions. From September 1857 to June 1972, Reich played the plays and programs for the subscription theater. The number of subscribers increased from 1,800 to 18,000 during that time.
KU uses a coupon system for some programs, but Reich thought that subscriptions would be better. There would be a sense of ownership, and audience members
Rich is working here because he thought he could do more good in the Midwest and in universities that teach students to work in professional theater than in professional theater itself.
could be acquainted with the people around them, he said.
Reich is still working professionally, however and will direct a French play in China.
The universities serve a double function, be said, by teaching performers and backstage personnel and by teaching audiences to be knowledgeable.
KU has one of the better known and better functioning university theaters. Riicha said
"I think that its reputation in Chicago or New York is better, perhaps, than its reputation in Lawrence, but that's only normal," he said.
As for the Midwest, Reich said, "Kansas is relatively isolated in its geographic situation. I was hoping to make a contribution there, than, for instance, in New York state."
"They used to say that with regards to theater, the Southerners write them, the Midwesterners act them and the New
Reich was the first graduate of Max Reinhardt's school of theater, the Reinhardt Seminar, and became the youngest stage manager in the history of the Burgtheater in Austria.
Yorkers criticize them. And I find this to be quite true."
Reich has translated plays from German, Italian into English, including Piccadelle. Piccadelle
Although "Right You Are If You Think You Are" was written in 1917, Reich said, "it is a play for the present moment because it deals with very hot issues."
It deals with the invasion of privacy, the
relativity of truth and the conflict between emotion and reason, he said.
Three people, who are the sole survivors of a catastrophe, wander into a town, and their behavior appears strange to the townspeople.
They provoke curiosity and investigation, which leads to persecution, Reich said, as the whole town tries to find out their secret. It is an important play, Reich said, because comedy, mystery and tragedy work at the same time.
"Pirandello did away with the traditional Soil BURNING."
See CAREER Page 5
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
KANSAN
Vol. 85-No.60 Tuesday, November 19, 1974 The University of Kansas Lawrence, Kansas
By Kansan Photographer JIM THOMAS
The escape route for Donald Long and two others was opened when an iron bar taken from the lower right bunk was used to break the lock on a service crawlway do on the left.
Escape scene
Murder suspect recaptured after escape from prison
By STEVE FRY Police Reporter
Kansas law officers recaptured Donald Long, the Topeka man charged with murdering one University of Kansas student and kidnapping four Lawrence Saturday afternoon after his escape Sunday night from the Shawnee County Jail.
Long is being charged in Douglas County with 12 felonies, including the first degree murder last Wednesday of Todd Storckeb, a 21-year-old KU junior from Winfield.
Long escaped with two other men, Benjamin Reed and Gary Lee Matthews. Both Matthews and Reed were in jail waiting for the charges of forging cards, law officials said.
The three prisoners escaped from the jail and
atack a U.S. police officer, Jackson,
underwriter, xxperty.
Sheriff Jim Chaffee said he first learned of the jail break when Reed walked into Chaffee's office yesterday at 9:30 a.m. to surrender.
ACTING ON A citizen's tip, officers from five law enforcement agendas cornered Long in an East Topeka house, Jackson said. Twenty-five officers surrounded the one-story concrete block house at 635 Long St.
When ordered through a balloon to surrender, Long gave up without resistance, Jackson said. Long was alone and had no weapons.
A man, who was identified as the owner of the house, was taken into custody and was held in a detention center.
Law enforcement agencies participating in the capture were the Shawnee County Sheriff's Department, the Kansas Highway Patrol, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation
and the Lawrence and Topeka police departments, Jackson said.
MATTHEWES WAS STILL at large yesterday afternoon. Chaffee guessed yesterday morning that Matthies headed to the city, Mo., possibly to a girlfriend's house.
The three used a metal bank support to pry open an inspection door on the ceiling of the gain access to plumbing. They then pried off the bottom of the ceiling. Chaffee said the men followed the ceiling to the south end of the jail and removed two blocks, which put them in the courthouse.
The men then broke out a window and escaped. Chaffee said.
After his recapture, Long was put in a maximum security cell by himself, Jackson said. The cell measures seven by five feet and has double locks on it, he said.
JAIL GUARDS ARE scheduled to check the cell every 15 minutes, he said.
Long originally was captured Friday afternoon during an intensive search of a neighborhood in east Junction City. Long responded on that occasion without any resistance.
Long is charged in Douglas County with crimes that occurred Wednesday during an investigation.
Storbeck was killed during the early morning robbery of the Sanctuary, a private club at 140 and 148 St. Borstal died by suicide according to the county coroner's report.
The four hostages and the robber later drove to a house in southeast Tonkea, where
THE ROBBER TOOK two female club employees hostage after the robbery. The robber then commanded a car, containing two men, in the Meadowbrook area
the robber left the four tied up. One nonsus-
unties herself and called the police, police.
The robber took her hostage.
with the aggravated robbery of an unknown amount of money from the Sanctuary, the aggravated robberies of three customers, the kidnaping of two female employees from the Sanctuary, the kidnaping of the two children of the car, one count of aggravated robberies of a female hostage, and one count of the attempted rape of the other female hostage.
Long also is charged in Douglas County
Illegal parkers get option under new ticket policy
Parking and traffic violations on the University of Kansas campus will no longer be referred directly to the Douglas County Davis, general counsel, said yesterday.
The policy, adopted by the University Sept. 1, was abandoned after nearly 2,500 traffic and parked tickets written since and created an overload on the court, be said.
The new policy will become effective immediately, Davis said. Under the new system, students and faculty members would be required to have 14 days in which to act on the ticket.
The violator may pay the ticket, appeal the ticket through the University system, request prosecution in the Dongla County Court, or file a complaint to the University and the County Court, he said.
If the student ignores the ticket, the University will hold the student's records rather than referring the violation to the Court County, Davis said. The student would then be unable to re-enroll until the ticket is settled.
Persons who have received tickets since Sept. 1, and who were to be referred to the Douglas County Court will now be required to take action under the new University system, he said. However, Davis said, those violations tried in Douglas County Court will until Dec. 3 to notify the KU Security and Department of their decision.
Davis said exact action on faculty violations would be determined by the University, depending on the number of students. The faculty member planned to return to KU.
POW's survival hinged on control
Reporter
Violations tried and upheld in County Court cost an average of $5 to $10 more than under the University system, plus an added $16 to $12 in court costs, Davis said.
Bv RAFAEL SANTOS
Tortures, whips and chains are still fresh in the Thiem Plumb, Vietnam veteran and oP-POW.
If the student fails to re-enroll, or it tickets become excessive, he said, the University will retain the option of filing a complaint through the county.
Plumb spoke yesterday before an audience of more than 50 persons at the University of Kansas on his experiences in a North Vietnamese prison camp.
Phil Frickey, chairman of the Parking and Traffic Board, said the new policy was aimed at reducing faculty negligence in paying tickets.
The cars of faculty violators may be impounded after five violations. In addition, parking permits for the violator may be refused for the following year, Davis said, or the violator may face prosecution through the County Court.
He said University ticketers would carry low-away lists to enforce the impoundment law.
As he held tight to his parachute, Plumb said, and floated over enemy territory.
"Our problem hasn't been with students," Frickey said. "Students get more tickets by the end of school."
He put his hands to his head and prayed, he said.
"I had a few seconds to mentally prepare myself," Plumba said. "I was afraid Vietnamese would distort my mind with their brainwashing and then send me home like a Communist, send me ashamed of my country."
Plumb's airplane was downed May 19, 1967, and he and his copilot were immediately captured by Vietnamese troops. He was released last year.
Frickey said there had been problems, however, with the refusal of faculty members to pay the University traffic tickets. He said he hoped the system of impoundment of faculty cars and county prosecution would eliminate the problems.
Author's license creates bigger-than-life people
By GARY WRIGHT
Renorter
One advantage of fiction writing is that the author can create better people than those in real life, according to Thomas Berger, author of *The Secret Life of Bees*.
Berger said that although many characters were helpless, they were nevertheless very strong.
In a lecture at the Forum Room of the Kansas Union last night, Roger said that the author was able to control the characters, and if they were told he was the author, the characters would fail.
Berger said that his interest in the Plains Indians and Gen. George A. Custer's battles were recalled when he read "Fighting Indians of the West." He said he had always had an interest in the Western movement as a child.
He called "Little Big Man" a preposterous book, because the character who told the story 'Jack' could not possibly have done all that.
"Characters are immortal and I am not." he said.
Berger said it took him one and a half years to complete the book. He didn't do any formal research, he said, but read 78 books on the West in order to get a handle on the subject.
He said that he did very little rewriting in his work, because he wrote slowly. He has no idea of what he wants to want in a book until he begins
"Writing is just like life," Berger said. "Things take place as an event in my mind."
See BIGGER Page 2
Mental discipline and control over his personal thoughts were crucial in the survival struggle. Plumb said. It was important to ignore any attempts the Vietnamese might make to brainwash him, he said.
The initial period as a prisoner was full of military interrogations by Vietnamese agents who wanted to find out what the next target would be, he said.
The third time he was questioned, Plumb said, he decided to give them a "big lie."
"I told them the next target would be in Hanoi where we were going to hit their headquarters."
Following routine interrogation periods, he was thrown into an eight-feet long by eight-feet wide cell that would be his home for six years, he said.
Many different communication codes were developed to get in touch with other Americans imprisoned in the same camp, be said.
His first contact with an American POW was done by means of a wire 14 feet long that connected his cell and the cell of a lieutenant commander through a series of small holes poked in the bases of the walls, be said.
The first question the officer asked him,
he said, was, "Who won the World Series?"
A code was made out of coughs, sneezes,
and wheezes, which stood for abbreviations.
For example,
"Communication was a very vital part of our existence, a catalyst, what really held us together."
Prisoners were forbidden to speak in English or to exercise or engage in any activity outside prison.
While he did some push-ups and sit-ups, his rommate would peek through a crack in the door and make sure the guards didn't catch the prisoners exercising. Plumb said.
"The biggest problem we had was boredom," Plumb said. "You just had your own mind to deal with and your own voice to talk." See SURVIVAL Page 2
By 1973 the push-up record was over 1,500 and only Air Force Capt. Berry Bridger won a record of 264.
A prisoner's plight
When Charles Plumb was shot down over North Vietnam, he put his head in his hands and prayed. Plumb, who spent 4 years in the Army, is survived by his wife and three children.
By Kansas Photographer DAVE PETKERSON
be a prisoner of the North Vietnamese. The speech was sponsored by the Collegiate Association the Research of Principles