Image provided by: Clackamas Community College; Oregon City, OR
About The print. (Oregon City, Oregon) 1977-1989 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 14, 1981)
arts & lives “The Nebbish Cometh “The thing to remember about “Play it Again, Sam, ” is that it is filled with laughs. All the character business and all that plot involvement would have meant nothing if it didn’t have an enormous amount of laughs... ‘Sam’ was made into a film, a good kind of film that long after I’m dead people will be able to curl up in bed and watch TV, and always like and say, ‘Oh, that’s a cute kind of story from the sixties. ’” -Woody Allen The Theatre Department will present Woody Allen's “Play It Again, Sam” at the end of winter quarter. Allen’s work lately has been more concern ed with his own life and psyche, but “Play It Again, Sam” was written in the late sixties, between Allen’s. Bellylaugh Period and his pre sent Blue Period. It is a tightly written domestic comedy with a Neil Simon flavor to it. But the plot, involving Walter Mitty-type fantasies, in securities, and touching trium- phs, is uniquely Woody Allen. The central character of the play is Allan Felix, a dissolute and morose film critic for an Obscure New York film magazine. Felix is rampantly neurotic, with a fixation on Humphrey Bogart. He sees in Bogart everything he lacks: toughness, machismo and a stupendous ability to handle women. Felix’s wife has recently left him, on grounds of lack of ex citement. Felix is bewildered by the marriage’s collapse. “She wants to ski down a mountain laughing like an idiot,” he com plains. Felix has ’a married couple for’ his best friends, and the lengths they go to set him up with new women makes for ecstatic situation comedy. Felix does triumph finally with Bogart’s help, and the ending is a happy one. Rod Ragsdale has been cast in the role of Allan Felix. Ragsdale is no stranger to CCC’s theatre productions, having played in last year’s pro duction of “The Romantic Debutante,” and seven other productions in previous years. An ex-Navy man, Ragsdale is 28, and has been attending CCC for the last five years. He has a full-time job as manager of a Milwaukie golf course, but when business is slow, as it is now, he attends the College and gets involved in theatre. With any spare time he can find, he likes to hunt and fish and write songs. Some may remember him as a tegular per former on Mini-Programs in the Fireside Lounge 'a few years ago. Tina Riggs will perform the other central role of the play, that of Linda Christie, the wife in the couple mentioned above. Riggs is in her first year at the College, and is a newcomer to the county. She has been attending high school in Waukegan, Ill., and ônly ar rived here late in September. She was involved in theatre in high school, although this role Craftsmanship, uuit Suffuse “Gaucho” £ By R.W. Greene £ Of The Print a £ They are an anomaly in the publicity- £ hungry world of pop music, a most £ unseemly sort of band. They rake in the mega-bucks like their peers, but they haven’t played live since 1972. The critics £ accord them knee-jerk adulation, but £ nobody has interviewed them for three £ years. They are a PR man’s nightmare, but £their singles consistently stand head and £ shoulders above the motly collection of £ songs called Top 40. £ The band is Steely Dan, and Steely Dan £ is two inscrutable ex-New Yorkers named £ Waiter Becker and Donald Fagen. Becker £ and Fagen come from the songwrter-as- £ songwriter tradition, rather than the cur- £ rently fashionable vogue of songwriter-as- £ performing-social-revolutionary. They don’t do interviews; they don’t even like to £ talk about their work. Someone buttonhol es ed Fagen at his house once and asked him £ how the two collaborated. Said Fagen: £ “He comes over here. Sometimes I go £ over there.” £ In their first five albums, Steely Dan ran £ the gamut of narrative from the arcane to £ the zenophobic. With tunes like “Kid £ Charlemagne,’’ “Rose Darling,” “Doctor £ Wu” and others, they continually found £ society’s dissolute and damned more in- £ teresting than the jilted boyfriend or the £ mythical Welsh witch, or the one-night £ stand. They even make a nicely dismal £ song out of Puerto Ricans. £ With their last album, “Aja,” and their £ latest, “Gaucho,” the Dan seem to have £ honed their perceptions to a finer and £ more articulate edge. They do manage to £ get the University of Alabama football team £ into the title cut of “Aja,” but otherwise the £ album is a masterpiece of jazz/pop fusion. The themes revolve around sex, women Page 4 and unfaithfulness. But “Gaucho” may be the band’s finest album yet. Three years in the making, the same old depressing obsessions are there, but there is a certain optimism which tinges the album, a flash of exuberance which has always seemed to me to be missing in their earlier work. The title cut, for instance, is a finger at the army of star-chasers and boot lickers running around Southern Califor nia: I’ll scratch your back You can scratch mine No, he can’t sleep on the floor What do you think I’m yelling for I’ll drop him near the freeway Doesn’t he have a home The female sex has gotten younger for the Dan, but no more faith-inspiring: My friends say no don’t go For that cotton candy Son, you’re playing with fire The kid will live and learn As he watches his bridges bum From the point of no return This is not the usual you’re-the-only- woman-for-me pop cliches. My favorite song is the most exultant one, and contains a delightful and succinct guitar introduction by Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. The lyrics make me feel like 16 again: Tonight when I chase the dragon / The water will change to cherry wirie And the silver will turn to gold . Time out of Mind Steely Dan is one of the few quality acts in the country. If you’re/one of the many not drowning in_asea^t love, give a listen to “Gaucho.” Rod Ragsdale Staff photo by Duffy Cofftnm will be her first major one. She enjoys the theatre, she says because of the-friendliness and cameraderie she feels theatre people posess naturally. Other cast members include Lynn Griffith, Tammy Isackson, Ramona Isackson, Doug Rhodes, Amy DeVour] and Jay Schenck as Bogey himself. “Play , It Again, Sam” will play March 6,7, 8, and 9 in the McLoughlin Theatre. arts briefs Bet you’re wondaring what the artists on campus are doing this quarter, right? Read on. The ASG-and Student Ac tivities will present a cof feehouse in the Fireside Lounge tonight from 7 to 10 p.m. Featured will be the voice and guitar of Scott Brown. Brown has played at the Col lege before to good response, and may be accompanied by a female vocalist. Admission is free. The Back to School Dance is scheduled for Friday. The band will be Bentley, from Eugene. They play music of the Beatles, Dire Straits, Queen, George Benson, Bob Seger and Stevie Wonder. Admission is $2 for students, $3 for the general public. The Music Department will present Jazz Night at 8 p.m. on Feb. 25. The programlwill: feature the Stage Band (also known as “The Rhythm -Sec-' tion”) and will take place in the Community Center Mall..Ad mission is set at $1. Early in March, the Concert Band and Concert Choir wíllí join together for a concert. Watch this page for further developments. On April 19, 1980, the-Col- lege’s Jazz Band .was awarded one of the three finalist awards ¡ at the Southern California Col legiate Jazz Festival at Chaffey College. Shortly afterward, the band recorded an ^lbum and - this is. now available. It features< tunes by Charlie Parker, Phil Woods, and Michel LeGrand. J It can be purchased at the. Music Department office for] Complete Auh\Repair This Weeks Speci Foreign Car RepXr Major 1er 8:00 AM TO 5:30 PM DAILY 9:00 AM TO NOON 812 MOLALLA AVE SATURDAY ORE CITY ■ NEXT TO TRADEWELL