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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 12, 1977)
Detective drama well characterized By KRISTI TURNQUIST Of the Emerald The Late Show, written and di rected by Robert Benton, takes on two everlastingly popular di versions — the detective drama and the city of Los Angeles — and nudges them around. Art Carney plays Ira, a private eye of noble vintage. Though hampered by a limp and bleeding ulcer, he still advertises himself “the best in the business.” Practi cal and shrewd, he can easily be seen as Chandler’s Marlowe pushing 70, but still doing what he knows. Benton echoes his distin guished antecedents throughout. Like Sam Spade, Ira sets out to find his partner’s murderer. He’s drawn into a plot web as compli cated and confusing as The Big Sleep in Howard Hawks’ movie version. He scraps with a stupid gunsel and duplicitous woman descended from The Maltese Falcon's Wilmer and Brigid. Like the best of these, The Late Show handles characters better than plot. An old friend of Ira’s in troduces him to Margo (Lily Tomlin), a certified LA weirdo seeking his help in finding her kidnapped cat. Margo is an ac curate, exceptionally well-drawn and played update of the lunatic fringe endemic to 40’s movie ver sions of Chandler, Hammett, Cain and lesser lights of hard uoneo Ticiion. Ira and Margo are an unlikely pair, to be sure. As played by Tomlin (which is beautifully), Margo is desperate and strong in turn. She calls herself an actress, but supports herself by pushing dope and lazily managing a nightclub singer. Ira, the old-fashioned square shooter who keeps to himself and anachronistically calls women “doll,” is the last of another breed. Nevertheless, their rela tionship is the movie’s core and most affecting aspect. Carney and Tomlin work excellently to gether, as he finds a new seri ousness for Ira, and she a touch ing restraint for Margo’s eccen tricities. Benton’s best written and di rected scene features Ira and Margo exhilarated after returning from a gun battle and car chase. Margo excitedly suggests they team up, “like Nick and Nora Charles,” and starts planning their future together. Ira awk wardly demurs, explaining, “I’ve always been a loner.” He rises to leave, but Margo quietly comes back to earth, and says she’s a loner, too. Ira says he’ll call her and shuffles out with pained dignity while she apologizes, near tears, and says she got carried away thinking about the little business cards they could design. Here, and in the lovely conclud ing scene, Benton works at the top of his bent, shall we say. He carefully balances the comic and sad nuances for a very full effect. Elsewhere, The Late Show suffers in comparison with its sources, whose color and flair the film can’t match. Especially problematic is the movie’s similarity to Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye (Altman produced The Late Show). That film, one of Altman’s best, covered the same LA terri tory and private eye traditions. While lovingly noting the genre’s conventions, Altman vividly stung them with 70's revisionist ideas. Elliot Gould’s Marlowe staggered Page 4 Section B off-balance through a world with out morals, constantly double crossed and mocked as out-of date. Benton’s grasp isn’t as sure, and his vision of the 40’s vs. the 70 s isn’t as clear and consistent as Altman’s. This works to Benton’s advantage, though, as it centers our attention all the more on Ira and Margo. The LA crazies who orbit about these two are well acted by Eugene Roche, Bill Macy, John Considine and Joanna Cassidy, but they’re is lands. Little of the all-pervading tackiness or special flamboyance of California comes through, which limits his film as comment on its ancestors or as original statement. This is only Benton’s second try at directing (As a writer, he and David Newman worked on Bonnie and Clyde and There was a Crooked Man.) As in his first attempt, Bad Company, he is competent and has ideas, but seems to think as a writer first, director second. Benton has some good models to work from hovering about this project, though. He can either look back at John Huston, or currently, at Robert Altman, to see how one person can successfully combine both talents. Photo thanks to Oetr Ails Satire ribs nuclear power me Loons Hage, a frankly outrageous satire exposing atomic dangers, will be performed by the Dell’Arte Company at 8 p.m. Sunday at the Robin son Theatre. The full-length drama incorporates music, dance, comedy and mime as it alerts audi ences to the threat to life and the environment posed by unsafe nuclear power plants. There will also be a free workshop by the performers on Mon day, at 9:30 a.m. in the Arena Theatre in Villard Hall. Influenced by bawdy commedia slapstick and the Njinks of the Marx Brothers, the comic fantasy features masked clowns and villains from Renais sance Europe (the wise-cracking Punch, the schem ing scientist Opportune and his beautiful daughter Nova), and folk characters from Native American mythology (the loon, crow, coyote, antelope, steelhead). The Dell’Arte Company is a professional troupe of actors and musicians based in Blue Lake, California. The forthcoming performance is part of a West Coast tour which has included shows in Eugene and Portland, plus parts of Washington and Northern California. Representing more than a year’s preparation under the guidance of the Dell’Arte School of Mime and Comedy and its Artistic Director, Carlo Mazzone-Clementi, the drama project has already received official recognition in the form of two fed eral grants from the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C. The Loon's Rage is the latest work by San Francisco Mime Troupe playwrights Joan Holden and Jael Weisman, whose Dragon Lady's Revenge won a prestigious Obie Award for off-broadway theatre in New York. Collaborating on the script was Steve Most, a journalist who previously covered the Wounded Knee confrontation. Original music for the upbeat show was composed by bassist Richard Saunders and Phil Marsh. Tickets are $2 for University students, Seniors, and older children, and $2.50 for the general puHHic. They are available at the door only. For further in formation, can 686-4373. If you should happen to miss the performance here on campus, another one will be held Monday night at 8 p.m. at the Community Center for the Performing Arts. Ticket prices are the same. Richard Hugo will conduct workshop Richard Hugo, a much-lauded poet, professor of English and Director of Creative Writing at the University of Montana, will conduct a poetry writing workshop in Portland State University’s Haystack 77 at Cannon Beach on the Oregon coast, July 4 through 15. Hugo’s "What Thou Lovest Well Re mains American," was one of five cur rent books of poetry reviewed in the April 25, 1976 edition of Time magazine. He was praised as one of the few contemporary poets with "genuine talents, poets whose recogni tion is well earned." A founding editor of Poetry Northwest, Hugo was recently named editor of the Yale Younger Poets Series. “The Triggering Town,” a book of lec tures and essays on creative writing, won the Theodore Rothke Memorial Award in 1976 and his newest book of poetry, “XXXI Letters and XIII Dreams,” wiH be published by Norton. His other books of poems include "A Run of Jacks," Minnesota Press, 1961; "Death of the Kapows in Tavern," Harcourt Brace and World, Inc., 1965; “Good Luck in Cracked Itaian,” World Publish ing Company, 1969; ‘The lady in Kick ing Horse Reservoir," W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 1973. Bom in Seattle in 1923, Hugo earned his B.A. from University of Washington in 1948 and his M.A. from the same university in 1952. He worked for the Boeing Company, 1951-1963. After one year in Italy he started teaching as a visiting lecturer at the University erf Mon tana in 1964. He received a Rockefeller Creative Writing Grant, 1967-68. There followed stints as a visiting professor, University of Iowa, 1970-71; University of Washington, summer, 1971; Univer sity of Colorado, 1974-75. Registration and housing information for Hugo's poetry workshop as well as other courses in writing, music and the arts may may be obtained by writing to Haystack '77, P.O. Box 1491, Portland, OR 97207. The telephone number is 229-4849. Plenty of the finer qualities By B.J. PRICE O f the Emerald La Primavera. Sounds like an opera, but it's a restaurant. The polished hard wood interior vibrates a hi-brow aura, offset by the pottery dishes and pony-tailed chefs. La Primavera couples the finer aspects of life. Cloth tablecloths and napkins, brass candlesticks and white jacketed buspersons, set the tone for pretense that never hap pens. A pleasant maitre d'hotel es corts you to a table on either the main or second floor. The main floor enjoys a wooden and glass doorway LCC’s big band plays jazz The Lane Community College Jazz Ensemble will present a variety of Big Band sounds in concert tonight in the LCC Performing Arts Theatre. The selec tions will reflect trends in jazz styles from the classic tradition of the '40’s to today’s swing and rock. The original Billy Strayhom chart for “Chelsea Bridge," as played by the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1941, will be featured. “Dimetron," by the noted contemporary composer Randal Snyder, will have its west coast premiere. The concert will also include music played from charts by Thad Jones, John Prince, and Bart Bartholomew, the ensemble’s director. Barry Bogart, tenor saxophone soloist, wil play Butch Nordol’s bluesy arrangement of "Come Sunday." This free concert will begin at 8 p.m. Thursday, May 12, 1977 Oregon Daily Emerald Romantic ‘Jean Brodie opens “Little girls. I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders...Give me a girl at an impressionable age and she is mine for life.” So begins another term of study at Marcia Blaine School under the tutelage of a certain Jean Brodie. The play The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Jay Presson Allen, adapted from Muriel Spark’s 1961 novel opens a five-night run at UT’s Robinson Theatre May 13. The play concerns the eccentric teachings of the foolish romantic, Jean Brodie. She fulfills her own fantasies by imprinting them on the minds of her impressionable students. Her downfall comes when one of her students, Sandy, betrays her. Sandy (Jenny Nielsen) has admired and en dured Miss Brodie for years, but realizes — too late — that Miss Brodie’s influence has been harmful not only to her but to the other girls as well. The overwhelming Miss Brodie is portrayed by senior Jan Powell, last seen as The Girl in The Roar of the Greasepaint . The Smell of the Crowd. Jean Brodie Mil be Jan’s final perform ance at UT as she will be graduating with a B.A. in Theatre Arts this spring. Three of the other schoolgirls who fall under the spell of Miss Brodie are Jenny (Cindy Casale), Mary McGregor (Jewely Friedman) and Monica (Robin Wall). Two ardent admirers and lovers of Miss Brodie are Mr. Lowther, the music teacher, played by theatre graduate student Steve Applebaum, and Mr. Lloyd, the art master (Jon Lindstrom). Miss Mackay, the school's headmistress and Brodie s chief antagonist, is portrayed by Nancy Wilson. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a romantic story set in 1930’s Edinburgh, Scotland. Yet an important theme of the play is highly applicable to today: the important relationship existing be tween teachers and students. The girl disciple who firsts mistrusts and then comes to hate Jean Brodie, and eventually feels impelled to betray her, "admits in later years that Jean Brodie was, though in an ironic way, the most powerful influence she had known in her life.” The play is an adult play, dealing with impor tant themes, yet has comic moments, as well. Jack Kroll of Newsweek described the play as delicately balanced “moral comedy.” Performances of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie are scheduled for May 13, 14, 19, 20, 21 in the Robinson Theatre with curtain at 8 p.m. Tickets at $4 and $3 are now on sale at the UT Box office and may be reserved by calling 686-4191. Students will be admitted half-price with current fee-payment cards. Todd Barton, former music director of the Oregon Shakespearean Festival, will present a solo recital of Baroque and Modern music for the recorder on Sunday, May 15 at 3:30 p.m. in the Throne Room of the Art Museum. Admission is free Tomorrow with Ronee Blakley, Hoyt Axton sings at Fairgrounds Singer/songwriter Hoyt Axton returns to the Lane County Fair grounds Auditorium building with Nashville star Ronee Blakley, and special guest Richard Torrance in concert tomorrow evening at 8 p.m. Always a popular performer in the Eugene area, Hoyt Axton is probably best known for his hit singles, “Never Been to Spain," ‘‘The Pusher,” “Snowblind Friend,” “When The Morning Comes” and “Boney Fingers." Artists who have recorded his material range from Joan Baez to Ringo Starr. Songwriting and singing have always been a big part of Axton’s life. His mother was the co-writer of Elvis Presley’s hit “Heartbreak Hotel.” His father was also an en couraging influence with his philosophy that “singing makes you feel good.” In 1964, John Kay, later the lead singer in the group Step penwolf, heard Axton sing “The t 'WzWW? ' ‘ Photo courtesy of TheatrElan TheatrBan, an alternative exposure to theatre, presents 5X5, an eve ning of mime, masks and movement. Friday, 8 p.m., $2. W.O. W. Hall, 8th and Lincoln. into the kitchen. The second floor holds more tables and the bar, an indication of where bars are at — higher ground. The menu, graphically pleasing, carries entrees using beef, veal, chicken, shrimp, vegetables and even froglegs. Prices average eight dollars, which seems steep, until the feast begins. A white cloth hides a treasure of differently shaped hand made yeast rolls. When the basket empties, does the busperson take it away for good? No, much to our sur prise, another basketful appeared from the kitchen. After munching on the starchy staff of life, the soup du jour appears. A delightful creamy broth flavored by parsley, bay, basil and thyme and entitled, oddly enough, Herbal Soup. Next — yes, there’s more — a pile of crisp lettuce accompanied by a skin ned tomato. Enough to outrage nu tritionists, but avoids spraying seeds and exposes the tomato's tender meat. The wine arrived announced by the specific server. With little fanfare, he opened the bottle of Heitz Cha blis. His unassuming manner de serves merit from other more obnox ious persons of his occupation. A perusal of the wine list revealed a sparse, and perhaps a bit austere gathering of spirits, but was certainly a fine representation of vintners able to complement the entrees. So on to the main course. The serving plates were king-sized, filled with enough food to feed one Paul Bunyan or two normal human be ings The shrimp was heavenly, the froglegs a treat and the only veg etarian dish, Assorted Legumes Special offered a carousel of differ ent tastes and textures. Broccoli with hollandaise sauce, sauteed mush rooms and parmesan-nutmeg broiled zucchini should be enough suggestions to get those salivary glands working. It's too bad there were not more meatless offerings. Each course was served unhur riedy. Others had a bit of service trou ble, ours was fine, but we had time to bum. The only way to find out, is to invest in a good meal which La Primavera has to offer. Just go lightly on the bread and butter and forego the rice pilaf, and you should be able to leave without too stuffy a feeing. Pusher” in a Los Angeles dub. Steppenwolf recorded the song and it eventually found its way onto four gold abums, including the soundtrack of the film, Easy Rider. Steppenwolf also recorded the critically acclaimed “Snow blind Friend.” Axton traveled with Three Dog Night in 1969-70 as their opening act. When he wrote “Joy to the World,” he played it for the group. They recorded it and had their most successful single with it. They later recorded his “Never Been to Spain” and had another top ten hit with it. During all these years Axton has remained active as an “un derground” West Coast per former and recording artist. He has made a dozen abums for al most as many labels but only re cently has he come into his own as a recording artist. As with his earlier abums on diverse labels, Axton’s first abum with A&M, Less Than the Song, proved to be a natural showcase for his songs. Artists who have recorded songs from it include Joan Baez, David Clayton Thomas, Three Dog Night, Martha Reeves, John Denver and Glen Campbell. Playwrights stage works The Playwrights’ Theatre, a col lective of writers and theatre art ists, will present another pro gram of original student-written plays next Thursday, May 17, in the Forum Room of EMU at 12:30 p.m. The program will last about an hour, and is free. It is spon sored by the Cultural Forum. The plays to be produced, in staged readings, are Express Train by Amy R. Chartoff and Communication Among Ele phants by Paul Thomas. Express Train is a one-act play set in a Chicago commuter car, confining characters in one place for a ride that is both tense and revealing. Communication A mong Elephants is a series of interconnected scenes that comi cally treat the problem of trying to talk each other across real or im agined barriers. Both plays have come out of a Playwriting workshop course, taught this year by Dennis Ken nedy, playwright and Visiting As sociate Professor of English. Amy Chartoff is a graduate student in theatre and literature, and Paul Thomas is a senior majoring in English. Thomas will direct his own work, and Express Train will be directed by Kennedy. Playwrights’ Theatre is a group formed by the students in Kennedy’s course as an outlet for new dramatic work. The actors and technicians involved donate their time so that new playwrights can try out ideas in practice. Last term the group sponsored two separate successful productions. Russian plays presented The Department of German and Russian at the University is pre senting two short plays, both performed entirely in Russian. The plays are “The Wedding,” by Anton Chekhov and ‘The Pup pet Show,” by Alexander Blok. The performance will be at 8 p.m. on Saturday, at the Wesley Center, 1236 Kincaid St. Admission is free. For more information on the plays cal 344-7197 or 687-0395. Page 5 Section B Out of his second album for A&M Life Machine, which he co produced with Allan McDougall, came two country and western hits, “When the Momin’ Comes” and “Boney Fingers,” which led to several appearances on the Grand Ole Opry and Ernest Tubbs Record Shop. He then had his own television special on NBC, where he was joined by some of Ns friends, in cluding Ario Guthrie, Ringo Starr, Linda Ronstadt, Tanya Tucker, Rita Coolidge, Buffy St. Marie, and in acting roles in comedy skits: Kris Kristopherson, Paul Williams, and Doug Dillard. Southbound, Axton’s 1975 ef fort, was co-produced by Henry Lewy and featured special guests like Arlo Guthrie, Ronstadt, Cheech & Chong, and John Hart By BOB WEBB Of the Emerald ford. The album contained the author’s version of “No No Song,” which Ringo Starr made a hit in his cover rendition, and a classic duet with Ronstadt on his “Lion in the Winter.” Last year saw the release of Fearless, produced by David Kershenbaum, which was named after a St. Bernard friend of Axton’s. There are ten of his own tunes (several co-written with friends) on Fearless, plus an in teresting version of Dylan’s “Lay, Lady, Lay,” and there are guest appearances by Tom Scott, the Ozark Mountain Daredevils, and the Miracles. Snowblind Friend is the name of Hoyt Axton’s latest abum. It in cludes the writer’s own version of “Never Been to Spain” and the title song, as well as several new tunes by Axton and friends. “You Taught Me How To Cry” features a duet between Axton and coun try and western vocalist Tanya Tucker. Look for a review of this abum in a later issue of Surface and Symbol. Ronee Blakley is best known for her performance in Robert Altman’s film Nashville, and as a very active participant in the his toric Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue. Her most recent appear ance in Eugene was last spring as a supporter of Governor Jerry Brown’s presidential write-in campaign. Blakley s free concert on the EMU Terrace drew several hundred students. Capitol recording artist Richard Torrance has toured with several of the better bands — Little Feat, Linda Ronstadt, Average White Band, and the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band to name a few, yet he still remains a “cult hero” to only cer tain record collectors and radio programmers. Torrance’s live performances have been likened to those of Little Feat. Tickets for this Double Tee event are $5.50 in advance and $6.50 the day of the show. They are available at the EMU Main Desk and Everybody’s Records.
