Monday, March 20,1989
The Battalion
Page 11
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NEW YORK (AP) — For much of
,rs career in Broadway musicals,
ames Brennan has been paid not to
icrform.
You could Find his name in tiny
ypein the Playbill, usually beneath a
ientence solemnly proclaiming,
‘Understudies never substitute for
isted players unless a specific an-
louncement is made at the time of
he performance.”
From “Good News” to “So Long,
H7th Street” to “I Love My Wife” to
Little Me” to “Singin’ in the Rain”
:o “Me and My Girl,” Brennan has
stood by” or “covered” roles, terms
ised to describe that unsung hero of
iveperformance — the understudy.
Now, in a reaffirmation of classic
Broadway folklore, the understudy
las become the star. Brennan has
taken over the leading role in “Me
and My Girl,” the long-running Brit-
sh musical about a cockney scamp
who inherits a title and money but
almost loses his girlfriend because of
tisnew-found wealth.
“The day of my first performance
rere in New York, my wife drove me
by the marquee, and I looked at it,”
he says. “I had a double feeling. All
at once, I was saying, ‘I can’t believe
it.’ But I also thought to myself,
‘Yeah, it looks just like everybody
else’s name did up there.’ ”
The 38-year-old Brennan has
been part of the “Me and My Girl”
company since the show opened in
1986. He was the standby for its
original star, Robert Lindsay, and
then for Lindsay’s replacement, Jim
Dale.
“It was the best job in New York,”
Brennan says. “I could come in to
work and check in at half hour (be
fore curtain time) and then go to the
theater or go to a restaurant or talk
with a friend or read a book or do a
crossword puzzle — and I did all
that.”
During Lindsay’s nine-month
run, Brennan never went on for the
star, but he played the role for about
six weeks during Dale’s 20-month
engagement. Replacing a big name
can be unnerving for a performer
who must face the wrath of disap
pointed theatergoers expecting to
see someone else.
Brennan originally took the job
with “Me and My Girl” because he
had heard the lead role was terrific.
“I also heard that Bob Lindsay
was magic,” he adds, “I thought I
could learn something from him,
which, in fact, was the case.”
Last fall, Brennan replaced Tim
Curry in the national touring com
pany of the show, playing three
months around the country before
coming back to the starring role in
New York.
“Because we have good produc
ers, they tried to find someone with
a box-office name,” he says. “They
didn’t find anybody who fit all the
requirements of the role and still had
box-office impact.”
So Brennan was chosen for the
demanding part. Now he has thrown
himself into a regimen — a lot of rest
and a lot of food so he’ll have
enough strength to get through the
marathon workout. But it’s some
thing he has worked for all his pro
fessional career.
Born and raised in Newark, N.J.,
he remembers discovering theater
programs that an aunt had brought
back across the Hudson River from
Manhattan. And he recalls lobbying
to see either “The Music Man” or
“Gypsy.” He didn’t get to either one,
but the theater bug had bitten.
In high school, Brennan ap
peared in a musical every year. The
director, Robert Hayes, also ran a
summer theater in Beach Haven on
the Jersey shore.
Brennan majored in theater at
Rutgers University and after grad
uating went out on the road with a
long national tour of “No, No, Na
nette,” starring June Allyson and
later Virginia Mayo.
The director was Donald Saddler
who later cast Brennan in the chorus
of a revival of the 1927 college musi
cal “Good News.” Since then, he has
never stopped working in the the
ater. His stints have included roles in
a revue “Rodgers and Hart” and in
“42nd Street,” two shows where he
didn’t have to understudy anyone.
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CHIANG MAI, Thailand (AP) —
rom feudal Tibet to hill tribe vil
lages in Thailand, an American fam-
ly has offered medicine, fruit trees,
rimer readers and the Bible to im-
overished Asians for nearly 70
ears.
Members of the Morse missionary
Ian also rescued downed pilots in
iVorld War II, suffered torture at
he hands of Chinese revolutionaries
ind hid from Burma’s military rul-
rsfor six years in a jungle valley.
Along the way they picked up a
ozen languages and about that
any diseases in a four-generation
idyssey across a vast, wild swath of
sia.
Today, the Morse family has
town to 75 members. More than
alflive in northern Thailand, a tol-
rant haven for many Western mis-
ionaries forced by political uphea-
als to uproot from other corners of
lAsia.
While trying to spread Chris-
Itianity, the Morses carry out basic
(development work with groups like
the Lisu tribe and attempt to help
the tribes cope with rapid economic
and social changes sweeping the
pills. , *
More than 400 hill tribe children
I—Christian, Buddhist and animist
|— live in a Morse-run hostel when
they come down from their villages
for schooling in this northern hub.
“Since we grew up like them in
very basic conditions, we can act as
[liaisons between where they have
been and where they are going,” 40-
year-old David Morse says.
“We hope to be a moderating in
fluence. We hope that they don’t
ump from the jungle into the 21st
century without being ready.”
The work, David adds, is in some
ways more complex than the stark
life-or-death situations that faced his
grandfather and family patriarch,
Justin Russell Morse, when he and
his wife, Gertrude, left their native
Oklahoma for Tibet.
While today’s Morses shop in
Chiang Mai supermarkets, family
chronicles say J. Russell had to take
along a five-month supply of candles
on the journey to Tibet in 1921.
The trip took four months, with
Gertrude clutching an infant son
while being carried along mountain
ledges in a sedan chair shouldered
by opium-smoking coolies.
“Today a lot of missionaries re
gard what they do as a job they can
quit. They’re softies by comparison,”
says Ron, another grandchild. “Papa
Morse’s generation went out for
life.”
J. Russell’s sons recalled that the
family put up with the vermin, deso
lation and banditry of Tibet but
found the medieval, Buddhist world
impenetrable to their message.
In 1927, they left for the tri-bor
der area of Tibet, Burma and China,
a region of dank jungles, remote
tribes and towns razed by civil war.
They also parted with the United
Christian Missionary Society and
have since remained a one-family
missionary outfit dependent on sup
port from individual churches in the
United States and Canada.
During World War II, the Morses,
in touch with the Allied command,
recommended flight paths through
the rugged borderlands, urged
tribespeople to aid downed pilots
and themselves rescued several air
men.
J. Russell and two of his sons later
were decorated by the U.S. military.
J. Russell remained in China
through the 1949 victory of Mao
Tse-tung’s Communists but was ar
rested in 1951, jailed and tortured.
Fifteen months later, he was re
leased without explanation and de
ported to Hong Kong, arriving with
$>1.70 in his pocket.
The family regrouped in Putao,
northern Burma, where diseases
and famine were ravaging the Lisu
and Rawang, with authorities unable
to offer much assistance.
The Morses say that besides set
ting up a clinic, J. Russell and family
members laid out new, sanitation
conscious villages and planned irri
gation canals.
A literacy drive was started and
son Robert, now a well-regarded lin
guist, worked on setting five tribal
languages into written form where
none had previously existed.
A fruit industry, which still thrives
today, was initiated, with J. Russell
experimenting with a variety of
trees. He trained a corps of grafters,
presenting successful ones with
pocket knives that became local sta
tus symbols.
The Morses and some of their col
leagues like to describe those days as
the golden age of missionaries in
Asia despite the hardships and fre
quent bouts of everything from
dengue fever to the plague.
Then, the lack of resources or in
terest in the hinterlands by govern
ments turned the Morses into doc
tors, teachers, builders, farmers and
sometimes even de facto govern
ment officials.
Following a coup in 1962 by
strongman Gen. Ne Win, missiona
ries were ordered to leave Burma.
Instead, the now-extended Morse
family and more than 5,000 tribes
people fled into a no-man’s land
along the Burmese-Indian border.
In a Robinson Crusoe-type exis-
rtist remembers hostage Anderson
ith continuing series of portraits
rruplj
THE WOODLANDS (AP) — As a
Swarm breeze carries the breath of
Ispring to the serenity of her subur-
Iban Houston home, Maureen Seeba
[surrounds herself with the horror
[and anguish of a conflict half a
[world away.
The thoughts of Seeba, 32, are
[with Terry Anderson, who marked
[the fourth anniversary of the day he
[was abducted in west Beirut on
[March 16.
The chief Middle East correspon-
Ident for the Associated Press is
-red!
Advicefor
gardeners
NEW YORK (AP) — Some an
nuals, perennials and vegetables
are easier than others to grow
from seeds outdoors.
Family Circle magazine, which
had a children’s greenhouse and
garden at the recent New York
Flower Show, offers these sugges
tions:
Easy annuals (plants that grow,
flower and die in one season) are
basil, cosmos, marigolds, morn
ing glories, nasturtiums, strawf-
lowers, sunflowers, verbena, zin
nias.
Easy perennials (plants that
grow and flower each spring or
summer from roots that live
through winter) are blanket
flower, columbine, flax, holly
hocks, Shasta daisy.
Vegetables such as carrots,
beets, radishes and onions can be
sown right in the garden and are
known as root vegetables because
the part that is to be eaten grows
underground. Vegetables such as
green beans, cucumbers, peas
and zucchini grow very fast, so
they can be sown outdoors, too.
among nine Americans held hostage
in Lebanon.
Although she never has met or
spoken with Anderson, the profes
sional artist and mother of two each
day tries to paint a portrait of the 41-
year-old captive AP reporter.
“They’re easy to forget about
when you live like this — with a good
life, and your kids are at home, and
you have enough food to eat, and
you just have to decide where you
want to go each day,” Seeba says.
She focused her artistic interest
on Anderson after she saw the news
man’s plea to President Reagan in a
tape released by his captors last Oct.
31.
“It was just very heartbreaking,”
she says. “I think Reagan made an
announcement that Terry was read
ing a text or script and that wasn’t
Terry. Well, I didn’t know Mr. An
derson and it seemed to me he
wasn’t reading a script at all.
“He’s been over there four years
and I have to ask myself, ‘What have
I been doing the past four years?’ be
cause I really haven’t been that
aware of him.”
So in between her normal depic
tions of flowers, boats and people,
she began painting likenesses of An
derson — haunting portraits that
chronicle his ordeal. Nearly all are
character studies of his face. Some
show' him with a beard. Others are
clean-shaven. Some are in a single
color. Others are multi-hued.
“I think the face can show a lot of
emotion,” she says.
She has a couple dozen paintings
and has thrown out maybe 25 or 30
she didn’t like. Her favorite is a yel
low portrait showing a nearly emo
tionless Anderson.
“I’m sure at this point he’s about
drained of any expression,” she says.
“The yellow is like a nuclear flash.
It’s so intense. But it also could sig
nify the yellow ribbons that are not
hanging in everyone’s doorways. I
guess that’s why I like it.”
She said she has not contacted any
members of Anderson’s family, in
cluding his sister, Peggy Say, an out
spoken advocate for his release. “I’m
afraid that poor woman is just bom
barded with mail from strangers,”
Seeba says.
Her images of Anderson are
based in part on photos Anderson’s
captives have released to news agen
cies. Cable News Network sent her a
copy of the videotape of Anderson.
“I’d be feeling pretty hopeless if
I’d been sitting there four years
chained to a bed and when you read
the newspaper you can’t find hardly
anything about him,” she says. “If
nothing else, because I’m someone
who doesn’t know him, by doing at
least one painting of him every day,
even if nobody ever sees it, he’s be
ing remembered.
“He’s not getting out, but he is be
ing remembered.”
Seeba is upset that her interest in
Anderson is not shared by others.
Her attempts to arrange a showing
of her Anderson portraits have been
rebuffed by managers of public
buildings in Houston where art gen
erally is exhibited.
“They all say the same thing,” she
says. “They say it’s just too contro
versial and they don’t want to offend
anybody.”
Friends and neighbors also are
put off somew'hat by the paintings,
some of which are displayed
throughout her studio on the second
floor of her home north of Houston.
“I get kind of mixed reactions,”
she says. “One of my neighbors said,
‘Well, he shouldn’t have been there
in the first place and it’s his fault he
got kidnapped.’ But that’s how some
people are.
“I think it’s natural to develop that
attitude when there’s nothing you
can do about the situation.”
Even her husband, Jochen, was
troubled by a three-picture display
of Anderson in t heir living room.
tence, they cleared the jungle floor
for fields, built houses with virtually
no tools and hunted monkeys and
other game for food.
David fabricated an electric gen
erator from a downed Allied air
craft, lubricating the machine with
bacon rind.
Burmese troops finally broke into
their “Hidden Valley,” as a book
about their life described it.
Jailed in Mandalay, the younger
Morses, who spoke better Lisu than
English, struggled with doorknobs
and had to be taught how to use
bathrooms.
Northern Thailand proved a kind
of trail’s end for the Morses as it has
for other missionaries expelled from
China, Burma, Vietnam and Laos.
Thai authorities take a live-and-
let-live attitude, and the area is pop
ulated by half a million ethnic mi
norities, many belonging to tribes
the missionaries had worked with in
other countries.
In a quiet, old-style compound of
teak houses and towering trees, the
Morses hold informal family coun
cils and David produces hymns from
self-designed computer programs.
The Morses include nurses, pre
achers, doctors and housewives-
turned-accountants; midwestern
American types, Asian spouses and a
fourth generation of toddlers grow
ing up in Asia.
Gertrude has died but J. Russell,
now 91 years old, lives in retirement
in Tulsa, Okla.
“Papa Morse wishes he could still
be out here. He has his heart in the
work and prays for everybody,” says
Helen, a daughter-in-law.
“He likes to remember the fruit
trees of Putao.”
College logos, mascots
bring in big business
for retail merchandisers
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. (AP)
— American universities once
publicized themselves discreetly
on pennants and T-shirts sold in
local campus stores. Now they’re
doing it for lucrative royalties on
items ranging from fishing lures
to toilet seats, sold at some of the
nation’s biggest retailers.
The explosion in collegiate
merchandise reflects a rising de
mand for products bearing hawk-
eyes, buckeyes, lions, tigers, bears
and other school symbols, a par
tial consequence of the enormous
television exposure collegiate
sports teams now get.
Estimated annual retail sales of
such items exceeds $ 1 billion.
“It’s not just in college
bookstores anymore. It’s in K
mart, Sears and Penney’s,” said
Kim Allan, manager of university
licensing programs at Michigan
State.
Collegiate merchandise sales
have doubled in the last five years
and now nearly equal combined
sales of National Football League
and major league baseball prod
ucts, said Bill Battle, president
and owner of Atlanta-based Col
legiate Concepts Inc.
Collegiate Concepts and Inter
national Collegiate Enterprises of
Los Angeles handle the licensing
arrangement for 100 schools
through a joint venture.
Universities license products
bearing their names or logos,
known as marks, and receive roy
alties in return.
Battle said soft goods such as
T-shirts, sweatshirts and caps ac
count for between 80 percent and
85 percent of the collegiate mer
chandise, but novelty items have
flourished.
In 1981, the University of
Georgia licensed a local discount
retail chain to sell a Bulldog ta
rantula. The spider had red and
black markings matching the
school’s colors and sported a tiny
felt Bulldog “cap.”
Penn State University has li
censed a Nittany Lion swimming
pool liner; Iowa has approved a
Hawkeye fishing lure; Nebraska
has “Go Big Red” boxer shorts;
and Michigan State has a Spartan
toilet seat.
The University of California at
Los Angeles began the first major
licensing program in 1974.
Many other universities fol
lowed suit in the early 1980s to
get marketing control over their
names and logos. Some images
had started appearing on prod
ucts that either were too embar-
rasing or posed a liability threat.
People-watching key to acting
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Timothy
Daly believes that if you’re going to
be an actor you also have to be a peo
ple watcher.
“I watch people, I listen to people,
I make up stories about people,” says
Daly, who stars in the new CBS se
ries “Almost Grown.”
“I live in New York City and
what’s so wonderful is that if you
have to research a character all you
have to do is walk out the door.”
He recalls having a role as a blind
man once and found a blind man on
the streets.
“I followed him around for a
while,” he says. “He didn’t know I
was there so he wasn’t self-con
scious.”
“Almost Grown” is a drama that
takes Norman Foley (Daly) and Su-
zie Long Foley (Eve Gordon)
through three decades of courtship,
marriage and divorce. They travel
back and forth through their lives, as
though in a time machine triggered
by the music of a particular era.
Their relationship, attitudes and
roles vary with the times.
Foley is program director for a ra
dio station, so there is constant music
to trigger the flashbacks.
“It’s interesting that when we go
back in time the characters remem
ber it with a different perspective,”
he says. “He may remember a time
as happy, she may remember it as
sad. The story is usually told from
my point of view, but sometimes it’s
Eve’s or sometimes it’s Albert Mach-
lin’s, who plays Eve’s brother.”
Daly says he was approached
about the series by David Chase, one
of the executive producers. They
had previously worked together on
an episode of “Alfred Hitchcock
Presents.”
“At first I was very skeptical be
cause of the different ages I had to
play,” Daly says. “All the people I’ve
seen in miniseries who put shoe pol
ish in their hair. How was I going to
be accepted as a 40-year-old?”
It’s the second series for Daly. Six
years ago he played a doctor in
“Ryan’s Four,” which lasted only a
few weeks on ABC. He was in the
miniseries “I’ll Take Manhattan”
and in January starred in the CBS
movie “Red Earth, White Earth.”
His feature films include “Made in
Heaven” and the upcoming “Love or
Money” and “Spellbinder.”
Daly grew up in suburban Rock
land County, northwest of New
York City. His father was actor
James Daly and his sister is Tyne
Daly, formerly of “Cagney & Lacey.”
He has two other sisters who he says
were “spared from acting careers.”
“Thank God I wasn’t a profes
sional kid,” he says. “It allowed me to
have my life and little bit of inno
cence. One of the things that’s really
important for an actor is to live.
That’s what actors do, reflect life. If
you spend your life on a sound stage
you don’t get a. clear picture of
what’s going on in the world.”
Composer shredded symphony,
conductor performs, records it
ASSOCIATED PRESS
American classical music isn’t as
well-known as it should be, in Amer
ica or abroad, says conductor An
drew Schenck.
“There’s a lot of substantial music
out there that deserves for us to take
another listen, call our own and be
proud of.” He adds that some of it,
which has been out of fashion, is
now back in style.
Schenck has made a new “an-
other-listen, back-in-style” record
ing, with the New Zealand Sym
phony. It’s of Samuel Barber’s
“Second Symphony,” which was
commissioned by the Army Air
Force and premiered by the Boston
Symphony in 1944.
There’s a pretty dramatic reason
it hasn’t been heard lately — its com
poser tore it up.
“It’s a splendidly crafted sym
phony,” Schenck says. “It’s a major
piece by one of America’s giants.
“As the century ends, we can look
back and see somewhere in the mid
dle of it we had a real symphonic
golden age of American composers
— Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber,
Virgil Thomson, Roy Harris, Wil
liam Schuman. I think their music
needs a vast re-examining and re-re-
cording. We’ve got the technology
and orchestras that can do it.”
But what happened to Barber and
his “Second Symphony”? Schenck
says:
“Barber’s publisher told me that
about 20 years after the symphony
was written he said to Barber, ‘All of
your works have lasted so well. But
we can’t seem to get the “Second
Symphony” off the ground.’
“Barber replied: ‘The reason is
simple. It’s not a good work. Let’s go
back to your office and destroy it.’
They did so. They tore the parts up
personally.”
Schenck, who is 48, made his first
recording in 1984. It was an all-Bar
ber record with the London Sym
phony, with Ted Joselson playing
Barber’s “Piano Concerto.” Joselson
organized that recording after he
and Schenck had an exciting collabo
ration on the concerto while Schenck
was guest conducting the Pasadena,
Calif., Symphony Orchestra.
Schenck says: “I thought the logi
cal thing to do was follow that with
another Barber project, even though
I consider myself a non-specialist. As
I talked with people about what rep
ertoire to do, the story of the ‘Sec
ond Symphony’ came up. It piqued
my curiosity.”
Schenck delved into the history
and found good reviews. He says:
“Barber was a corporal in the Air
Force. He had flown around, appar
ently, and soaked up inspiration for
the symphony at various Air Force
bases.
“There was speculation about
what he was trying to say related to
the Air Force. The most intriguing
was the electronic signal generator
created for the second movement by
Bell Labs. After the premiere, he re
vised the piece. He took the genera
tor out of there. He wasn’t terribly
comfortable with the speculation
that this part of the symphony was
supposed to be describing an air
raid.
“He must have felt if the sym
phony was too linked with the mili
tary, somehow it would denigrate its
artistic merit. He wanted it to be ac
cepted as a work of art in its own
right.
“Interestingly, after the sym
phony was withdrawn, the second
movement was published separately
with the title ‘Night Flight.’ He did
something else interesting. He lifted
a portion from the beginning of the
symphony and stuck it into his opera
‘Antony and Cleopatra.’ He wrote a
vocal text over the orchestra part. I
was astonished when I heard it for
the first time.”
Schenck continues: “Our percep
tions change over time. Twelve-tone
and chance music were in style in the
early ’60s. Among the musical liter
ati at that time, descriptive music was
taboo.
“I think people now are thinking
it is not such a terrible thing to write
descriptive pieces with major chords
and melodies. The trend right now
is the neo-romantic style.
“Leonard Slatkin and the St.
Louis Symphony just came out with
a disc of Barber’s three essays for or
chestra. It was never recorded be
fore. All of this is coming back.”
Schenck never met Barber, who
died in 1981. He corresponded with
attorneys for Barber’s estate, who
gave permission for him to record
the “Second Symphony.”
Schenck says: “I had bought a
score of the work in the early 1960s.
My original thought was I would
have to have parts (for each musi
cian) made from my own score.
Then fate intervened. (Music pub
lishers) G. Schirmer located a set of
parts at its London branch.”
The conductor had been engaged
by the New Zealand Symphony for a
month of concerts and 20 hours of
recording time. So, for Stradivari
Classics, they made the recording of
the symphony, which Barber once
wrote that the Boston Symphony
found difficult. Schenck says that
the New Zealand Symphony did a
magnificent job.
“I was bombarding them. We also
did Barber’s ‘First Symphony’ in
concert. It’s a very different piece,
much shorter, in one movement.”
Schenck says, “I’m excited about
doing American music, particularly
in other parts of the world.”