The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 29, Ed. 1 Friday, May 15, 1987 Page: 8 of 12
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Friday, May 15, 1987 THRESHER Fine Arts
Alley's Lie of the Mind satisfactory
A Lie of the Mind
Alley Theatre
If you're like this Goldilocks,
you found that Blood Simple
burned your mouth and Paris,
Texas was barely tepid. The Alley's
production of A Lie of the Mind
might, then, be just right for you.
Not, of course, that A Lie of the
Mind is the sort of play you could
expect baby bear to enjpy. It is of
the same genre as Blood Simple
and Paris, Texas', dark, powerful
drama about rural working-class
Americans. People with large
extended families. People who
drink a lot of beer and have marital
problems. People who would
never use the phrase "marital
problems." People who like to
drive across this great nation of
ours in beat-up pickup trucks or
old Chevys with fins or, best of all,
old, beat-up Chevy pickups with
fins.
Like the two movies, Lie uses
disturbing, insistent country-style
music to punctuate scenes and
keep you on the edge of your seat.
The if-they're-not-famous-then-
they-should-be Red Clay
Ramblers provide this music in the
Houston production. The
Ramblers wrote and performed
the music for the New York
premiere of the play, and their
efforts alone are worth the $5 or $6
for a student rush ticket.
Lie is not as gruesome or
shocking as Blood Simple — that
is, in this play no one's hand gets
crushed by a window and then
attached to the sill with a dagger.
The play doesn't have the happy
ending (admittedly a loose
definition of the term) of Paris,
Texas. It also differs from those in
that the Alley couldn't find a way
to get old American cars or
pickups on the stage; you just have
to imagine the drive from Billings,
Montana out to the ranch, since it
happens during a between-scenes
blackout. Quel dommage.
The play does have an alcoholic
wife abuser (Jake, played aptlv by
Brandon Smith), his sister who
shares a terrible secret with him
(remind you of Shepard's Buried
Child?), his helpful brother (Jeff
Bennett does a good job here) and
their widowed mother.
It also has a wife, whom Jake
has abused; her brother, who is
bent on revenge; and their slightly
disinterested parents: Baylor,
who'd rather hunt and gather like a
prehistoric than support a modern
family, and Meg, who answers,
"111 go check the oven" when you
ask her who won the Rockets-
Sonics series. They're an
interesting bunch, at least.
Add a blizzard, a house fire, a
hunting accident, a weekend in
Mexico, brain damage, and an
American flag. Simmer on
medium heat for three hours or so
and you have A Lie of the Mind.
Not too much message, not too
little. Not too much drama, not too
little. And topped off with good
performances.
Just right for me. at least.
—Spencer Greene
Annalee Jeffries and Greg Kean Williams star in Lie of the Mind.
The Secret of My Success or Alex Keaton Does Manhattan ?
The Secret of My Success
Once upon a time, a producer
needed a young Republican-type
to play the role of an aspiring
politico-economist on a trite TV
sitcom. They chose an overly cute
midget for the part. The show was
a hit among high school girls and
Michael J. Fox will never be able
to play a role that isn't some
variation of Alex P. Keaton. His
latest movie. The Secret of My
Success, could just as well be called
Alex P. Keaton Does Manhattan.
Fox plays Brently Foster, a
Kansas farm boy who goes off to
wicked New York City to make a
name for himself. When 1 saw that
in the preview, I thought wow, 1
can relate to this; I'm from Kansas
and I'm going to New York. He
gets there and meets lots of
beautiful women. I can relate to
that, too.
As a result of an unfriendly
corporate takeover, Foster finds
that his guaranteed job no longer
exists. He hits the streets armed
only with his resume, only to find
that New York is not friendly to
the jobless. We are treated to an
interview that is hauntingly
reminiscent of a commercial that
the armed forces ran a few years
ago (probably during Family
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Ties). The personnel director won't
hire him because he doesn't have
any experience and he can't get
experience until someone hires
him. Sound' familiar? Sounds
plagiarized.
Our plucky hero finally throws
out his last ace and asks his distant
uncle for a job. The uncle is the
tough-as-nails president of
Primrose, a major conglomerate
run by the most incompetent
group of executives outside the
Pentagon. Somehow Foster
manages to convince his dear uncle
to give him a job.
The next day Alex, I mean
Brently, shows up at the mail room
wearing a suit and tie. All of the
blue collar workers laugh at him.
He shows them. He starts reading
the ej&cutives' letters and memos
and within two weeks knows the
entire corporate structure. He then
takes over an empty office, passing
himself off as a new executive to
infiltrate the corporate upper
echelon.
- Along the way, he manages to
have an affair with the boss's wife
and to pick up a gorgeous
girlfriend, a vice president who's
having a secret affair with the boss.
Meanwhile, Primrose is the
target of a takeover by a T. Boone
Pickens-like character. The upper
brass is terrified and tries to slash
expenditures to make the company
less attractive. Brently, who has
lived fewer years than some of the
other executives have worked,
suggests the radical plan of
expanding operations. They reject
his proposal and submit to the
takeover once they realize their
jobs are secure. Brently, of course,
gets angry. It's not wise to get a
Kansas boy angry.
If you like Family Ties, you'll
like The Secret of My Success. It's
funny. It's clever. And it's witty.
But it shows absolutely no
creativity. The producers knew
that Michael J. Fox playing Alex
P. Keaton would draw a large
audience of high schoolers — and
it does. (Remind me never to go to
one of his movies while HISD is on
spring break.)
And there's one last problem
with this movie, at least for those
of us from Kansas. If Brently
worked for Jayhawk Communica-
tions, part of the University of.
Kansas, why does he wear a
Kansas State shirt?
— Paul Angles
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Wucker, Michele. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 29, Ed. 1 Friday, May 15, 1987, newspaper, May 15, 1987; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245666/m1/8/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.