PAGE TWO College Life Got You Down? Boy, am I disappointed. A couple of months ago I was debating on three options in life. One, to go to a trade school. Two, work for a living, or three, go to college. Well, one night Betty Sue, the little woman at home, (probably having the time of her life right now) and I went to catch a movie. Unfortunately, we saw Animal House. After seeing this movie on campus life I was really set on Diana George Reviews "Menagerie" The best first: last week I said it would be good, and it is. The Behrend Players' production of Tennessee Williams' vintage chestnut play, The Glass Menagerie, is well worth your time, and now that the freebie previews are over, your money. The intimacy of the Behrend Theater is right for this equally intimate piece of drama, in which we are admitted to the memories and mind of the narrator-cum playwright, as he recalls his furious, poignant young manhood is an unrelentingly female world. This production -made -it- clearer for me than ever it was before, that The Glass Menagerie was Tennessee Williams' artful and painful declaration-confession: Why I'm An Alcoholic Homosexual. The play is almost case history transformed into - I save Tom for last: the art, if you happen to buy the theory that homosexuality is a narrator-playwright, the con pathological response to relations trolling, creating voice of one of with one's mother. With a mother the most popular plays of the like that, and in a completely mid-century in America. Well, different way, a sister like that, damn it, I've decided I don't who could hope to develop normal much like on of the Toms, and relationships with women? To that's not Dan Roscher's fault. find out what that that means, go That's the play's fault. We are see the play. given two Toms: the narrator, Mina Eisenberg (Dysart's who frames the play; and the friend in Equus) plays Amanda, young character within the the aging, impoverished and frame. When Roscher tries to deserted "Christian martyr" render Williams' awkwardly mother. Eisenberg regards it as elegant, multi-dependent clause "the role of a lifetime, Amanda " and in- sentences in the frame pieces deed it is. She does that provide the narration, lie's justice in most respects, ren- just okay. The sentences are literary rather than dramatic; dering her with poignancy, fury, ridiculousness and compassion, they just don't lend themselves to good theater. (Maybe Olivier A few scenes on the telephone selling magazines, in conflict could do it, but he's too old now). Dan Roscher is not comfortable with her son, playing the flirt with those lines, and it shows, with the "gentlemen caller" ever so slightly. But when he are played so beautifully by eth sli into charac of the Eisenberg that they make up for Tom ps , he is at hom te e, r and hereal is what I felt was her one flaw in very good.'. His interactions with portrayal: she doesn't allow • both Laura and Amanda are Amanda quite enough grace, sometimes perfect. (That guy saving or otherwise, not quite knows what it's like to fight with enough leftover (though greatly diminished) classiness. And it's your mother.) certainly not as if Eisenberg Paul Iddings has never seen a couldn't have done that because production of Menagerie so his in Equus, her character wa&pure direction is utterly his own. I class, with just enough corn- disagree with some of Paul's passion to make her thoroughly directorial emphasis, as they are lovable. . reflected in the character per- Laura, the crippled sister ofof the trayals I mention above —. but I narrator, who has never had a. agree with him on more points gentlemen caller before and - than not, and as always, I sense collects glass animals instead of strong, sure painstaking direc (and symbolic of) entering .a tion of every facet of the world which will call her what production. Sue Klein, as student she feels she is, is played with director certainly has a lot to do near perfection by Maryann with the strengths of this Ronksley, who played the girl- in production. The set could not be Equus. Laura is a difficult better: I am always amazed at character to play, because she's Behrend theater sets, which, so etheral that she threatens to consistently, like this one by float away to the uncluttered Sandy Duncan, manage the realm of pure principle. Maryann illusion of space, and skillfully Ronksley keeps Laura's crippled manipulate the reality of foot on solid stage, and makes her closeness. You have a few more a genuine character deserving of chances to catch his every good more complex response than production it's on through the pathos. By Joe Englert going to college. Just think I was going to be in a fraternity. Yeah, we would go to all the Saturday afternoon football games, me and my great frat brothers with names like Blotto, Flounder and Ottee. What was even better, I would develop into a deviant alcoholic, being involved in diur nal pranks and I would have the the sex life of a hyperactive rabbit. Believe me, there's a couple of By Diana George Dept. of English Laura's gentleman caller, Jim, is played first for laughs, and then for seriousness, by Dave McNeill, who neighed his com petent way through Equus and bombasts his equally competent way through Menagerie. As Mike Simmons pointed out to me, Dave skillfully drops the character's public speaking-lesson voice when he drops Laura's favorite glass animal-as, indeed, such a character would when caught off guard. Nice, fine point. I frankly have a bit of trouble with the gentlemen caller being played so _broadly, and! prefer him a little less parodic on both ends of his extreme behaviors, but that's a difference in interpretation of the character, rather than a gripe about the acting, which is con sistently good. BEHREND COLLEGIAN things that Animal House or those enthusiastic college public relations people don't tell you that I scion found out. For instance, your racial and income background mean a lot. And your SAT scores make a helluva difference in who hits the big time. (Remember that Satur day morning you took the SAT? You got about four hours sleep af ter that drunken brawl you got in to at the football game the night before. Remember all those little round dots your had to fill in? It looked like at any moment they would all leap off the test and strangle your little math or english deficient little throat. About an hour after the test star ted your discovered you had been sleeping, finding a pencil lodged in your right nostril. You looked at your paper and it resembled a chart of a San Francisco ear thquake). A couple weeks later I got my score back and found out the only people with scores lower than mine, went to Pitt and played football there. To add to my low score I'm cursed with being a white, middle class male. (I later discovered only Eskimos and females with three breasts make Main Campus with SAT scores under 1300.) Penn State Main was "Apocalypse Now" Important Film Apocalypse Now is a very dif ferent kind of movie. From the opening, sequence, with its kaleidoscopic colors and eerie Doors soundtrack, one realizes that thisis not just another Vietnam movie with action and tears. Not that action and tears are missing here; there is a lot of combat, fighting, complete with helicopters, gunboats, enemy villages, jets, napalm, blood, and thousands of oriental tras who die well. I don't recall the exact figure for the film's cost, but director-writer producer Francis Ford Coppola must be in debt up to his eyeballs. Also, there are many times to sit in horror as you watch what war does to a man's mind. Killing is like breathing to many of these men; after awhile they do it without thinking. The cast is excellent. Captain Benjamin Willard, as played by Martin Sheen, is a paid govern ment assassin who for once in his life questions whether or not to complete his mission. We know that Willard doesn't have all his bread in the oven .we see him freaking out in a Saigon hotel room in the beginning of the film and this isn't making his decision any easier. His prey is Colonel Walter Kurtze, played by Marlon Brando. Brando is ex cellent as usual, but I feel guilty saying that; he is only in the movie for less than half an hour, and yet he is given top billing (and top dollar). Kurtze is a top of-the-line field officer who has gone insane. He has divorced himself from the army, though his men follow him blindly as he sets up his own private little Kingdom. The rest of the cast is also very good. Robert Duvall is very believable, as _the war-monger Colonel who helps• Willard and his where I really wanted to go but I got a letter in the mail telling me I could go to a place called Behrend (The name reminded me of what you see on the beach in the summer when the babe in the skimpy string bikini bends over for a missed frisbee), or Dubois. I had two choices if I wanted to go to Penn State, I could go to Behrend or some sissy french place called Dubois (Do-boys). After much debating and a visit to Erie, I chose Behrend. Little did I know when I went on tour of the campus I was ex tremely faked out. First of all, when I visited, it didn't rain. The whole place was swarming with beautiful blondes (they probably decided to go to Slippery Rock or Ohio State) and for some reason nobody mentioned classes or studying. As you know, I chose Erie, Pennsylvania for schooling. I would really like to make something clear. We never got to see the football team on Saturday afternoons, because we don't have one! The guys on my floor aren't alcoholics, they're study masters. No one on my floor is called Otter or Bluto either, but there are about ten Jims and Johns, I haven't been to a toga party; they don't even do the By Joe Hohman gunboat onto Cambodia ( this is the character who states that napalm in the morning smells like victory). Albert Hall is ex cellent as the CPO of the gunboat who reluctantly but obediently follows Willard's orders to go deeper into Cambodia. Frederick Forrest plays "Chef," a crew member on the gunboat. Chef is really the only sane person in the entire film, and if Forrest is not nominated for best supporting ac tor come April, I'll be very.disap pointed. Thus far I have tried not to comment on how Apocalypse Now seems like two separate and disjoint movies. The first two hours are devoted to images of how unorganized the war was; of how terrible the war atrocities Stitt - tut •cJialittiau amber girt Inas Assartation Laura Selman Editor-in-chief • • Staff Joe Englert Mary Miseta Lonnie Gilbert Tom Pyne Eugene Grygo Joy Savage Bill Hegman Pat Sedlak Joe Holman Karen Tyler Russ Miller Ron Williams Mary Miller -Marc Woytowich Mailing Address-Behrend College, Station Rood, Erie, Pa. 16563 Office-Student Offices, Reed Union Building Office Hours: 9'oo a.m. - 5:00 p.m., Mon., Wed., Fri. Phone 898-1511 Ext. 238 Opinions expressed by the editors and staff of the Behrend Collegian are not necessarily those of the University Ad ministration, faculty, or the student body-. OCTOBER 25, 1979 worm! It is pretty hard to be a deviant alcoholic because possession of beer is an offense that is punishable by death and loss of housing, (rape and murder are lesser crimes). The myth that all college girls look like Playboy bunnies and have the morals of an Erie hooker aren't true either. That $3.15 an hour at McDonald's looks pretty good right now. were; of how values were changes; and of war-torn civilians. Transitions occur at a fairly smooth pace. At all times these scenes are believeable and breathtakingly realistic. But in the last half hour, things slow down. Kurtze's kingdom is really too lavish to be believable. The final confrontation between Kurtz and Willard is mystical, like a parable or allegory. There is little real dialogue; characters have monologues. To be honest, I'm not sure if I really understood the impact the ending was meant to have. One thing is certain: Apocalyp se Now is an important movie if only for those first two hours. It is similar to 2000: A Space Odessey, in that even if you don't un derstand it, it is amazing just for the sake of the photography. It is, in the end, like the war itself; it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and you're not sure where that taste came from.
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