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]
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