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About What's happening. (Eugene, OR) 1982-1993 | View Entire Issue (July 30, 1987)
■ THEATRE Review: Graceland Great theater magic at New Zone Gallery by Deborah S. McGee Mallomar Productions’ Grace land at the New Zone Gallery shows that great theater magic can happen with a minimum of fuss. A one-act, one-hour play by Ellen Byron, Graceland tells of two lovelorn women rooted in the American South. Bev’s a house wife from Delaware. Rootie's a runaway wife from down bayou Loosiana way. They’re avid readers of National Enquirer. Their love lifes sound like the lyrics to Coun try Western songs. Elvis Presley is the catalyst that brings Bev and Rootie together, at Graceland mansion just three days before its opening. The Memphis mansion is a memorial palace to “The King,” ’50’s and ’60’s rocker Elvis, whose name has reached the remotest corners of Earth. Elvis was/is the greatest star so far to a huge hunk of the world’s people. And Graceland deftly explores why. Byron’s Graceland and local playwright Dorothy Velasco’s Miracle At Graceland (also staged recently at the New Zone) get right down to dealing with issues of immortality. Their characters feel they have connections to other dimensions. Both plays explore the realm of the supernatural, and, through looking at American fascination with personalities such as Elvis, shed a light of under standing on what may be strange phenomena to some: collecting of the Sacred One’s belongings (as in Elvis’s scarves), using the Belov ed’s spirit to solve everyday prob lems, and attaining a level of awe not found anywhere else in their dreadful lives. In both plays, the characters turn their eyes upward. Except for such themes, the two plays are very different, and already there is a rumor that someday there be may a double feature production. Graceland is exciting minimalist theater: two roles, a stage off the center of a bare large room, and the audience at 10-20 feet away. Intense. At this range, ya gotta be good, and Heather Copeland and D. Roberts are. Bev is initially somewhat repulsive, wiggling her ample buns to “Stuck On You,” but you end up loving Roberts’ character. She never loses her dignity, and projects great warmth in an Earth Mother style from behind a coral, beige and white polyester pantsuit. Copeland is Rootie Hallert, an obnoxious, gum-snapping, overly made-up sassy upstart. She seems without a cate . . . until you hear her story. The telling of both women’s tales is brilliantly acted—and directed, by Joseph Gilg. The interaction between players shows marvelous sensitivi ty; the play never gets sappy, and manages to balance finely on the middle ground of the tenderness scale. “We cry every night,” Roberts says. What’s most exciting about Graceland is that it’s a break through in women’s roles in the arts. The majority of the time, women are peripherals, or sexy bitches, or one stereotype or another. Real women are rare. In Graceland, two women transcend their initial competition, coming to a moment of true affection with each other. We all know it happens in real life and here it is, the sub ject of fine art. In Graceland, too, one generation yields gracefully to another, and to tell which would spoil your experience. Compassion replaces competition in a believ able—and hopeful—way. Just a few suggestions: Curve the chairs so they’re not in a straight line, and put a fan at the door, facing stageward. Also, would it be possible to have Bev saying something while she’s at work in the beginning? Other than that, this producion is a gem. In New York, they’d be lined up as far as our Ferry Street Bridge to see it. Curtain time is a prompt 8 pm, and at 7:30 there’s a radio tribute to Elvis by sound designer Ron Royer, done with the voice of Bill Barrett. It’s a great way to get in the mood of the play, and even if you’ve never been much of an Elvis fan, you’ll be amazed at how you remember his lyrics—so strong ly is his music ingrained in our culture. Lots of good parking is nearby and 5th Street Public Market, now open evenings, is just a block away for a last-minute refreshment before curtain. There’s a comfy wrought-iron bench out front of the gallery for watching the color ful street theater rolling by. Mallomar Productions is a new name for roughly the same people as D. Roberts Productions, who did Laundry & Bourbon at Maude Kerns last summer. The name is from the candy bar, which has a part in the play. The group also plans a Sunday, August 16, commemoration dinner at Terry’s Diner in honor of the tenth anniversary of Elvis’s death. poppl/ GREEKTAVERNA Greek Food, Wine and Spirit Still in the same location \ 675 East 13th • Eugene, Oregon • 343-0846 Closed Tuesdays • Tables Outside Heather Copeland and D. Roberts are in Gmceland. See calendar, July 30, for details. Review: (6 'Master Harold,, . . . and The Boys Brilliant play, great production by Dorothy Velasco Athol Fugard is one of this cen tury’s most impressive playwrights. As a South African his themes are profoundly serious and topical, but they also reach beyond the con fines of specific incidents of racism to treat subjects of univer sal importance. “Master Harold” . . . And The Boys, one of Fugard’s finest dramas, is now playing at the Oregon Shakespear ean Festival in a splendid produc tion. This brilliant little play reveals a microcosm of social con flict distilled into a confrontation between a white adolescent and a black servant in a tea room in 1950. When the play was first per formed in 1982, Fugard readily admitted that it was blatantly auto biographical. Deeply ashamed of an incident that occurred in his youth, he wrote the play to atone for his guilt—the guilt of hurting a black surrogate father. In the play, Master Harold, called Hally, is the adolescent son of a tea room owner. His father is a crippled alcoholic, and Hally has spent most of his youth in the company of Sam and Willie, the black waiters at the tea room. Sam is a father figure, wise and dig nified, while Willie is childish and naive. During the course of a rainy afternoon, family pressures drive UniversityTheatre Presents Lucky Per’s Journey by August Strindberg Robinson Theatre U of O Campus July 31st Aug. 1st. 7th & Bt Children' s Matinee 11:00 a. m. Adults $2.50 Children $1.50 Evening Performances at 8:00 Alltickets$3.50 Box Office 686-4191 Hally out of his happy childhood relationship with Sam and into the ugly adult world of racial reality. He insults Sam so brutally that he himself will never recover his lost innocence. He is doomed to live with himself and with the realiza tion of his own ugliness. That doom seems even more tragic than the sufferings of Greek heroes, because it’s a tragedy of our own time. Director Henry Woronicz has given the Ashland production a focused, dignified interpretation, with exemplary performances by Ray Chapman as Hally, J.P. Phil lips as Sam, and Anthony Lee as Willie. Ray Chapman plays Hally as a slightly obnoxious schoolboy, whose hormones are about to break out. His life is complex beyond his experience and he truly cannot prevent himself from clash ing with Sam, who sees it coming. Sam understands Hally’s problems, Willie’s problems, even his own problems, but as a black man in South Africa there is little he can do, beyond maintaining his own dignity. The situation is heart breaking, and at the end of the play there is hardly a dry eye in the audience. Scenic designer Vicki Smith has created a totally realistic tea room on the intimate Black Swan stage, complete with rain visibly dripping outside the window. For an hour and a half we are really in South Africa in 1950. "Master Harold" . . . And The Boys is a short play about a brief incident that represents social injustice on a universal level. Athol Fugard deserves to be respected as one of the major play wrights of our time. I believe he will eventually be ranked alongside Ibsen and Shaw as both an artist and social commentator. The Oregon Shakespearean Festival would do well to produce more of his plays, most notably Fugard's new drama, The Road To Mecca. [Dorothy Velasco's reviews can be heard on The Ashland Report produced by D. Roberts and airing on KLCC-FM’s Morning Edition and Sunday Morning programs.} THE POETICAL PURSUIT OF SUMMERFOOD BOOK 6 TEA CAFE Open Tues-Sat 8:30-10 pm Sunday 9-5 1616 Fast 19th, Eugene 344-3422
