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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (June 1, 1978)
Stoppard uses scintillating wit to fullest Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Real Inspector Hound, Jumpers and now Travesties) is a writer whose works one either enjoys tremendously or finds a crashing bore. There seems to be little mid dle ground on the matter, as the opening night audience for the University Theatre’s production of Travesties testifies. Although comparatively small for a UT opening night, the audience was most vocal in its appreciation of the play, and quite deservedly so. Stoppard possesses a highly literate and scintillating wit. He loves puns, both outrageous and subtle, as well as word games, limericks, philosophical para doxes, and playing with the in adequacies of the English lan guage. A major theme in many of his plays is the plight of the filler characters, the also-rans, the third persons from the left, the seconds in command, the passing acquain tances of life’s heroes and how they deal with and justify their pos itions in the greater drama of life. And so it is in Travesties. Henry Carr, a minor British consular offi cial, happens to be in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I. Others who happen to be in Zurich at about the same time are Lenin, James Joyce and the dadaist Tris tan Tzara. The play concerns Carr’s memories, both real and imagined, of his meetings and dealings with these three il luminaries. As the events of the play occur through Carr’s rather erratic recol lections, many liberties could justi fiably take place, not only with ac tual history (the big three actually did live in Zurich during the Great War), but with the style and method of telling the story. Stop pard has made full use of these liberties. Carr is a coffee-table conver sationalist; he enjoys talking end lessly about matters he often only half understands. Ergo, long sec tions of the play are devoted to discussions of political positions (with Lenin), philosophies of art (with Tzara) and the English lan guage (with Joyce). And, since we’re dealing with Carr’s memories, every now and then the conversation will stop, sometimes even in mid-thought, and jump back to a previous series of statements, which will then lead to a different series of revelations. Stoppard is working on several levels at these points: He is not only showing us several “what-l-should-have-said”-type conversations, but is also engag ing, from a literary point of view, a somewhat cheap but outrage Buffet (Continued from Page 4B) one cut from that film, uvmgston Saturday Night, appears on Son of a Son..., and is also featured in the movie FM (and on the album soundtrack). Buffet performed the FM version live as a staged be nefit for “Save the Whales.” Eugene and Jimmy Buffet are both “down to earth” and his fans and the curious will agree, as Playboy did, in calling Buffet “a true original. His songs are special stories. Some are outrageous Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers romps, but others come danger ously near being poetry. Jimmy writes about pieces of America that most of us can see, but never stop to notice — and he keeps getting better.” Flutist Tim Weisberg finally makes it to Eugene as Buffet’s guest. Weisberg’s latest album, The Tim Weisberg Band, brings Weisberg closer to a pleasing combination of music that appeals to a broad range of music lovers. Tickets (all reserved seating) for the EMU Cultural Forum event are $7, $6 and $5 for the general public, and $5.50, $5 and $4 for master’s thesis dance concert FEETSFEETSFEETS by joan tazarus june 2 & 3, 1978 8 pm free admission geriinger annex 354 686-3386 University students. The EMU Main Desk, the Sun Shop, and Everybody’s Records in Eugene and Corvallis are ticket outlets. THREE AWARD WINNING FILMS ZERO DE CONDUITE by VIGO (Truffaunt’s favorite filmWnOh YES!!!) Also PAS DE DEUX LA JE TEE Two showings 7:00 & 9.00 pm Admission $1.50 AT THE OPEN GALLERY 445 HIGH ST. (across from the 5th St Public Mkt) EMU Cultural Forum Proudly Presents JONATHAN KOZOL Author: Death at an Early Age “Education in America: Reading, Writing, or Brainwashing” Thursday, June 1 EMU Ballroom 8P.M. Admission FREE ousty clever method of getting a great deal of exposition and character development across. Few writers would have the in testinal fortitude to do what Stop pard does with the dramatic form. Fewer still would have the ability and wit to carry it off. Stoppard does. r Jerry Lambert was quite crisp and distinct as Joyce and Dave Smith gave a good deal of needed strength to the character of Lenin. Arastoo Sepehr’s Tzara was in tensely enjoyable although he oc casionally suffered from a diction problem. Also of note was Katie Klein By BOB WEBB Travesties I Carr also has a penchant for the music of Gilbert and Sullivan. Therefore, every now and then the play slips into broad burlesque, even to the point of breaking into outrageous song and dance. As Carr, James Lundstrom does a higly commendable job of getting an enormous number of words to us while still keeping us visually occupied. He is quite an energetic actor who apparently sees the fun of the play and is able to transfer it to use. He gets a little too carried away at times but that is essentially a directoral problem. sasser, whose introductory lec ture to the second act was spirited and fun. There were, however, two areas in which the production needed some help. One was the burlesque se quences. Sometimes the vision of a three-ring circus gone awry was organically appropriate to the ac tion, but occasionally it smacked of being weird for the sake of being weird. Also, often a particularly out rageous set of actions which should have brought the house down didn’t because the timing was off. An off-the-wall bit will work consistently only if it is meticul ously thought out and timed to do so. Planned insanity, as it were. Director Jean Cutler should cer tainly be commended for keeping things moving at a brisk and energetic pace (a less visually fluid production of this play would be disastrous, as it is an ex tremely wordy piece; Jerry Wil liams' brightly colored and varied sets as well as Nancy Hills’ cos tumes also helped in this area). I only wish more care had been given to the burlesques. The third problem is the acous tics. The area is far too bright au rally. This, plus the fact that the actors at times seemed to be shouting rather them projecting, caused sounds to bounce around off the walls and echo into the au dience. This is especially bad when, as in this case, one of the major dramatic values of the play is the language. As mentioned earlier, Stoppard is not everybody’s cup of tea. But those who enjoy acrobatic exer cises in the cerebral realm should find Cutler and crew’s production of Travesties well worth their while. The play continues tonight through Saturday night at 8 p.m. Volunteers In Service America VISTA volunteers work with low-income groups whose purpose is to increase the voice of the poor and powerless in the decision-making process of their community. Graduates in the liberal arts, social sciences, humanities, law, architecture, health, and other areas are needed now for one-year openings throughout the U.S. For details contact Condon Hall, Rm. 315. Tues./Wed./Thurs. 10 am - 3 pm, 687-6493 Last week at U of O
