Theater
Shadow Box
Written by Michael Cristofer
Directed by David Johnston
University Theatre
Tonight through Saturday
Shadow Box is not recom
mended to anyone afraid of be
ing alive. Michael Cristofer’s
Pulitzer prize-winning play
about three terminally ill people
is an unnervingly direct cele
bration of life in the face of
death.
And the finely-balanced and
often very funny (though never
morbid) production at the
University's appropriately
intimate Pocket Theatre
demands to be taken personal
ly
Joe, Brian and Felicity are
officially ‘terminal’' — and wear
the palest complexions to show
it. Released from the hospital
proper, they spend their last
days in their respective cottages
on the sprawling hospital
grounds — a kind of death re
sort.
Here, they share the exper
ience of dying with their loved
ones as well as with an inter
viewing psychologist. The inter
viewer (played with perfect clin
ical compassion by Elise Jor
dan) serves mainly as a device
allowing them to speak directly
with us — the terminals in the
audience.
Joe is a blue collar worker
wondering what 24 years in a
factory has reaped. His wife,
Maggie has flown cross-country
to visit, bearing shopping bags
full of groceries. She is unsure
of what her husband needs from
her now, and cannot accept the
fact that he is dying. Brent
Crawford and Nancy Julian are
convincing as this simple cou
ple stymied by a bundle of un
realized dreams who come to
see that all they ever had and
have now is a moment to share.
In the second cottage, Brian,
an articulate, literate bisexual
who has come to depend too
much on words and philosophy
to see him through life, is dying.
He is attended to by Mark, faith
ful nurse and friend (“in the
Greek sense of the word"). The
unexpected arrival of Brian’s
ex-wife Beverly, who long ago
left him to seek out new dancing
partners around the world,
makes for an intense confron
tation.
This trio presents the most
serious problems in the current
production. Scott Elliott as
Brian and Michael Lasswell as
Mark never seem to earn their
most volatile speeches. Only
Mary Gaither as the alcoholic
Beverly convinces us that peo
ple are dying here.
In the third cottage is Felicity
(Carol Krenelka), an old, bitter
woman kept alive by spare parts
and false hopes. She is wheeled
around and waited upon by her
long-suffering daughter, Agnes
(Laurie Mann). These two are
superb together, achieving a
sensitivity unparalleled in the
play.
The set is one cottage serving
as the three cottages, with the
characters in each group oc
cupying different areas
throughout the play. Nobody
from any one group ever speaks
with the others, although nearly
Characters portrayed by Scott Elliot, Mary Gaither and Michael Lasswell are forced to look at life
as defined by impending death in "The Shadow Box," playing tonight through Saturday in the
Pocket Theatre.
Photo by Jeff Patterson
all the principals speak from the
interviewing area.
Director David Johnston has
taken great care in emphasizing
a sense of humor and hope
throughout the play; the even
ing is never gloomy or tedious.
Shadow boxing means spar
ring with an imaginary
opponent. At the play’s end,
only Felicity and Agnes fail to
stop shadow boxing, to stop
playing this sad waiting game.
The others face us as they
have faced themselves, to af
firm: “If we are dying, we must
still be alive,” says Brian. He
says it to us. What choice have
we but to take it personaiiy?
By David Grober
'i
Books
The Brethren: Inside the Su
preme Court
By Bob Woodward and Scott
Armstrong
Simon and Schuster,
$13.95, 444 pages
The Brethren had a history
and reputation even before it
became available in bookstores.
Pre-publication publicity and
published excerpts promised an
explosive first-time glimpse into
the internal machinery of the
United States Supreme Court
since the appointment of Chief
Justice Warren E. Burger in
1969. The publicity, in effect,
leads the potential reader to
expect a damning expose of the
^^j^^iy^^^Cultural^orun^^
A Festival of Traditional Music
From the Mountains of
North and South America
Elizabeth
Cotten
Mike
Seeger
and music of the Andes with
_______
SUKAY
Sunday, Feb. 17
8 PM EMU Ballroom
HO Students $4.00
General Public $5.00
Tickets available at the EMU Main Desk, Everybody’s Records
(Eugene and Corvallis) and The Playful Scribe
Supported, tn part, by the Motional Endowment for the Arts and the Seattle Folklore Society
Court in general and Chief Jus
tice Burger in particular.
The expose is there, but there
is far more to the book than
mere political and social
voyeurism. Working from pub
lished sources and interviews
with, they claim, more than 200
persons, Woodward and Arm
strong have pieced together an
on-going narrative of American
history from 1969 to 1975 as
seen through the eyes of the
judicial branch of the United
States government. The authors
do expose the inner workings of
the so-called “Nixon Court,”
but they also tell us a great deal
about America in the process.
In one sense, the book is a
text on the act of judicial com
promise. Those who are sur
prised that justices of the Su
preme Court lobby each other,
change their minds, com
promise on.principle, or are in
fluenced by elements outside
the range of the law are perhaps
unacquainted with human na
ture or the realities of govern
ment and justice. Even the
realization that the Nixon ad
ministration, as had earlier
governments, attempted to in
fluence the outcome of cases
before the'Court should come
as no surprise. The specifics
given may be surprising, but the
book’s primary interest lies in
the careful analysis of the Court
at work and the particulars of
each case discussed. It is from
the presentation of these his
torical specifics that the por
traits of each individual justice
as a man and a judge emerge.
None of the fourteen justices
who appear in the book escape
criticism, either by implication
or by the words of clerks and
other justices. Woodward and
Armstrong themselves do not
criticize; they let their material
do that. The book is based upon
diaries, official and unofficial
documents, drafts of opinions
and dissents, and interviews.
Much of the quoted material
was never meant to see the light
of day outside the chambers of
the justices. It reveals work in
progress, personal and judicial
disagreements, and the way
things might have been. The
most powerful impression
which emerges from all this is a
largely negative characteriza
tion of Chief Justice Burger.
Burger, according to The
Brethren, is a man who dotes on
power, does not like his work
(Continued on Page 7B)
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