THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Entertainment and Leisure
Mary Hartman: she isn't the woman she used to be
RUN HARTUN Staff Weiter
By RON HARTUNG RON HARTUNG
Embarrassing pauses are staples of modern conversation everywhere, but especially on a college campus, where would-be Thinkers string together would-be Thoughts with a reckless disregard for continuity. Into the resulting gaps the conversions continue, and remains, until one of the conversants comes to the rescue with another timely remark.
More and more conversations these days, however, are being rescued, rejuvenated, downright dominated, by that video bond, "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman."
drowsily. It could be in a classroom, before the professor arrives, as students study their hands and shun each other. It could be at a stand-up-party affair, where the guests clutch a drink in one hand and grasp for conversational straws with the other. Into every life, it seems, a little "Mary Hartman" is destined to fall.
It it could be in a bar, wherein a cluster of melancholy fraternity-type eyes their beers
'Countless experts attach all sorts of significance to every twisted turn.'
OR IS IT? WHAT is it? Who is SHE?
People who were complete strangers moments before will prick up their ears at the sound of such catchwords as "Sergeant Foley" or "Clute Menzheimer," and are soon launched on a fast new friendship. It's America, since Mary Hartman came alone.
Surely it's safe to assume that. only the social troglodytes are unfamiliar with Mary Hartman, America's new sweetheart. Periodicals aplenty have invited Mary onto their covers: Ms., Newsweek, Rolling Stone, to name but a few.
The story has been repeated countless times: how Norman Lear set out with just an idea and a handful of dollars (all right, so no one else can win), how network bigwigs took one soap operas; how network bigwigs took one
look at Lear's pilot episodes, held their noses and showed him the door; how our man Norman persevered anyway and assembled his own network of local stations; how "Mary" caught fire and grew fierce until it slaughtered all competition.
The basic issue, though—the question that should be occupying the attention of serious college intellectuals such as ourselves—is the 'why': why has Mary Hartman become the most popular campus TV personality since Beaver Cleaver?
UNDOUBTEDLY ITS primary attraction is that it lets the pseudo-sophisticate sink knee-deep in the joyous ooze of the soap opera without suffering the shame and social haltiness that accrue from the regular "daytime dramas." That, indeed, was perceive of Mr. Lear—to recognize that everyone, deep down, lasted after the heartaches, the game gossip, the cheap hysteria, the dreadful the respectable viewer wanted it in a more palatable package. Something like a TV dinner served under glass, yes?
Another reason the educated viewer remsit "Mary" is that it gives him a vehicle in which to haul around and paddle his views on the Cosmic Questions of his life. He has taken a Psychology course or made his life a real, live Philosophy professor, he can armchair psychoanalytic to his heart's content over the miseries of Mary and her dizzy pals. Those with a passion for the phrase "identity crisis" are understandably in love with our girl Mary, and we forward eagerly to each new neurosia.
And surely 'Mary' satisfies those with an appetite for the minor tragedy, for the melodramatic moment in-time-and-space. It is a masterpiece; it has an exhibitionism to mass murder to adultery to broadcast journalism (not necessarily in that order, and not necessarily in combination). it has bested the songs at their own pace and embodiment some might label dubious at best.
And why shouldn't they? Cashing in on the heavier-than-thou game, countless "experts" are attaching all sorts of significance to the show's every twisted turn. An Illinois
Presbyterian minister termed "Mary" a "theological model of the Judeo-Christian system—doing good, beginning to hope and for work for solutions." Not content to leave it a television show, such thinkers often come up in art, then Art, then Truth. then Liah.
YET CERTAINLY the show has its detractors. Ministers have inveighed against its frank, cavailier treatments of such nasty subjects as prostitution, and the magazine's initial review of the show called it "silly stun, silly stun."
Which it is, to a certain degree—for any imitation eventually comes to resemble its model, and the models for "Mary" are nothing if not silly and stupid.
But the characters seem real (though hardy normal), and we tend to grow quite fond of them. Charlie and Loretta Haggars share an affection for each other that is contagious. They are often contagious. The appearance of Charlie's exwife, Muriel the horrible, almost dashed that happiness on the rocks, and with it much of the audience. But the characters continue to grow, and they seem to lend themselves to the reality, however absurd, to the show.
Grandpa Larkin is another of the most interesting interests of Fernwood, Ohio. At
'Who can guffaw at a woman who's coming apart at the seams?'
the show's beginning he seemed to be an afterthought, merely an excuse to inject that well-known "Fernwood Flasher" incident into the script. Since then, however, he's become one of the most endearing of the characters. The story is given some truly forlorn lines, amidst a lot of no seququets, and his plight of being old and generally ignored in his own
After his first day at work, the new head of the University Theatre Department, Ron Wills, right, talked it over with the outgoing director of the theatre, Jesse Davis, left, as well.
Staff photo
Chanaina leadership
See OH, MARY page 2
What's happened to our girl?
Foreign season for KU theaters
By EVIE RAPPORT Contribution Writer
It's not a matter of earth-shattering importance—the plays that are chosen to be produced during the 1976-77 University Theatre and Inge Theatre seasons. But for those who do care about the art and craft of music, it is a matter of concern, curiosity and interest.
This isn't to say, of course, that a play must be familiar to be successful. Any play, however, is usually not directed, well acted and well designed and still be a box-office failure. Conversely, a play can be sloppily directed, poorly acted and shoddyly designed and be a stirring
Last year's season was largely a matter of surprises. Most could be annie
But "Jest, Satire, Irony and Deeper Significance" and "Noah" the rest of us skittering for the theatrical histories or even the classic open playwrights for a clue about them.
You can't tell, in this business, what will work for sure—what plays, when finally produced, will prove interesting or provocative or silly or challenging enough to pull in the crowds. It is possible, certainly, to make educated guesses. It is possible to make logical assumptions. It is also possible to be wild and disobscuro wrong.
Get Your Gun" and "Slow Dance on the Killing Ground." A few, more knowledgeable, persons knew that "Scarecrow" was written in 1910 and was not a stage adaptation of the Dustin Hoffman-Gene Hackman film of a few years back. Then other their scholars easily placed "The Changing property in its Jacobone niche.
Analysis
The University Theatre plays for the season are "The Roar of the Greasepaint, the Smell of the Crow," by Leslie Briscusee and Anthony Newley; "Rashomon," by Fay and Michael Kann; Joe Otoron's "Loot"; and Chelsow's "Unhappy." Together, the production of the school year, hasn't yet been selected.
The Ingo Theatre series will be "Anatole," by Arthur Schnitzer; "Everyone Is Somebody's Mother (Sometimes)," an original play by Donna
So it is anybody's guess how well the plays selected for performance in the 1976-77 season will fare. Because until a play is tested before an audience, it still is a work in progress and can really know whether it's been worth the effort.
Young; "Hansel and Gretel," by Engelbert Humberdinger; "Old Times," by Harold Pinter; and "Stereil Lullaby," by Donna Young, an original play that will be performed with other short plays. A sixth performance slot has not been filled.
Two children's productions will also be performed: "The Butterfly," and "The Dragon."
With the exception of the original plays, and discounting for now the slots that are yet to be filed, it is an exclusively foreign season. Not one of the announced plays was written by an American, which has absolutely no significance whatsoever.
What it does signify is the several concerns that must arise when a season is
decided upon. In any theater company, the central problem is always how to produce artistically satisfying plays that are also artistically appealing and financially profitable.
In an educational theater, one must also consider the needs and abilities of the actors being trained. And always, hanging over everything, is the cost of a play -how much for costumes, for sets, for performance rights, for special accessories?
So, by the time a season is decided upon, any number of worthy and exciting works have been discarded for any number of reasons. The difficulty of obtaining performance rights makes it impossible to produce the newest Broadway hits. Certain
plays are too adventurous for even the most mature and experienced repertory company to perform successfully. Some plays are performed too often to be considered. And some plays are simply not worth bothering about.
Surprising things happen when you combine able actors, inventive directors and creative designers. Who could have been the first actor to perform last fall, would be one of the most sensitive and interesting plays of the year? Or that "Jest, Satire, Irony and incarnation," more than 120 years old, would be so full of pungent and pertinent humor?
Let no page go unturned
See THEATER page 3
By JAMES MURRAY
Staff Writer
Lawrence offers a number of bookstores, dealing in both new and used books, for the student who does more than the required reading.
J. Hood, Bookkeeper, 1405 Massachusetts, deals mainly in hardbacks but carries a large selection of paperbacks as well. The books are made by the older books, as opposed to best-sellers. The store does carry a large science fiction section, both paperback and hardbound, because of its popularity. It also carries some academic magazines, classical books.
Hood buys paperbacks at one-eighth the cover price, sells them at one-half the cover price, and trades at one-fourth price. Hood also offers an international search service.
DEAN'S BOOKS, 1115 Massachusetts,
carries a wide range of paperbacks and
magazines. It offers a wide selection of
science fiction, westerns and mysteries,
as well as comics and men's magazines. It also has a large pornography section.
Dean's also buys books, but the prices are varied. It also trades two for one.
The newest of the three-use books stores, Book Nook, 723 Massachusetts, deals mostly in paperbacks but also carries hardbacks. It sells paperbacks at half the cover price, buys them for 10 per cent, and for one. It buys hardbooks at five per cent.
Book Nook carries a wide variety of books, including a large occult section. The magazine selection is limited to Playboy and automotive magazines, though.
ALTHOUGH ALL three of the storey buy books, they don't deal in textbooks. The bookstore does.
books at the end of each semester. It pays 50
bursars, and less, for other books.
Lawrence also boasts two retail bookstores in addition to the campus bookstore.
The Town Crier, 930 Massachusetts and the Malls Shopping Center, deals mostly in fiction, both genre and general. It has extensive collections of fiction sections, and smaller sections for science, history, religion, sports and other topics. It also carries a large selection of gift and art books, as well as cards, posters and books, the only Lawrence outlet for new comics.
Adventure, a bookstore, in the Hillcrest Shopping Center, generally receives new books faster than the other stores. It has a good selection of paperbacks and children's books and is considered to be more esoteric than the other stores.
THE OREAD, in the Kansas Union,
though carrying almost no magazines,
has generally better selections in most areas
than the other stores. It has large fiction
sections, as well as non-fiction in most areas
of study at KU.
Another plus for the Oread is that students get a patronage refund on their purchases.
Index
Now that you're once again embarked on that exotic cruise down Higher Education Lane, it's time you turned your attention to something you probably don't know yet.
Accordingly, this is the Leisure Section of the Back-to-School Kansan—dedicated to the proposition that all students are created restless and need to be soothed by arts and entertainment. If you like theater, if you like skimpy-diping, if you like disco music, even if you like genuine music, you'll love this section.
Running ... 2
Junk art ... 3
Hidden art ... 4
Dancing ... 6
Dining ... 7
Ragtime ... 8
SUA ... 9
Shinny-dipping ... 10
Bicycling ... 11