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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
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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
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