Entertainment
University Daily Kansan; October 15, 1982
Page 6
40-year-old drama still has message
Play exhibits power of lies
By SUSAN O'CONNELL Staff Reporter
Lillian Hellman's "The Children's Hour," which will be presented this weekend by the University of Kansas Theatre, illustrates how a play's message can remain as relevant today as when it was first produced over 40 years ago, despite controversial subject matter.
The play was presented last night and will run tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m. at the University Theatre in Murphy Hall. It will also be performed at 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
It deals with how malicious slander can drastically alter the lives of innocent people.
"I may seem at first glance to deal only with attitudes toward biennialism, real or fancied,"
"But it goes on to explore the incipient malice children are capable of, the erosive power of doubt, and the consequences of believing more in someone else's definition of your being and valuation of your worth than you do in your own."
THE SETTING of the first act is a small, private boarding school for girls, started in the '80s by two friends, Karen Wright and Martha Dobie, played by Angela Wallace, Tonganotic senior, and Lisa Heylett, Bonner Springs junior. One of the students, Mary Tillford, played by Mary Ramos, Leawood sophomore, is an attention-starved brat who uses as a way of getting revenge. She punishes her two teachers with a slap in the face, and they are lesbian lovers. The grandmother is played by Mary Neufeld, Lawrence special student.
The teachers lose a trial for slander because Martha's aunt, Lily Mortar, who is played by player 16. The coach gives the advice:
return from a theatre tour to testify in their behalf.
The teachers lose everything when the school closes because parents will not allow their children to go.
NEUFEILD AND RAMOS both portray their characters well
Ramos depicts Mary as a perfect brat.
In one scene she thrashes about and stumps her feet when things don't go her way. She bosses the other students around and threatens to tell on them if they don't do what she wants.
"A lot of physical work was essential to appear twelve years old." Ramos said.
In another scene, she forces one of her classmates to hand over her savings for a taxi fare when she plans to run away to her grandmother, Amelia Tilford.
She said that playing a younger person was not too difficult because she had played younger people.
Neuteld represents a wealthy, 60-year patroness in a very elegant manner, in part by her stature and grace and style.
"I seem to get cast in these older roles a lot," she said.
NEUFELD, 29, said she played the role of the grandmother because she was older than the other actresses.
The language was stilted, she said, and to her seemed as if the actors repeated everything the characters had seen.
That made memorizing her lines difficult, she said, because when phrases are repeated often they get confused.
Few of the actors or actresses were near the ages of the characters they played.
Wills said the actresses who played the students at the school liked the challenge of being in front of a crowd.
Neufeld did a good job of playing an older
Two characters in the play reveal how people's priorities can lead them to become self-centered. MARY LIED about her teachers, ruining their lives, just so she could stay home from school.
woman, because she has had roles of older women before. Willis said.
In the end of the play, Aunt Lily explains that when she was on her tour, she did not think her absence at the trial was important. She did not realize that her failure to appear at the trial to testify was the main reason that the teachers' lives were ruined.
When first produced in 1934, the play caused a furor because it contained a theme of lesbianism. It was banned in Boston and was denied a commission. The committee member refused to attend a performance.
Both in the original production and in a 1952 revival, prominent actresses turned down leading roles for fear of damaging their public images.
AFTER TONIGHT'S performance, Barbara Ballard, director of the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center at the University of Kansas, will lead an open discussion about the issues raised by Hellman play. The discussion will be held in Lounge on the fourth floor of Murphy Hall.
Wills said he thought the impact of the lie was more important in the play than what the lie was
He said he did not expect any adverse reactions to the theme of lesbianism.
"The more important dimensions of the play will hold." he said.
"The play possesses considerable power to put audience members in touch with their own experiences."
Hellman, too, has said that a more important concern of the play was with lying, the play's
"The bigger the lie the better, as always."
Modern suspense movies favor killer
Moviegoers who enjoy seeing violent murders depicted on the screen in life-like 3-D should get a shot at it.
By VINCE HESS Staff Reporter
But those who prefer thought-provoking, suspenseful movies to provocative, mindless
REVIEW
"Friday the 13th, Part 3, 3-D" differs little from Parts 1 and 2.
Hilchock, the late master of the suspense movie, would likely be shocked by the likes of
gore would do better to watch The Three Stooges. At least in the Stooges movies, the viewer does not know for sure what will happen at the end.
The victims are almost always teen-agers, and the locale is a site — such as a deserted city street, an abandoned coal mine or, in the "Friaries" series, a forest — that is full of imminent danger.
The theme of the "Friday the 13th" series should be familiar to anyone who has seen any film in the recent spate of "murdersers" view movies, such as "Halloween" and "My Bloody Valentine," which show violent scenes in displaying graphic violence and in putting the viewer in the perspective of the killer.
As the mad-dog murderer, who is waving a hatchet, a butcher knife, a pitchfork or some such instrument, approaches the victim for the kill, what appears on the screen? Not the visage of the killer — the victim's perspective — but the fearful or unsuspecting face of the victim.
Alfred Hitchcock, where are you?
"Friday the 18th, Part 3, D-2." He said that the secret to making a good suspense movie was to let the viewer identify with the protagonist. However, the viewer, as a third party, knows something that the character does not. Skillful use of the identification technique by a film-maker, Hitchcock says, makes the viewer want to scream at the screen, "No, don't open that
In "Friday the 13th, Part 3, D-3," the viewer indeed wants to scream, "Hurry!" But the "Hurry!" is not for the protagonist to do something, but for the antagonist to complete the murder quickly, so that he can get on with the next murder and the next, in an endless procession of helpless victims, terrifying death screams and horrifying death scenes.
Perhaps a movie such as "Friday the 13th, Part 3, D-3" is really attempting to show the traditional protagonist, the good guy, as the antagonist, and the traditional antagonist, the knife-wielding killer, as the protagonist. But probably the movie is pure schlock.
The viewer knows that a character in the movie has reached the time of his death when he is alone and isolated from the other potential victims. But the viewer does not know how or when that person will die. All the viewer sees is the viewer's house. One cannot urge the person to run away or to fight back, bc.cause the killer does not and cannot die.
The viewer can merely sit and await the approach of death, a cruel, grusome death scene that evokes fear. This is what their
hideousness. One can imagine the movie director rubbing his hands in glee after each bizarre scene. And no one is sure who could have done it.
The suspense in 'Friday the 13th, Part 3, 3-D' comes from the murders — when will a particular character die, and how? The end of the movie follows the murders' view pattern perfectly. Of the five or so teen-age characters at the beginning of the movie who survive, three are dead and one is designated to die — only one will survive. However, survival will come only after a long, exaggerated struggle with the omniscient, omnipresent killer.
The one variable in the typical plot of the murders' view movie is the fate of the killer. In some movies the killer eventually dies, but in the "Friday the 13th" series, the killer, who is a deformed, pathetic human called Jason, seem to have no matter how many times he is stabbed or hanged.
One must give "Friday the 13th, Part 3, 3-D" some credit, however, for one innovation in the gruesome gallery of murderers' view movies: the re-introduction of the 3-D process, through a searing special plastics and cardboard glasses, see the film as if it were three-dimensional.
At the end of the movie, of course, the police enter the scene and take away the survivors and the numerous bodies.
The movie makes use of the technique in some eye-popping scenes.
The viewer can only wonder what happens on Saturday the 14th.
Teacher Karen Wright, played by Angela Wallace, Tonganoxie senior, and student Lois Fisher, played by Marta Brow, Lawrence freshman, discuss homework in Lillian Hellman's "The Children's Hour," which will show at 8 p.m. tonight and tomorrow, and at 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the University Theatre in Murphy Hall.
Moeser to perform in Europe
After two decades, a dean at the University of
Arizona has been invited to return to the scene of
Mexico's bombings.
James C. Moeser, Dean of the School of Fine Arts, will go to Germany to perform organ recitals in Friedberg and in the same West Berlin church he performed as a student two decades
"I'll be performing at Heliabronnen Church in
San Francisco," said Monday. "It is a
megalistic trip for me."
Moser was the only American invited to perform at the International Recital Series in 1972.
Moeser's performance began with a quick, light moving piece, Buxtehude's "Praeludium in" one.
The next selection was Bach's "Sonata VI in G Major, BWJ 350." Mweser explained that the six parts of the music were from a trio of somatics who wrote attempted to imitate chamber music.
MOESER PRESENTED an organ recital at 8 p.m. tuesday at the Plymouth Congregational Church, 925 Vermont St. The recital featured the choir which will play next week at the recital series, he said.
"Chamber music is played with four musicians," he said. "Bach combined this four part composition into one."
The third selection, "Prelude" from the "Suite No. 5.", was written during the early 1900s by Maurice Durifle, a French composer.
"The piece has an overwhelming feeling of sadness," he said. "It is as if he anticipated the tragedy of World War II."
On campus
TODAY
CATHOLIC CENTER WORSHIP will be at
12:30 p.m. in Danforth Chapel
ASTRONOMY CLUB will meet at 8:30 p.m. in
Londin Hall if the sky is clear.
BIOLOGY CLUB will meet at 4 p.m. in the Sunflower Room of the Kansas Union.
TOMORROW
MARANATHA CAMPUS Ministries will meet at 7 p.m. in the Forum Room of the Union.
CAREER PROBLEMS CLINIC will be from 9 am until noon at the Adult Life Resource Center.
Local man shows films
By VINCE HESS
Staff Reporter
Wescoe Hall and Memorial Stadium, usually associated with academics and athletics, have featured movies made by a local filmmaker.
The filmmaker, Bernoelsky, 1201 New York St., showed five short, black-and-white movies Monday as part of the Student Union musical "Woodruff Woodruff Auditorium in the Kansas State."
Bernofsky declined to be interviewed after the program but said in an introductory speech that the movies were made between the mid-1960s and 1982.
About 80 people attended the 90-minute program.
THE FIRST MOVIE "LAWRENCE" featured shots of a crowd at a KU football game in Memorial Stadium. Bernafsky said the movie, which was completed last summer, depicted what he called a "holocaust" that was occurring during the Reagan administration.
Describing his work as avant-garde, Bernofsky said his movies showed authentic emotions, not artificial emotions as in what he called "commercial" movies.
The movie mixed film from Memorial Stadium with film of people on a busy city street. Meanwhile, the narrator, reading a script that was supposedly written in the 1980s, tells Mr. Reagan that said the "fascist army of Ronald Reagan" would try to eliminate the poor in the 1980s.
The poor were thought to cause social
friction so were excluded from such activities as voting and attending public events, the narrator said. By 1894, extermination camps for the poor were started, and a nationwide system of camps was run by the "Reagan Slave Project Administration," the narrator said. The end of the movie was a film clip of the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
BERNOFSKY'S MOVIE "1985" had shots of people dancing outside Wescoe. Bernofsky said that the movie depicted the past, the present and the likely future. The movie contained film of a dancer who led a dancing group by raising his arms. It also contained clips of the pope raising his arms to wave at a crowd and a speaker raising his arms at a rally which evidently took place in Nazi Germany.
Another movie, "Hierarchy," consisted of skits. Advertising for the SUA program said the movie was made in Lawrence and was about local religion. One skit was about people who were hypnotized and then relived the death agonies of their previous lives.
"Anodyne," according to SUA advertising, depicted neurasia and paranoia. The movie featured a man who identified himself as a psychiatrist. One patient after another received a telephone call, walked up a staircase and met the psychiatrist in an office. The psychiatrist talked to each patient in a series.
Another skil in "Hierarchy" portrayed a TV news interview. A TV reporter interviewed a man who said he dug up graves, took pictures of the bodies, recorded information from the bodies, shot the bodies with arrows. He said his intention was to tight-brown-azain Christians.
New albums sophisticated rock
By TOM GRESS
Staff Columnist
Probably the most notable thing about the pop music scene this fall is that Journey and Styx haven't released any new albums. Thank God. And with Elvis Costello still hanging around on the charts and bands like The Go-Go's topping the charts, the public is getting more sophisticated in its tastes.
I've picked out four of the more recent releases that are what rock 'n' roll should be like. Three are good. One is so-so, but so-so is
REVIEW
good considering that the past few years have been something of a wasteland in the music
tune featuring Lowe's background vocals. And there's "What a Way To Go":
— Paul Carrack, "Suburban Voodoo" (Epic)
— The best thing about this album is Nick Lowe's production. Lowe doesn't mess around. He combines lushy lyrics, instruments that together don't have much more than $800 and Carrack's talent to pull off a good, solid拍 album.
BOTH CARRACK and Lowe are veterans of the British pub scene where bands sit around, get drunk and play rock 'n' roll as it was meant to be played. And the great thing is that Carrack and Lowe have captured that feeling, as if it were done between beers, on the album.
"Oh you, when you run amok
"You really muck it up.
Lowe and his wife, Carliene Carter, wrote the songs with some help from Carrick. They sound like the beetles most Molown: "I am getting plenty of radio play: 'Lesson in Love' is a bouncy pop
"You're gonna be the death of me,
"They'll have you up on murder one someday for sure
"But what a way to go."
Love bashes it out in production. I read in some music magazine that the album took three weeks to make with weekends off. The playing is solid, although Carrack sometimes plays the keyboards as if his hands are tied together, but he does have his moments.
- Elvis Costello and the Attractions,
"Imperial Bedroom" (Columbia) - If you think all Costello can do dang on his guitar and then you are in for a shock on this album.
*IMPERIAL BEDROOM* 'im not close to being a typical New Wave-punk album.
"It's been a long honeymoon,
When I got through listening to the album I had the feeling that Contello was a man with a grudge and a gun. I'm not sure he likes anything. But for me, it's the songs: there is good deaf truth in Contello's songs.
"There's no money back guarantee on future happiness."
Contello is a fine songwriter and his songs mix wit and cynicism in good pop tunes. The songwriting, Contello's tenor voice and Steve Nieve's keyboards are the album's
- The Who, "It's Hard" (Warner Brothers) —
PART OF THE PROBLEM is Pete Townshend's songwriting, Iliked his solo album, "All The Best Cowbies Have Chinese Eyes," and sometimes "It's Hard" sounds like an extension of Townshend's solo effort, but for some reason The Who can't put it together like Townshend did. "It's Hard" is nice enough, but, like an old high school date, it's forgettable.
What I like most about this album is they way they say "She's a bomb" all through "Athena," even though I have no idea what "She's a bomb" means.
- Marshall Crenshaw "Marshall Crenshaw"
(Warner Brothers) - By now, I'm sure,
everybody has probably heard that Marshall
Crenshaw is almost the second coming of Buddy
Holly and The Beatles. I can't expand much on
that. The man is good.
But when one background chorus is the highlight of an album, well, there are some problems. There are some good spots to this album, such as "One at a Time" and "Emencemance" with Ms. Grace in the Hilaried" seems to drag. We never kicks out what you expect from a good, old-fashioned Who album.
The main thing is that his songs are fun. The production, with Richard Goteher and Crenshaw at the controls, is low-key and that makes it work. Crenshaw just plays the songs and they come out sounding as if they are straight from the '60s.
Probably the best way to listen to this album would be in a convertible with a good AM radio. When I listen to "Solder of Love" or "Someay, Someay," it's like watching an old "American Bandstand" before all the weirdos started showing up.
1
So, look, this a good album, especially for a debut. I can't wait for the next album.