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Wednesday, July 2, 1975
University Daily Kansan
'John Brown's Body' awakened in a-smolderin' KU performance
hy EVIE RAPPORT
"John Brown's body lies a-moulderln' 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,
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women who grieve and pray the farmer stock is destroyed by stray crabmenhals.
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 the Civil War for Lincoln, Grant, Lee, Davis, and Robert E. Lee as 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
hours each week at Heart. Other
performances will be July 31st.
The play closely follows the action of the poem it has three principal performers and a chorus.
The principal parts will be performed by three alumni of the KU theater program. They are Richard Kelton, Sue Tisdale 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 owner in Mississippi, and 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 accusing the master on the personal impact of the war.
The play begins with John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Va., in October 1859. 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 attack on the song about him quickly became a rally cry. In 1862, Jillia Ward Howe, an abolitionist, set the words of her poem, "Battle Hymn of the Republic," to the same
The play takes the actions of the war through the battles of Ball Run, Shibal and Wheeler, and the battle of Brooklyn.
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 sing music composed for the play by Ferino Heath. Besides the original music, the a capella chorus songs a few contemporary songs, and the 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 tympany."
"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 printed on cork on lithographs first appeared 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 that "the body" Bory "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. As Ralph Tappin wrote 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 dirigible 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.
Dirigibles, airships and blimps are all called Lighter Than Air vehicles (LTA), Jan Roskam, professor of aerospace engineering, said yesterday.
By KELLY SCOTT
Kansan Staff Reporter
To the layman, an LAta is more readily identifiable as the Goodyear blimp that supplies the overhead crowd shot on Monday Night Football or flashes cagle slogans on its great belly while coating high above Kansas City.
"There is real potential for low-polluting mass transportation," Roskam said.
Roskam said that was about all LTAs were now used for.
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.
He said he could forsee a transcontinental system of LTAs that could move at a maximum of 180 knots, and would receive plane loads of passengers from small commuter planes that would land right on the runway, as planes land on aircraft carriers.
"It would be like landing on a cloud,
or cloud would hold you up," Brik said.
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 ship or truck into smaller components and shipping it.
Some industrial equipment doesn't lend itself to be broken down into smaller parts.
Feasibility of blimps still debated
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 feasibility studies NASA funded for the study of long range LTA use was completed in May when Boeing and Goodyear, the only companies that still build presented their reports to NASA Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif.
Congress will then decide whether to fund actual development of the vehicles, Kokam
The results of these studies were largely inconclusive, Roskam said, and there were strong feelings for and against further study. Regardless, both companies will begin Phase Two 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 are invested in doing that research, Roskam said.
Roskam said he believed public sentiment against the LTA, caused partly by the tragic crash of the Hindenburg in 1897, but there were people died in the Hindenburg disaster.
"You better believe it," he said. "I'll make sure of that."
He said the abandonment of dirigible aircraft at sea came was the result of other factors as well.
"History just converged," Roskarn said. "Political events of the late 1930s and early 1940s is addition to the growing popularity of the system combined to siftile dirigible development."
Development of the LTA for modern use would be an undertaking too expensive for a private company to afford, Roskam said.
If the feasibility studies indicate a future need, such information must be supported by the tarpawel.
Once a feasible model of the LAFT is established, statutory control over them, Roekam 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
lift the requirement to build and certify
LTA's, Rookam staff.
He said that if it was proved there was a profit in using LTAs, airline companies did not. The report said.
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