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Wednesday, July 2, 1975
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University Daily Kansan
'John Brown's Body' awakened in a-smolderin' KU performance
By EVIE RAPPORT kansan Reviewer
"John Brown's body lies a-moulder' in the grave, but his soul is marching on."
Historians are still fighting the Civil War. Battles include what caused it, why it went on so long and how the issues might have been resolved if political power had rested in different persons. But the terrible tragedy of war is that everyone forgets the people it wounds the deepest—the individual men who fight the battles,
REVIEW
women who grieve and pray, the farmer
stock is destroyed by stray
cannonballs.
Stephen Vincent Benet didn't forget. In 1928-27, when he hadn't yet turned 30, he wrote "John Brown's Body," an epic narrative poem about the people who lived under the rule of Colin, Grant, Lee, Davis, a union soldier and an armed soldier, the women who loved them.
Benet's poem was awarded the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for poetry. It became immensely popular, receiving praise for its historical accuracy as well as its mastery of style. In the early 1950s, it was adapted for the stage as a concert reading.
The first production of the 1975 University of Kansas Summer Theater Festival will be a concert reading of "John Brown's Body." The play, directed by Tom Rea, associate
professor of speech and drama, opens
tonight at 8 in University Theatre. Other
offices open Monday through Saturday.
The play closely follows the action of the poem. It has three principal performers and the actors.
The principal parts will be performed by three alumni of the KU theater program. They are Richard Kalton, Sue Tidale Niven and Sean Griffin, all of whom have pursued successful professional careers since leaving the University.
Each assumes the character of several persons during the play, ranging from President Abraham Lincoln to a plantation manager. In Kentucky girl. the play itself reflects the dreadful national divisions caused by the Civil War, with representatives of the North, the South and the border states each representing the character on the personal impact of the war.
The play begins with John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Va., in October 1359. This ill-advised and hasty attempt to free Southern slaves cost Brown, two of his sons and several others, including two freed slaves, their lives.
But it was the turning point for the abolitionists and their cause. Brown's songs and a folk song about him quickly became a rallying cry. In 1862, Jula Ward Howe, an abolitionist, set the words of her poem, "Battle Hymn of the Republic," to the same
The play follows the actions of the war through the battles of Boll Run, Shiloh and Goliath.
the union soldier, his love affair with a young woman and the mourning anger of a Southern woman watching her home and her life crumble around her.
The action and personalities of the principal characters are interpreted and commented upon by the 16-member chorus, which songs music composed for the play by Ferino Heath. Besides the original music, the capella chorus sing a few contemporary effects of bugles, banjos, marching feet, crowd noises and wind.
The vocal range of the chorus is complemented by the different voices of the principal players. Rea described Kelton's voice as 'a deep tempany.'
"Sean's voice has another timbre and quality, while Sue has a rich alto voice," she
The play, which Rea directed in a 1963 KU production, has been applauded for its historical accuracy. In this production, copies of lithographs depicting Civil War scenes will be projected on large screen on the campus first finely printed in Harper's magazine in 1862 and 1863.
Although the mood of the play is somber and although Benet speaks powerfully against the tragic waste of war, Rea said "We've been a body" was a hopeful and optimistic work.
And although Benet's Northern sympathies are never hidden, his compassion for the tragedy of the Southerners is clearly expressed. Ralph Ripley, a historian who conditioned it in 1957, "No one else has caught the essence of the Civil War as well as Benet."
As studies on the feasibility of widespread use of the helium driigible move into their second phase, proponents of these balloon-like airships take hope that in the future they will become an accepted mode of transportation.
By KELLY SCOTT
Kansan Staff Reporter
Dirigibles, airships and blimps are all called Lighter than Air vehicles (LTAs), Jan Roskam, professor of aerospace engineering, said yesterday.
Roskam said that was about all LTAs were now used for.
To the layman, an LTA is more readily identifiable as the Goodyear blimp that supplies the overhead crowd shot on Monday Night Football or flashes catchy slogans on its great belly while coating high above Kansas City.
He said he thought there would be more LTAs in practical use by the year 2000. Development of the vehicle to meet modern needs would take almost ten years, he said.
"There is real potential for low-polluting mass transportation," Rakam said.
He said he could forsee a transcontinental system of LTAs that could move at a maximum of 160 knots, and would receive plane loads of passengers from small commuter planes that would land right on the back, as planes land on aircraft carriers.
"It would be just like landing on a cloud,
except the cloud would hold you up,"
she said.
Feasibility of blimps still debated
He said the LTA could be valuable in transporting outsize freight. Now, the only ways for large freight to be moved over long distances are by truck and ship into smaller, components and shipping it.
Some industrial equipment doesn't lend itself to be broken down into smaller parts. Rockers do that.
He said large equipment needed for nuclear power plants couldn't be broken down. Transporting such equipment, he could, be easier if LTAs were used.
Phase One of the study benefits NASA funded for the study of long range LTA use was completed in May when Boeing and Goodyear, the only companies that still build ships, presented their reports to NASA at Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.
Congress will then decide whether to fund actual development of the vehicles, Rekam
The results of these studies were largely inconclusive, Roskam said, and there were strong feelings for and against further study. Regardless, both companies will be obligated to conduct more sign studies of LTAs. Phase Two should be completed by the end of this year.
If Congress votes to develop the LTA, Roskam said, and if NASA funds study by universities to solve fundamental problems in space exploration, they must be tested in doing that research, Roskam said.
Rokamk said he believed public sentiment against the LTA, caused partly by the tragic crash of the Hindengbun disaster in 1897, which killed people died in the Hindenburg disaster.
"You better believe it," he said. "I'll make sure of that."
He said the abandonment of dirigible construction at that time was the result of a fire.
"History just converged," Roskam said. "Political events of the late 1930s and early 1940's in addition to the growing popularity of the war combined to stifle dirigible development."
If the feasibility studies indicate a future
development such as their development
must be supported by
Development of the LTA for modern use
for mobile devices.
private company to afford. Rookham said,
Once a feasible basis for an LA TA is established, statutory control over them, Roakam said.
Safety rules, licensing procedures, and specification of size or airplanes are covered by federal authority. Since there have been no LTAs in practical use since the Hindenburg crash, there is no legislative authority governing them.
This lack of legislative authority would
require the required to build and certify
LTA's, Roakman.
He said that if it was proved there was a profit in using LTAs, airline companies would buy them to meet demand.
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