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Tuesday, March 28,1989
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Mummenschanz
creatures delight
A&M audience
By Keith Spera
reviewer
Toilet paper became a turn-on,
clay-faced creatures stretched each
other’s nose, and a couple of men
made of inflated garbage bags beat
the stuffing out of one another Mon
day night in Rudder Auditorium
when the three members of Mum
menschanz brought their innovative
theatrical show to Texas A&M.
Ever since this Swiss trio began to
gain worldwide acclaim in the mid-
70s, their shows have been hailed as
a new form of theatre — one that
combines elements of puppetry, act
ing, dance, magic and mime.
Their version of mime is not that
of the typical curbside white-faced
performer who works for nickles
thrown by passersby. While the
Mummenschanz cast members —
Bernie Schiirch, Floriana Frassetto,
and Andres Bossard — wear black
tights similar to those worn by their
streetworking counterparts, the sim
ilarities end there.
At last night’s show, presented by
MSC Opera and Performing Arts
Society as part of their Theatre Se
ries, Mummenschanz used colorful,
dever costumes and props to create
illusions and silent creatures that ap
peared to be complex living beings.
At times, it seemed impossible that a
human was capable of accomplish
ing the contortions needed to give
the creatures life.
Some of the creations were made
of foam rubber. Others were inflata
ble bags of plastic with humans in
side. For the more subtle skits that
needed changing facial expressions,
humans in black tights paraded
about with heads made of clay, toilet
paper rolls, and pads of paper.
The creatures ranged from a flou-
rescent-green foam-rubber Mr.
Mouth — a big pod with a huge
mouth splitting it in two — to a 10-
foot yellow Slinky-like tube that
played catch w ith the audience using
a big pink balloon.
Sometimes, the onstage charac
ters, while not looking much like hu
mans, had a tendency for exhibiting
very human characteristics.
A pair of mime creatures who had
faces made of ice trays filled with
golden cubes gambled for one an
other’s cubes, with one creature get
ting greedy and stealing all but one
of the other creature’s cubes.
Another pair of beings had facial
features made of pink««tnd blue rolls
of toilet paper. The blue being at
tempted to seduce the pink one with
sheets of his paper, only to be met
with a game of hard-to-get.
More successful in the dating
game was the creature who had an
electrical plug for a head. He found
a compatible mate with an electrical
socket for a head. When the two “joi
ned,” the stage lights suddenly
surged on. The creatures skipped
offstage, and the lights came up sev
eral more times, implying that the
joining” continued offstage.
At one point, one of the Mum
menschanz cast members, dressed as
a hand, “saved” the audience from
an enormous inflated head — at
least 20 feet tall and 30 feet wide —
that started to ease off the stage and
onto the audience. The hand came
scurrying in front of the first row of
seats and shoved the head back.
Chuckles and applause from the au
dience rewarded the hero hand.
The show, entitled “Mummen
schanz 1969-1989,” presented a
hodge-podge of skits drawn from
the troupe’s 20-year history. With
any luck, the next generation of Ag
gies will one day get to see the 40-
year history of this talented bunch.
The Battalion Page 5
Sea Grant works to correct
man’s impact on ocean life
By Kelly S. Brown
STAFF WRITER
Beneath the raging ocean waters
lives a world that’s unimaginable to
most people — a place of beauty and
wonder, where the marine life's abil
ity to survive is continuously chal
lenged by other creatures in the sea
— or that’s the way it used to be.
Today the marine environment is
being disturbed and challenged by
the creatures on land. The water
quality is declining, populations are
burgeoning, habitats are deteriorat
ing and shellfish are being contami
nated.
While sea life is being threatened
by man, he may be the sea’s salva
tion. Society is leaving it up to the
caretakers of the ocean to cleanse
the sea and research it to better un
derstand it, but they can only do so if
given ample funding.
Among the caretakers are re
searchers for Sea Grant, the nation’s
coastal ocean science and research
program. The Sea Grant network
encompasses more than 302 univer
sities and affiliated institutions, with
29 individual Sea Grant programs —
Texas A&M being one of the largest.
The program has brought close to
$2 million annually to the College of
Geosciences.
The Sea Grant concept, which is
patterned after the Land Grant Act
of the 1860s, is to promote better
understanding and use of marine re
sources through research, educa
tion, extension and information
transfer.
The program is administered
through the U.S. Department of
Commerce and National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration.
Federal funds are matched by sup
port from states and the private sec
tor.
Mike Hightower, program coordi
nator for the Marine Advisory Serv
ice, said Texas Sea Grant programs
and activities had a $56.3 million di
rect impact on the Texas coastal
economy in 1987.
The Department of Commerce -
appropriated $1.8 million, while
$475,000 were state matched, High
tower said. Indirect impacts were
around $150 million.
Hightower said $20 million of the
estimated direct impact came from
the commercial fishery industry;
$2.8 million from aquaculture; $15
million from recreation and tourism
and $2.4 million from seafood proc
essing and marketing.
“The seafood industry is just one
example of how our research stimu
lates the economy,” Hightower said.
“Two years ago the United States
imported $6 billion worth of sea
food. Obviously, it has an enormous
impact on the economy.”
The Sea Grant Program has re
search going in “just about every
thing in every county along the
coast,” Hightower said.
One of the 37 programs funded
in the past two years involved the de
velopment of shrimp aquaculture.
Hightower said imports now ac
count for more than 75 percent of
the shrimp consumed in the U.S.
In a l exas Sea Grant report on
the economic impact the program
has, it stated that a steadily increas
ing percentage of these imports are
high quality, pond raised shrimp. In
order to remain economically com
petitive in the world shrimp market,
domestic producers must strive to
maintain a quality product on-board
the vessel.
The solution was a 20-minute vi
deo which described on-board hand
ling practices designed to maximize
the storage life of the product on the
vessel.
The benefit shows that if Gulf and
South Atlantic Shrimpers follow rec
ommended procedures and reduce
their rejects (pieces, black spots and
spoilage) by only 5 percent, they can
realize an annual additional profit of
$15,000 per boat. If all Gulf shrimp
ers participated, they could realize
an annual savings of $97.5 million.
Another example given in the re
port listed the Sea Grant’s challenge
to develop an innovative mitigation
program to offset damage to coastal
habitat resultidg from marsh de
struction by a chemical company.
The solution was to work with of
ficials from the City of La Marque
and Galveston County to obtain
funds from the Texas Parks and
Wildlife Department (TPWD) for
developing a coastal park and 31
acres of coastal habitat in conjunc
tion with a growout facility and pub
lic fee fishing program for redlish.
The benefit was that they ob
tained a $380,000 grant from
TPWD which was matched for
$380,000 by the chemical company
for a total of $760,000 to develop the
facility.
Hightower said Sea Grant does
make a difference, and they can only
continue to advance the accomplish
ments if given the chance.
Each Sea Grant program has to
meet local needs, earn state support,
participate in national efforts, and
maintain congressional support.
Secretary of Commerce Robert
Mosbacher will be in town today to
speak at the Brazos County Republi
can Party’s annual Lincoln dinner.
Ofhcials at A&M’s Sea Grant hope
Mosbacher will be interested to hear
the strides their program has made,
as well as the challenges still ahead.
The A&M Sea Grant Program
publishes Texas Shores quarterly to
circulate what’s going on with their
research and programs. In one of
their advertisements it shows the
skeleton of a fish with a plastic six-
pack holder in his teeth.
The advertisement says, “Before
you toss that six-pack holder over
board, stop and consider. That frag
ile-looking plastic ring can last 450
years.Plastics do not rot. They don’t
go out with the tide. They accumu
late and they kill. Both fish and
shorebirds get entangled in the
mess. Some even mistake plastic for
food. The result: thousands die nee
dlessly. So, next time you take the
plunge in the Gulf, stow the garbage
or, at the very least, toss the degra
dable stuff and keep the plastics. We
shore appreciate it.”
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Adams hopes for speaking engagements
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Randall Dale Ad
ams, jailed for more than 12 years for a murder
he says he didn’t commit and freed partly be
cause of the movie “Thin Blue Line,” said Mon
day he hopes to build-a future by speaking about
his ordeal.
This is a case and a story that must be held be-
0r e the public,” Adams said in an inteview at his
mothers home. “I want to get some speaking en
gagements, talk to people, law schools, places
where lawyers and judges are trained. They must
know my story.
If I can support myself and do that, I want to
ake that avenue. But failing that, I’ll get a job. In
hat case, Randall Adams could just filter into the
mists of time.”
In the meantime, Adams, a quiet, introspective
J^an with a dry wit, is enjoying his newfound
feedom and trying to Find some private time.
Adams, 40, was freed last week from a I exas
prison he had inhabited since being convicted in
y7 7 for the murder of a Dallas policeman. He
w as sentenced to die.
He was released Tuesday after the Texas
°nrt of Criminal Appeals reversed the convic
tion. Prosecutors announced Thursday they
would not seek to retry him.
Adams’ story was chronicled in filmmaker Er
rol Morris’ documentary “Thin Blue Line,”
which questioned evidence and prompted Texas
officials to re-examine the case.
Adams spent Thursday night with his mother,
Mildred, who sold her house in suburban Grove
City to help pay her son’s legal bills. After taking
a short drive Lriday around Columbus, which
has doubled in size since he last saw it, he spent
the rest of the day with his family in Grove City.
He spent most of Saturday and part of Easter
Sunday shopping for clothes and other neces
sities. On Sunday morning, Adams attended an
Easter church service.
“Randy took a flower out of his lapel and gave
it to the pastor,” said Adams’ mother. “Then the
whole church clapped. That whole church was
just so glad to see that boy.”
He tried to rent a videotape of “Thin Blue
Line,” but was told it was not in stock.
“The guy there said I shouldn’t rent it because
all they do in it is talk,” he said, smiling.
Adams had other errands to run Monday, in
cluding applying for a driver’s license and a So
cial Security number. He also went to rent a post
office box to accommodate the stream of letters
and gifts for him.
“I’ve been given just about everything you can
think of — an Easter bunny, flowers, this watch,”
he said.
But Adams was calm in the face of the public
ity storm his release created. He said the family
has agreed to put its private homecoming on
hold for now.
“We’re trying to snatch as much private time as
possible. My family understands,” he said, add
ing that his mother has become almost as much a
celebrity as he has. “I’m afraid I’m going to have
to get her an agent.”
He said he tries not to think about the time he
spent in prison, which he said “is as bad and
worse than any movie you’ve ever seen. I carry
the scars.”
Flis face filled with pain and he spoke slowly
when he recalled his brush with death in 1980.
Three days before his execution date, a stay was
issued.
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Free Movie Night - Come in and see
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