The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 60, No. 9, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 19, 1972 Page: 6 of 10
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Laughable "Laugh-In11 translation flaws new Lysistrata
by T. MARTIN GRACE is timely and humorous enough same sympton, the choruses are
by T. MARTIN GRACE
Lysistrata: Women barricade
the acropolis and withold their
charms from the men of Hellas,
insisting that the man shall
have no pleasure until the Pe-
loponesian war is ended. The
men fight, then plead, and of
course finally submit. The ploy
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IN AN
INTERNATIONAL
CAREER?
MR. OLIVER G.
JAKOB III
will be on campus
WEDNESDAY
OCTOBER 25, 1972
to discuss qualifications foi
advanced study at
THUNDERBIRD
GRADUATE SCHOOL
and job opportunities
in the field of
INTERNATIONAL
MANAGEMENT
Interviews may be scheduled
at,
THE PLACEMENT
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THUNDERBIRD
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Glendale, Arizona 85301
Affiliated with
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is timely and humorous enough
as Aristophanes wrote it. Add
a generous amount of bawdy
puns and situations, and the
second Brown Greek Theatre
production should be an upro-
arious success.
The players, mostly new to
Rice stages and brimming with
potential, should easily support
such a program for successful
comedy. Indeed, several persons
are outstanding in their roles:
Ellynne Rosenfeld sparkles and
slinks as the siren Kleonike.
Kathy Tuggle, in charge of the
Women's Chorus, makes a cap-
tivating lead out of her role.
Dan Miller, the abandoned hus-
band Kinesias, is thoroughly
convincing providing a high-
light scene as he tries to lure
his wife away from the wom-
en's stronghold and Annie Ew-
ing, as Lysistrata, combines ex-
perience and forceful portrayal
and usually managers to hold
the rest of the cast in order.
The difficulty in production
is with unity; each individual
mentioned remains isolated.
They all offer nice features and
memorable facets, but never
form one play. Displaying this
same sympton, the choruses are
uneven, often garbled. More im-
portant, individual elements
compete rather than build to
any climax of plot, humor, or
character. Thus Miss Ewing
must exert all her will in push-
ing the plot forward, lest it be
lost in bad timing or the play's
own tedious tendencies.
If by opening night the co-
hesion can be attained, the cast
will have competent blocking,
costuming annd setting in their
favor. Then they need only
struggle with the script. Un-
fortunately, Aristophanes' work
is not really presented here;
rather it is an "updated" trans-
lation: the Greek jokes trans-
formed into their modern equiv-
alents. Thus Spartans take on
Southern accents. Parody
strikes at Shakespeare with
paraphrases from Hamlet, and
Venus and Adonis.
The difficulty is that the hu-
mor of the play begins to de-
pend not on Ari:-:v,pr.i.'.plot,
or on his lines, but on the
translator's jokes. The jokes are
mostly puns, centering around
one sexual object. Humorous,
but after 90 minutes, tedious.
Of course much of the obscenity
has been deleted from this pro-
duction, leaving what eventual-
ly seems to he a Laugh-In rej-
ect for a script.
Perhaps the difficulty lies in
its outdoor performance. The
Greek drama lends itself to
dispersal of voices and open air
because of its choreography and
formality. But slapstick and
one-liners are often lost out of
doors. Essentially, this is only
partly Greek drama; it is also
a long outdoor stand-up n-iusue.
But there is a funny ■■■■■:. and
a good production in its favor.
It can be a curiosity i. the Ari-
stophanes fan, and oi'f< r enter-
tainment to the modern p!a.
goer.
Although Brown has :oine-
how missed the mark achieved
last year, the college has ai
least provided an enthusiastic
contribution t<> Rice's college
theatre.
Cabaret and Boyfriend top musical list
by H. DAVID DANGLO
In the last few years I have
seen an enormous number of
movie musicals, and I would not
even attempt to list them. Most
recently I saw FIDDLER ON
THE ROOF, now completing a
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ten-month run here in Houston.
I am also including the movie
musicals I've .seen on television,
such as BRIGADOON, recently
broadcast travesty starring
Gene Kelly shown last week.
I have to admit that I am in-
flicted with an infatuation for
this genre despite the fact that
I am also very critical of it.
Movie musicals are another
matter, however, for the tech-
niques, the styles and the pers-
pectives have- to be of a dif-
ferent nature from those used
in theatrical* productions. Un-
fortunately, most directors who
undertake such projects do not
realize this, and try to cram
too much of an immiscible set
of theatrical techniques into the
movie productions. The results
are usually disasters. And when
it comes to movie musicals writ-
ten originally for the screen
and having nothing to do with
the stage, the results are al-
ways disasters (citing DR.
DOOLITTLE, STAR!, GOOD-
BYE, MR. CHIPS, with per-
haps the exception of that un-
forgettable piece of cuteness,
MARY POPPINS).
I must honestly say that I
have seen during those few
years only two musicals that
were beautifully and undeniably
of a genuine film genre, and
for which I have insufficient
praise. These two were CABA-
RET and THE BOYFRIEND.
Directors Bob Fosse and Ken
Russell approach the filming of
a musical play with a creativi-
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musical show adapters. Fosse
and his writers removed all the
songs from the musical play
CABARET except those specifi-
cally sung in a natural musical
habitat, in this case, the Kit Kat
.Klub. The movie is unforgive-
ably excellent, despite some of
Fosse's slightly inept, but sup-
posedly fancy, camerawork.
Best of all, the film was al-
most entirely separate from the
play in all aspects. The concept
was adapted on film with un-
usual skill, a skill which has
been further highlighted in
television variety show direc-
tion (Fosse's '"'Liza With a Z"
special was one of television his-
tory's best, and not only be-
cause of the tremendous talent
of the star).
As for THE BOYFRIEND,
Ken Russell filmed the play
as a play. He did not attempt
to widen the stage with Pana-
scope or Cinemascope like most
directors do when they tackle
a musical stage show. He ac-
tually filmed the theater, and
skillfully added backstage go-
ings-on audience reaction, or-
chestra antics, hallucinations, a
last minute stand-in and the
entire atmosphere of twenties'
theater—right there, on screen.
Beautiful.
Every musical movie usually
has something to make up for
its lack of inventiveness and
skill of adaptation. BRIGA-
DOON is salvaged by G e n o
Kelly's wonderful choreography.
Most critics decided that FID-
DLER ON THE ROOF lost all
its intimacy in the hands of
director Norman Jewison; this
intimacj? is what h£ls «ttapulted
the play to the world's longest
running musical. Otherwise, the
beautiful songs are all intact
and there is even one bizarre
scene worthy of THE DEVILS.
The acting is only tolerable, and
the overdone closcups are into-
lerable. FUNNY" GIRL, HELLO,
DOLLY and ON A CLEAR
DAY YOU CAN SEE FOR-
EVER were all distinguished by
a unique talent named Bar bra
Streisand and some interesting
period sets. Other than that,
they were terrible. PAINT
YOUR WAGON was disgust-
ing; neither Clint Eastwood,
nor Lee Marvin could sing a
note. Choreography also saved
WEST SIDE STORY (which
also happened to have a clas-
sic Shakespearean plot to help
it along) and SWEET CHAR-
ITY. Most of the problems in-
volved in the failure of these
movies is simply not leaving
well enough alone, and assum-
ing that a good musical play
will always make a good mu-
sical movie with a minimum
amount of adaptation.
There are three big musical
movies coming up: I have no
hopes at all for MAN OF LA
MANCHA, although it was my
favorite play in New York; the
movie stars Sophia Loren and
Peter O'Toole, and ought to be
an extravagant disaster. I have
some hopes for the film version
of 1776, despite the fact, that
it was a boring Broadway show.
Ross Hunter has produced the
musical version at LOST HO-
RIZON, which 1 expect to be as
entertaining and as total a
wash as his major effort AIR-
PORT. Perhaps someone can
convince Fosse or Russell to
Show their fellows once again
how to film a musical.
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•Vi
Complete Travel Service
the rice thresher, october 19, 1972—page 6
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Jackson, Steve. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 60, No. 9, Ed. 1 Thursday, October 19, 1972, newspaper, October 19, 1972; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245143/m1/6/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.