KANSAN REVIEWS
FILMS: Charlie Bubbles
By BOB BUTLER Kansan Arts and Reviews Editor
"The Killing of Sister George," in the wake of a four-page ad in the latest Playboy dwelling monotonously on a pair of breasts, is packing in the patrons at the Hillcrest Theatre. Meanwhile, across the lobby in one of the smaller theaters, "Charlie Bubbles" is playing to much smaller audiences.
This is bad because "Charlie Bubbles" is so good and "Sister George" is so weak. My advice is to see "Charlies Bubbles." If you're normal you don't need to know about lesbians and if you're queer you know already anyway.
In "Charlie Bubbles" Albert Finney has joined the actors-turned-director club with beautiful results.
Charlie, played by Finney, is a millionaire writer. He is divorced, held in contempt by those who serve him, flattered by obsequious old friends and mistreated by just about everyone. "Charlie," a drunken friend says, "it's time you grew up and faced reality."
"Facing reality," is the theme of "Charlie Bubbles," and a saddening one at that, for Charlie's world dumps on him. His ex-wife and his housekeeper bitch at him, his small son ditches him at a football game and takes the train home, reporters harass him.
But what could be a depressing film is elevated by Shelugh Delany's fine script and Finney's expert direction. The film skirts the edge of the absurd without ever leaving reality. Whenever things get a little too solemn a twitch of Finney's face leads into a preposterous (but not impossible) situation. Thus, when seduced by an American student (played by Liza Minelli) Charlie finds that "facing reality" also means accepting her wig lying on the pillow beside him.
There are moments of real magic in "Charlie Bubbles": a food fight in a swank restaurant full of lunching businessmen, his seduction when all he really wants to do is sleep, and especially the ending when Charlie, sick of facing reality, climbs into the basket of a mysterious carnival balloon and sails away over the green hills of England in complete rejection of all that is real.
The real magic here is an indescribable feeling Finney has injected in the film which ridicules human foible while at the same time warmly condoning it. Few directors can bring it off. Finney, on his first try, has done it.
BOOKS: Cottonwood
By MIKE SHEARER
If you've got a dollar and it isn't your last, the new issue of Cottonwood is a good investment.
For those who remember last year's Cottonwood Review (the "Review" was dropped by Editor Ken Irving as a misnomer), the new Cottonwood has a better selection of poetry and a notably superior short story. Within the pages of the new format, however, Irving and his staff seem to have totally deserted the visual artistry so outstanding in last year's edition.
Herb Williams, KU graduate now at the University of Iowa, recalls for us in poem "No. 4" a friend who, when asked to listen as hard as he could while walking down the street, heard only his feet hitting the pavement.
The dollar-poorer, Cottonwood-richer reader might also hear little but his own feet with the content of Cottonwood, but there is beautiful depth in many of Cottonwood's poems. That depth is, commonly enough, in the works which seek not to be profound but rather which seek to be clear.
The heroes of the magazine are Williams, with two short, rich poems; Edward English, vagabond poet who halted briefly in Lawrence last fall; and David Ohle, a graduate at KU and author of "A Fingernail Pie," a hauntingly funny short story about an enveloping dust storm and a telephone talk with society.
English has been preserved for us in poems and an interview taken from the question and answer period of his reading last fall. Those who became readily endeared to the apolitical vegetarian Negro who treasures an old exchange with a famous man (who happened to be George Wallace), will want to buy a copy of the Cottonwood. Irving did a splendid job of capturing English's beauty, and English is not an easy man to capture.
Of "A Fingernail Pie," one might say the work is a bit unfinished and in need of polishing. It could easily and beneficially be shorter. But even with its flaws, it remains the outstanding work in the issue. Ohle has a wonderful knack for capturing feelings in conversations.
Sadly enough, the good publication ends with five "poems" by Patrick Nolan, who, according to the magazine, "came roaring into Lawrence last May while on his way to California." There are so many routes to California, and any other would have been more scenic-for readers of the Cottonwood.
Jeff Lough, the new editor, has set March 28 as the deadline for submitting material to room 118, Kansas Union, for the next Cottonwood. Lough plans four more editions of the Cottonwood before 1970. (There was one issue last year-published too late in the school year to sell well.)
Our advice to Lough, and all advice should be taken cautiously—including mine, would be to integrate visual art into the magazine once again and to try to get a wider selection of campus poets in publication. If he can do this while maintaining the high literary quality established by Irvin, the magazine will be a must, even if it costs one his very last dollar.
Japanese folk dramas opening tonight in Experimental Theatre
Two modern Japanese folk dramas will open at 8:20 tonight in the Experimental Theatre. The plays will run March 24 to 28 and April 8 to 12.
"The Red Tunic," which has never before been staged in this country, will share dual billing with "Twilight Crane," another one-act play.
Director Andrew Tsubaki, visiting assistant professor of speech and drama, said he has tried to flavor the play with techniques of both modern and traditional Japanese theater in his first production at KU.
He is using traditional Japanese music throughout the plays and costumes, especially shoes and wigs, which he had sent from Japan.
The author of both dramas is Junji Kinoshita. Kinoshita's works are unique, Tsubaki said, because he digs into old Japanese folk tales and dramatises them within the new form, presenting life's humor as well as pathos.
"Kinoshita tries to project the pathos through humor," "Tsubaki explained. "The Japanese are usually accepted as straight-faced, but 'The Red Tunic' shows the kind of humor that the Japanese really enjoy."
In "The Red Tunic," Kinoshita presents his consciousness of the righteousness in society as he deals with a lustful local governor foiled by a faithful and clever wife.
"Twilight Crane," the fantasy of a crane that becomes a wife to show her gratitude to the man who saved her life, pits innocence against greedness.
The new theater from which both tales arose is called Shingeki. Tsubaki cited Shakespeare and Ibsen as the two most significant Western playwrights to influence the development of the new theater in Japan.
Traditional theater in Japan, like other Oriental drama, emphasizes how to express, rather than what. But Western theater stresses the development of plot.
Tsubaki pointed out that Japanese audiences usually know what kind of plot they'll see because the stories usually are simple ones familiar to the people.
"Style of acting is pretty much decided by convention. The difference comes in the maturity of the actor, the intensity and quality of his expression," he said.
Japanese folk drama
Rhonda Plymate, Topeka sophomore, and Bill Meikle, Lawrence graduate student, appear in one of two Japanese plays opening tonight in the Experimental Theatre.
Kansan Arts Calendar
Today
8 p.m.—University String Quartet—Swarthout Recital Hall 8:20 p.m.—Experimental Theatre—Two Japanese Folk Dramas
Tuesday
2:30 p.m.-Lecture, "How the Bell Came Into Music"-Percival Price, U. of Michigan-Swarthout Recital Hall
3:30 p.m.-Theatre Colloq.“*Artaud's Relevance to Theatre Art of Traditional East and Contemporary West”-A. C. Scott, U. of Wisconsin-341 Murphy
8 p.m.-Senior Recital-Judith Strunk, soprano and Larry Rigler, pianist-Swarthout Recital Hall
8:20 p.m.—Experimental Theatre—Two Japanese Folk Dramas
Wednesday
4 p.m.-Poetry-Gataway Kinnell-U. of California- Forum Room of Union
WE DELIVER
FREE DRINK ON DELIVERY
DELIVERY
Phone VI 3-0753
Open 7 Evenings A Week
729 Mass. St., Lawrence, Kan.
"SAM WHISKEY" BURT REYNOLDS CLINT WALKER OSSIE DAVIS
AND ANGIE DICKINSON as Laurel
Concert tonight
The University String Quartet will present a special recital tonight in Swarthout Recital Hall. Admission to the recital is free.
Mar.24 1969 KANSAN 5