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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 12, 1990)
The Battalion LIFESTYLES Monday, February 12,1990 Lifestyles Editor Mary-Lynne Rice 845-2 mmmmammmm Pulitzer playwright Albee to direct Alley Theater reprisal of his play By CHIP SOWDEN Of The Battalion Staff Playwright Edward Albee, author of the internationally-famed play “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” will direct Houston’s Alley Theater presentation of his play Tuesday at 8 p.m. in Rudder Auditorium. The play is a presentation of the MSG Opera and Performing Arts Society. College Station is the first stop on the Alley Theater’s 23-city national ^.tour that also will continue in Lithu ania and Leningrad. The tour is a part of the Alley’s outreach program, which is de signed to get more people interested in theater, said Colin Martin, public relations manager for the Alley. “We want to make the Alley acces sible to everyone,” Martin said, “(and the outreach program) is won derful on an international level.” He said the three performances in Lithuania were scheduled by the government there in “a kind of statement of their independence.” No stranger to controversy, the 1962 play was the subject of outrage by many critics when the Pulitzer Prize advisory board didn’t choose “Virginia Woolf’ for the award, even though the drama jury had rec ommended it. In fact, the caustic dialogue and subject matter of the play were so controversial that Mike Nichols’ Os car-winning 1966 screen adaptation carried an X rating. Although he has since won two Pulitzer prizes, Albee said he still feels that he won the award for “Vir ginia Woolf,” since qualified judges voted to award it to him. Albee’s play has since become a modern American classic and is per formed frequently around the world. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” is the story of the strange relationship between Martha, the frustrated, middle-aged daughter of a college president, and her hus- as a distinguished lecturer.” The simplified story line of the play belies its complexity and allu sions. Although Albee describes the play as “very straightforward,” the plot tends to contradict viewers’ expecta tions as it unfolds. In this way, the play draws the au dience inside it and commands its full attention. “There is nothing in ‘Virginia Woolf that a bright audience can’t it I hate those terms. I don’t like to be categorized that way. If anything is at all complex and interesting, you just can’t do it.” — Edward Albee, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright band, George, a thwarted history professor at the college. After a faculty party, George and Martha have an ambitious, newly- hired biology instructor and his wife over for a nightcap. The ensuing all-night drinking marathon leads to cruel and shock ing confrontations among the char acters. The play is about the politics sur rounding academia, in which Albee has become involved as distin guished professor of drama at the L niversity of Houston. Because he dropped out of Trin ity College at Hartford in his sopho more year, Albee says, “I find it very amusing that I’m what is referred to understand,” Albee said. But it can be challenging. In their efforts to understand Al bee, critics often have called him an absurdist, a label to which Albee ob jects. “I hate all those terms,” he said. “I don’t like to be categorized that way. If anything is at all complex and in teresting, you just can’t do it.” But Albee said he believes that his play’s complexity should not be overshadowed by his directing. “Everything should vanish in a good production,” he said. Directing, lighting and acting should not call attention to them selves in such a way that they would be an impediment to the audience being drawn into the action, he said. Since Albee is directing his own play, they Alley Theater’s produc tion should come very close to the most accurate rendition possible — the play the author sees and hears in his mind as it is being written, Albee said. He said the main difference be tween this production and the other versions of his play is in the balance of humor and seriousness. In other versions, as in the movie, the element of hilarity largely was missing, he said. Among Albee’s many awards are the Tony, New York Critic’s Circle and Outer Circle prizes he won for “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”. He also has won Pulitzer Prizes for “A Delicate Balance” (1966) and “Seascape” (1975). Charles Gordone, distinguished lecturer in Texas A&M’s depart ment of speech communication and theater arts, said, “(Albee) is one of the best playwrights of our time. “There are some of his plays that will be just as good tomorrow as they were yesterday. And that’s the mea sure of a good playwright.” Gordone is also a Pulitzer Prize-winning play wright. Albee’s Alley staging of “Virginia Woolf’ will star Carol Mayo Jenkins, (of “Fame”), and Bruce Gray in the roles of Martha and George. The other two roles will be played by John Ottavino and Cynthia Bassham. For more information, call the Rudder Box Office at 845-1234. Boring 4 Loose Cannons’ misses target ByTODDSTONE Of The Battalion Staff Relying on the overused buddy- cop story and receiving mediocre performances by Gene Hackman and Dan Aykroyd, “Loose Cannons” is simply a predictable and boring movie. The filmmakers try to scrape to gether some originality by giving one of the cops a multiple personal ity disorder. Aykroyd plays the split- personality cop, Ellis Fielding, who turns into characters ranging from Pee Wee Herman to Dirty Harry. Hackman stars as Mac Stern, the typical and tough “I’ll bend the rules if I have to” kind of cop. The filmmakers promote: “Mac Stern is facing the greatest challenge of his career ... his partner.” How ever, they also should include a warning: “The audience vl'ill face the greatest challenge of their movie going careers ... staying awake dur ing the movie.” Stern and Fielding are assigned to a solve a series of murders, which leads them to a race against German mercenaries for an old film of sexual exploits starring Adolf Hitler. The idea may sound interesting, but the Hitler slant is merely a moti vational plot device that is barely al luded to throughout the movie. Fielding is a natural at deductive analysis, but he changes characters any time violence or excitement oc curs. Further, when fielding freaks out, Aykroyd doesn’t make it funny. He just doesn’t have the comedic range to play all his personality char acters convincingly. Screenwriters Police detectives played by Gene Hackman and Dan Aykroyd join forces with an Israeli secret service agent played by Nancy Travis in “Loose Cannons.” LOOSE CANNONS Starring Gene Hackman and Dan Aykroyd Directed by Bob Clark Rated R Richard Christian Matheson, Bob Clark and Richard Matheson de serve part of the blame for the lack of one-liners and the hfatantly con trived plot direction. They use the typical Hollywood recipe for cop movies but forgot the spices: two cops become friends, they chase the bad guys and catch them. The result is bland. What the “Loose Cannons” recipe desperately needs is a jalapeno or two of origi nality. Director Bob Clark (“Porky’s” and “From The Hip”) doesn’t do any thing new with the action sequences, but there isn’t anything new in the story to motivate him. Hackman appears bored during the movie, and one has to wonder why he took this part for any other reason but a pay check with a lot of zeros. Aykroyd tries hard, but he can’t effectively portray all the per sonalities the script requires of him. Nancy Travis’ (“Internal Affairs”) presence is wasted as an Israeli se cret agent. She should get better op portunities in the future. Dom DeL- uise does nothing special as Harry “The Hippo” Gutterman. Indeed, the entire movie is noth ing special. The filmmakers seemed to throw it together to see how much money they could get. Fortunately, the slow death by boredom ends af ter an hour and a half of screen time. “Loose Cannons” lacks the origi nality or the punch that a cop movie needs to be entertaining. It doesn’t knock you out, but you still end up asleep. Love story with a conscience: ‘Stanley and Iris’ warm, hones. By TODD STONE Of The Battalion Staff It’s a movie-goer’s dream; Jane Fonda and Robert De Niro star ring together in a motion picture. In the film “Stanley and Iris,” dreams do come true as Fonda and De Niro bring warmth and depth to the characters of this touching love story. Fonda stars as Iris, a middle- age widow working at a bakery factory. De Niro plays Stanley, who works at the same factory as a cook. They meet when Iris' purse is stolen one day. Stanley tries to help, but arrives too late. A friendship slowly develops between the two, but Stanley is of ten distant. He won’t sign his name for the return of his repaired shoes. 01 share the message from his for tune cookie. When Stanley can’t distinguish a bottle of Rolaids from the Tyle nol Iris asked for, his secret is re vealed: Stanley can’t read. Stanley’s illiteracy is disturbing. He is intelligent, honest and a hard worker. Yet he can’t get any where without asking, he doesn’t have a driver’s license or a bank account, and he can’t read a newspaper. Without Stanley i ashamed. Desperate, he asks Iris to teat h him to read, and during the into play between Stanley and Ins as student and teat her, a romance develops. STANLEY AND IRIS Starring Robert DeNiro and Jan; Fonda Directed by Martin Ritt Rated PG-13 the ability u> read, » incomplete and Still, Iris must deal with the memory of her husband, and Stanley must gain self-confidence to overcome the difficulties and frustrations of learning how to read. Fonda and De Niro are engag ing and believable on-screen. De Niro is especially effective as a man dealing with illiteracy. Iris’s motivation to help Stan ley isn’t clear, but Fonda skillfully and naturally projects the suffer ing Iris endures as a working mother and widow. Stanley and Ins balances two themes and lies them togetherni- te l>- Fitst. the film deftly projects the societal problem of illiteracy. De Niro’s portrayal of an illiterate man is moving. Second, the film is a love story that offers hope without a fairy tale ending, and tendei ness without beingsappv. It’s fun seeing Fonda and De Niro m a simple movie about two people, instead of in some big production that might over shadow t heir talents. Direclot Martin Ritt is no fool, I he movie is about Stanley and Ins, and the audience interest is in Fonda and De Niro; thus. the\ get all the screen time. With Fonda and De Niro’s strong per- foi mant es. it’s a smart move. Still, time sequences are occasionally murky, and the explanations for the c haracters’ ac tions are some times lac king. Sc reenwritei s Harriet Fran! Jr and Irving Ravetch could have concentrated mote on Stanley and Iris’ transition between being friends to being lovers, but Fonda and De Niro bring the necessary depth to the relationship, fhey carry the load and do it with ease. “Stanley and It is" is an enter laining love story with a con- sc ience. D< ni l miss it. Dr. Demen to celebrates 20 years of crazy radio PORTLAND, Ore. (AP)—-Who is that mad-hatted man and what is he doing on the radio? Let him speak for himself. “Whooo, whooo, whooo, wind up your ears, dementites and demen- toids! It’s time for the Dr. Demento Show’ with m a d music a n d craaaaaaaazy comedy from out of the archives and off the wall!” Toot toot goes his toy horn, and Dr. Demento — a.k.a. Barrett L. “Barry” Hansen — is off to a nu- thead start. The Dr. Demento Show, heard from Alabama to Antarctica, is the only major radio outpost for wacko recordings ranging from “The Pur ple People Eater" to rap-scratchin’ takeoffs on “Star Trek.” Every week, the show is on 193 commercial radio stations through the Westwood One Radio Networks, and on 35 college stations and about 500 Armed Forces Network stations on ships or bases. Hansen — whose trademark is a tux and top hat — is celebrating 20 years on commercial radio. Hansen isn’t really a doctor, but if anyone were handing out Ph.D.’s in Music of All Persuasions, he would be first in line. His knowledge of music spans the Magazine collector catalogues offbeat specialty publications RENSSELAER, NY. (AP) — Thousands of magazines are piled throughout Michael Gunderloy’s home. But don’t ask him to pull out a copy of Newsweek or Reader’s Di gest. They’re too conventional. However, he’ll gladly produce American Window Cleaner, a trade journal for those who squeegee for a living. Or Gunderloy can find his copy of Civilian Defense: News & Opinion, a newsletter put out by those who be lieve in creating a national defense by training Americans in non-violent non-cooperation with any invader. There's always Chokehold, a wrestling magazine. Daily Cow is a humor magazine written from the animal’s point of view. And Frostbite Falls Far-Flung Flier features the cartoon characters Rocky and Bull- winkle. “It has happened that the Rensse laer post office has sent me stuff just because it looks flaky and they don’t know who else to send it to,” says Gunderloy. Gunderloy collects the magazines for his own journal, Factsheet Five, the bible of the underground, or al ternative press. Published five times a year, Factsheet Five contains re views of as many of this country’s es timated 6,000 self-published mag azines as Gunderloy can get his hands on. Anyone with access to a copier theoretically can become a pub lisher, and many people do. Gun derloy says the alternative press, once thought the province of 1960s radicals plotting campus takeovers, flourished in the 1980s. He calls them “zines.” That’s short for fanzines. But although many publications show slavish devotion to certain rock bands, others cover far different territories in politics and the arts. Gunderloy has set aside his chemi cal engineering degree to give his full energies to his marginally profit able newsletter. His wife, a physics professor, helps pay the bills. He chronicles publications with names like Filth, The Lame Monkey- Manifesto, Nuclear Mutinous Dogs and The Occasional Journal of Nothing in Particular with obsessive detail, in print so small it’s almost painful to read. Zines range in size from slick mu sic publications like Maximum Rock ’n’ Roll and Flip Side, with 15,000 circulations, to The Colleen Scene, a newsletter with a circulation of one, put out by a California woman. “She types it on demand — every one gets an original copy,” Gunder loy says. “It’s mostly rambling about what she did that day and what she heard on the radio.” Music zines routinely trumpet bands, such as the heavy-metal fa vorites Metallica, long before they become popular. to make too many newsstands. Cartoonists use the zines as a proving ground. Many, Gunderloy says, are mainly interested in prov ing how shocking they can be. Gun derloy suspects the controversy over Robert Mapplethorpe’s govern ment-sponsored homosexual art caused many publications to push the boundaries of obscenity as far as possible. In a strange way, Gunderloy says, magazines tell him a lot about what’s It has happened that the Rensselaer post office has sent me stuff just because it looks flaky and they don’t know who else to send it to.” — Michael Gunderloy, magazine collector “There is a lot of talent out there — in some cases waiting to be discov ered and in some cases being discov ered,” Gunderloy says. Other zine culture probably will remain underground. The magazine Ripping Head aches, with interviews with obscure heavy metal rockers Fatal Blessing, Devastation, and Vomit, is not likely going on in the country. Dozens of new publications pro vide evidence of an upsurge in envi ronmentalism, he says. The coun try’s conservative drift through the ’80s was obvious in several alterna tive college newspapers. “I get the latest news from people that might not have made it into The New York Times — which 1 don’t have time to read,” he says. Gunderloy’s own press run is nearly 7,000 per issue. He’ll list the magazine of anyone who sends him a copy and is available by phone. While many zines try to entertain, others try to inform, albeit in very specialized fields. The Mandocru- cian’s Digest is about people who play the mandolin. Suds n’ Stuff is the newsletter of Beer Drinkers In ternational, while Jewish Vegetari ans of North America is self-explan atory. Gunderloy says he’s impressed with the quality of much of what he gets, although he says, “I’ve also got ten things from people who are probably certifiably nuts.” Factsheet Five also publishes po etry reviews and keeps track of “cas sette culture,” people who record and distribute their own music. Gunderloy wants eventually to publish Factsheet Five, which began as a two-page mimeographed sheet and now stretches beyond 100 pages, every two months. He does it largely himself, sitting behind a per sonal computer and sitting through his mail. blues, folk classical, rock and iw- eltv tunes. He occasionally helpsk sev Kasem choose old songs for“5 sev s I op 40. introduced Weird,11 Yankovic to the world and ii" ences other radio personalities. “1 think he’s great, I love him,1« been a tan tor years,” said Sat Shannon, vice president and pro gram director at both Weshp One and Los Angeles’ Finite (K.QLZ). H ansen grew up in Minneapok! where even at age 4 he could pi: the fragile 78 rpm records by nil sell on the family's gramophone. His father, an arts aficionado brought home some Spike Jones to cords, including "Cocktails loi Two.” The 1945 recording starts with man crooning about an “exquisi: rendezvous,” but goes crazy nil loud crashes, guns going off aid people sci earning “Whoopee!" “It planted the seed in my lili brain which 25 years later becaffl the ‘Dr. Demento Show,’ ’’ Hattst: said. Hansen got his start in radioi Reed’s station, KRRC. After pad uating in 1963, he took off for lit “smogberry trees” of Los Angeb He worked aia music club, did she: stints as a roadie, produced a coup of records ailcl put together re-isstn j foi Specialty Records. Hansen also took a masters a . gree in Folk Music Studies at it*| University of California at Los A* geles and wrote record reviews 1 Rolling Stone. At a party in 1970, he met t* men who worked at KPPC, one the new FM underground, progtf sive radio stations that were popph uj) around the country. H ansen showed them his recof collection —then about 40,Oft strong — and was invited to do; ' oldies show. H is first time behind the mike,1 played classics by Carl Perft Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and otta> and threw in a nntty teen car cr^ tune, “Transfusion,” by Nervof Norvus. “Somebody said, ‘You’vegottok demented to play that on then dio,’ ” Hansen said. The name Demento stuck. Hansen moved to Los Angeb ’ KMET in 1971, went into syndic tion in 1974 and watched radio come more and more rigid in itsfo' mat. He switched to Los Angeb KLSX in 1987, where he does ab version of his show that’s sometiiwf wilder than the syndicated, pre-n corded program. t