Page 6 Thursday, January 31 1985 The Capitol Times
Actor
By Jen Dell'Alba
Capitol Campus slipped
backward in time last Thurs
day. On stage 'in the Olmsted
Building auditorium, a man
looked and sounded like Mark
Twain.
The setting was "a lecture
hall in 1905," and "Mark
Twain" was a shaking, seventy
three-year-old man toking on a
big cigar. His anecdotes touch
ed on many contemporary con
troversies: smoking, religion,
media reporters, politics and
prejudice.
In reality, "Twain" was Will
Stutts and the show was the na
tionally acclaimed "Mark
Twain's America!"
The performance at Capitol
lasted two hours; all of which
held the audience captivated.
The approximately 125-person
crowd expressed a pleased
satisfaction and admiration for
Stutts' excellent show. There
was amused chuckling instead
of uproaring laughter.
"Twain" was witty, rather than
hilarious. Stutts commented
afterward that he was pleased
with the size and quality of the
audience.
Will Stutts is an established
actor. His productions range
from television appearances to
off-Broadway plays. However,
in between jobs, Stutts tours the
United States doing one-person
characterizations ' of famous
personalities. Stutts said he
would rather continue acting,
than bartend like his friends.
Besides, Twain, Stutts imper
sonates Walt Whitman, Edgar
Allan Poe, John Wilkes Booth,
Clarence Darrow, Lord Byron
and Abraham Lincoln.
His one-man shows
originated -as an experiment
while Stutts studied at the
University of Alabama in 1968.
Stutts needed a source of
employment to pay for his
schooling. The shows grew to a
whopping success with sixty
performances in two years.
One-person plays have advan
tages and disadvantages, Stutts
explained. He said each perfor
mance is like "walking on a
tightrope without a net." The
entire show rests on his
shoulders alone. However, if a
mistake occurs, no one knows
except Stutts himself.
Talking to Stutts after the
performance revealed his in
tense excitement for Mark
Twain. Stutts appeared in awe
of the humorist/writer Twain.
"Mark Twain's America!"
contains only Twain's original
material with Stutts merely jux
taposing during a performance.
The entire recital is made up of
six hours of speech. Thus,
Stutts may provide varying per
formances by "guaging the au
dience" and choosing the ap
propriate material.
portrays Mark Twain
Perhaps the best part of the
show was when Stutts did an
excerpt from "Huckleberry
Finn." As Stutts enacted
Huckleberry's decision not to
reveal the identity of the
runaway slave, you could hear
a pin drop in the auditorium.
Sitting near the front, one could
see the tears welling in the
Stutts' eyes. In addition, I
believe everyone had a lump in
their own throats. He ended the
segment "with maturity and
Winter movies: which to see
By Don Strausburger
Eddie Murphy doomed his
film career by an all-too-brief
performance in "Best Defense"
with Dudley Moore. In his ap
pearance as guest host on
"Saturday Night Live," he an
nounced that the film reeked
and that he needed to mend his
injured quest for stardom.
It was for that reason that
Murphy accepted the offer to
make "Beverly Hills Cop."
And with "Beverly Hills
Cop," Murphy's career is once'
again on the rise, if not at its
peak.
In a Christmas season which
offered many self-proclaimed
blockbusters -- "Dune," for ex
ample -- "Beverly Hills Cop"
emerged as the top-grossing
film of the holiday period.
The film stars Murphy as a
Detroit cop who goes on "vaca
tion," but is actually in
vestigating the murder of an old
friend while off duty. His
search for his friend's
murderer(s) leads him into
many altercations with both the
man who ordered the murder
and the always polite, often
bumbling Beverly Hills police
education we begin to learn pre
judice." Something for all of us
to think about.
Stutts admitted that the
"Huckleberry Finn" excerpt is
his favorite also. He confided
that he experiences an uncon
trollable burst of emotion at the
same moment each perfor
mance. Emotion must come
somewhere from within the ac
tor, Stutts explained. Going
further to say that if he lost the
source of emotion, it was time
"Beverly Hills Cop" is best
described as a pleasant surprise
for its effective combination of
comedy, drama and suspense.
Unlike Murphy's earlier
movies, like "Trading Places,"
this film gives him a chance to
show his acting talent in addi
tion to his comic ability.
Beside Murphy's credible
performance, the film also
takes the lead of films from
earlier this year, like "Purple
Rain" and "Footloose," and
offers a good soundtrack
featuring "Neutron Dance" by
the Pointer Sisters and "The
Heat Is On" by Glenn Frey --
both of which are currently in
Billboard's Top 20 singles
chart.
Unfortunately, not all of the
Christmas films were as in
teresting as "Beverly Hills
Cop." The long-awaited dream
of science-fiction fans -- a
movie based on "Dune" -- has
already placed itself on the list
of all-thime great flops.
While purchasing my ticket.
1 was given a definition sheet in
order to understand the ter
minology of the film. You'd
to quit the business.
What adds to Stutts' perfor
mance is his childhood ex
perience: Stutts was born in
Alabama in 1949. He lived not
only five hours from Hannibal,
Mo., but also-along a river. His
father was a riverboat captain.
Stutts said that he can actually
feel the emotions •of
Huckleberry Finn because he
knows what such a life is like.
While Stutts is an actor, he
strives not merely to entertain
think for $4, everything would
be explained in the movie
(which it was, repeatedly), so
was it necessary to force the
viewer to learn (or even study)
this information? The paper
did, however, make good
airplanes for the many boring
parts of the film.
The film, once it finally
started, was very captivating
for about the first 30 minutes.
From that point, it was all
downhill.
"Dune" basically breaks all
of the recent standards of
modern, science fiction film
making with its characters. Not
only are the characters
stereotypical of the good-guy
vs. bad-guy concept, but also
the actors portraying these
meaningless characters are
equally expendable. None of
the actors seem interested in the
parts they play or in what way
they affect the film's ridiculous
climax.
The second major flaw in
"Dune" is the set design ; The
sets are extremely good; in fact,
too good for this film. The ac
ting is , so boring that I spent
more time looking at the in
tricate sets than paying atten
with his one-person plays. He
wants the audience to be in
terested enough "to go back
and re-read the book." He em
phasizes that "Huckleberry
Finn" is "actually an adult
book." In addition, Stutts finds
it "pathetic that we are fighting
the same [social] wars today as
a hundred years ago."
The event was sponsored by
the Olmsted Recreation Board
and was part of the Capitol
Campus Cultural Events Series.
tion to what the actors
attempted.
If you have not yet gotten the
hint, "Dune" is my choice for
runner-up as worst film of the
year to "Bolero" and wins my
vote for biggest let-down of the
year and possibly the decade.
Similar to "Dune" in pro
duction costs only was the latest
film from super-director Fran
cis Ford Copolla, "The Cotton
Club." The film was made at
on estimated cost of $47
million, but was worth every
penny.
"The Cotton Club" stars
two of Hollywood's shining
stars -- Richard Gere and Diane
Lane -- and several who entered
the movie scene more recently
like Gregory Hines and Fred
Gwynne. .
Richard Gere, in his best per
formance since "An Officer
and a Gentleman," is a cornet
player who is hired to play for
and entertain the mistress of
one of New York's mob
leaders. Diane Lane, best
known for "Streets of Fire,"
plays the mistress whom Gere
entertains.
(continued on pg. 7)