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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (May 20, 1985)
I-—1 | We Pay j j To Help I j You! | There is no j other way. We j need plasma and we will pay to get it. Without plasma we could not make the life saving products you need, j Learn more j about why we pay. Contact: Hyland Plasma j Center. New Donors ana donors who have not been in during the j past six months, ; bring in this ad S for an | additional $5 bonus on your ! first donations. i i Hours Mon., Tues., I Thurs., Fri. 11 6 AM - 5 PM l Wed. 6 AM - 2 30 PM Giving Comes From The Heart HYLAND PLASMA CENTER 40 East 10th Street Eugene 683-3953 for appointments Harjo shares poetic vision of Native American culture By Alice Tallmadge Of the Emerald With a body as strong and uncompromising as her words and in a voice as elemental as the images she spins from, poet Joy Harjo offered her Friday night audience the complexity, power and beau ty of one woman’s unfettered poetic vision. Harjo. a Native American from the Creek tribe, gave a poetry reading sponsored by the ASUO Women's Task Force and the University creative writing program. Harjo began writing poetry 12 years ago so that she could ex press her visions, she said. “When I first started writing, there was no way 1 could have gotten up and talked,” she said. “It’s been a way to speak. It’s helped me learn to speak.” Relaxed and unassuming in conversation, her voice resonates quietly from a cavity deep within her, a tone that recalls rock, deep roots, aged connections. When she reads her poetry, the resonance widens and begins to echo in the canyons of her words. Images of blood, fire, the moon, darkness, mountains and sky fill Harjo’s poems. A strong connection with the earth is almost ex pected from Native American poets, but Harjo said she believes that everyone has that connection inside. However, “people get lost from it,” she said. One way Harjo is helping to reshape the altered image of Native Americans is through film. She recently has written a screenplay for Nebraska Educational Television. The film is a story of an Omaha Indian boy growing up with no white contact. “It’s a very revolutionary film because the characters are real human beings. You get a really good idea of how people lived,” she said. All the actors in the film, which she helped cast, are Native Americans. Sometimes Harjo taps into her tribal consciousness unknow ingly, she said, giving old legends and symbols a new form. In her reading, she told the story of writing a poem entitled "White Continued on Page 15 Joy Harjo UT’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ springs to life with talent Upon first entering Robinson Theatre last Thursday evening to watch the opening performance of the ill-fated, star-struck romance “Romeo and Juliet,” the bland simplici ty of the set was somewhat disappointing. Gazing at a stage full of tall, empty gray walls while waiting for a traditionally rowdy Shakespearean play to begin wasn’t particularly exciting. But then the lights illuminated center stage, and a steady flow of lively characters began parading before the audience, dressed in the colorful silk splendor typical of the Elizabethan era's finest fashion. Suddenly, scenic designer Jerry Williams’ gray walls were transformed into towering silver arches holding court over all the risque romance and raucous rivalry unfolding on the streets of Shakespeare's Verona. Many kudos to the University Theatre for their final 1984-85 season mainstage production. The stage springs to life with the bawdy humor and reckless abandon of Shakespeare’s storytelling talent. Williams’ set encircles the stage with its bold austerity, adding to the sheer energy of the cast as they glide effortlessly between intense sword battles, directed by Ken Aldrich, and graceful dances, choreographed by Jerry Reinhardt. The costumes of designer Alexandra Bonds ripple and glow endlessly through the motions of the expressive characters adding to the play's vivaciousness. Director Robert Barton, University associate professor of theater arts, captured the vitality of Shakespeare’s characters and molded them into a tight, well-synchronized cast. Occasionally, cast members would get caught up in the fast-paced tempo of the play, and their prose would come out in excited gushes that were hard to follow. But Barton’s clever use of delightful spectacle kept the appreciative au dience entranced as they broke into bursts of applause after several of the action-packed scenes. Although Romeo, played by William Weir, was a little too “golden boy” looking rather than the dark, dashing gentleman one might expect, his charm was unquestionable as he won the heart of beautiful, passionate Juliet, played by Barbara Pitts. Greg Behrendt’s portrayal of Romeo's comrade Petruchio was full of ribald gusto, and Juliet's nurse, played by Terra Presler, kept the audience in stitches with her hilarious innuendoes. The effective use of lighting techniques by Jerry Reinhardt and the subtle music of Johnathan Mansfield com pleted University Theatre’s fine production of a classic Shakespearean play that could have easily been boring if put in the hands of untalented amateurs. Tickets for “Romeo and Juliet” are on sale at the Robin son Theatre box office for three more performances, May 23-25. Tickets are $5 for the general public, $4 for seniors and students and $8.50 for University students. By Sheila Landry It’s refreshing to watch a per formance in which the cast members mesh so well that they detract from a play’s weaknesses. Hats off to director Jack Wat son for his uncanny foresight when casting for University Theatre’s Second Season pro 854 E. 13th (MexttoKtnko'5) 342-2241 FEATURING THE BEST HAMBURGERS AMD OMELETTES Oh CAMPUS OPEM 8 DAYS A WEEK SPAGHETTI FEED ONLY *2.95 ALL YOU CAM EAT Choice of meat or mushroom sauce — French bread, soup or salad. 5erved 4pm to dosing, 8 days a week 854 E. 13th ^R^K^T^LUMCh^Dm^RoRDE^TO^^f Pace 14 Jimmy Dean ’ refreshingly well cast duction of “Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean.” Not an easy task considering the rich variety of characters the script holds. The cast is a fine combination of amateur and seasoned performers who have the knack for molding their roles together to give a play con tinuity while still maintaining strong individuality on their own. The play is set in the dry, desert town of McCarthy, Texas, on a hot September day in 1975 at the Five and Dime Drug Store, which is the former meeting place of “The Disciples of James Dean.” The disciples are holding a reunion to honor the 20th anniversary of Dean’s death. The characters’ excitement over meeting once again soon unfolds into a series of painful reminders as to why the past is sometimes better left alone. These memories are brought to life throughout the performance in a confusing way with the use of sporadic light changes or in terwoven scenes in which the characters are living their past and present on stage simultaneously. Watson’s quick-change ap proach to making these difficult scenes work gets a little topsy turvy occasionally, leaving the audience unsure at times as to what’s going on. Fortunately, the cast manages to hold the tempo and keep the plot alive with their abilty to manage the mercurial script. University sophomore Tricia Ann Will, a theater arts major, gives a gutsy performance as the older, buxom blond, Sissy. Her performance, combined with her younger counterpart, played by University freshman Gail Grobey, gives the play the comic relief needed to counteract the underlying ten sion the script carries, par ticularly in the present and past characters of Mona, Seasoned actress Brenda Jones plays the neurotic, depressing, older Mona quite well, while University junior theatre arts major, Tina Gilbert, gives a fine portrayal of Mona’s younger days as the confused teenage president of the disciples. The disciples’ drug-store meeting place is a wonderful replica of early ’50s smal-town tackiness, and the Texan drawls of the characters adds to the production’s authenticity. Performances continue in the Arena Theatre, May 23-25. By Sheila Landry Instant PASSPORT PHOTOS Mnndav. 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