Script hinders Brel musical By MINDY McADAMS Daily Collegian Staif Writer The show is a collection of songs by Jacques Brel, loosely held together by a '6os theme and six performers. The songs are great, the performers do well, but the show is, at best, fair. The Kern UnCommon Theatre and University Resident Theatre Company's presentation of "Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris" was se verely limited by a script which attempts to bind 23 unrelated songs together with little plot. The show was also limited by the small stage in Kern Building even though director Elizabeth Hamilton made a valiant effort to keep the per formers constantly moving, dancing or pantomiming. The script's feeble attempt to create characters was luckily handled by two talented performers, Vickielee Wohlbach and Scott Edmiston. Wohlbach has one of the brightest, most expressive faces I have ever seen. In "Timid Frieda," she acts the part as the others sing. Looking hopeful and a bit scared, she sticks her thumb out to hitchhike. Her eyes widen as the first car passes, then her face sets in determination as she looks for the next car. Edmiston's face is as expressive as Wohlbach's, although not as radiant. Together they gave the 'show its best moments. Both have mastered the sur prised stares and sly smiles that bring humor to their songs. There is tremendous musical variation among the songs, played by pianists Brenda Lee Harsch and Janice Wilson, and they share a quality common to songs written for musicals you catch yourself humming them. And the lyrics daily collegian Gewandhaus: a paramount performance By SCOTT H. McCLEARY Daily Collegian Staff Writer The Gewandhaus Orchestra of Liepzig won the hearts of everyone in Eisenhow er Auditorium Friday night with their charm, sparkle and infinite energy. From the first notes to the last, it was a paramount performance.. . The program, featuring Mendelssohn's "Overture to Ruyi Blas,!' SChumaim!s "SyMphony Number One. in. Wilat,Ma- - jor" and Beethoven's "Symphony Num ber Seven in A Major," was carefully planned and precisely delivered. Mendelssohn wrote the featured over ture for a play based on the book by Victor Hugo. The work was written in Mendelssohnian style, that is, it took him about a day to finish it. From the opening, * horns and strings showed exacting = intonation. It was evident from the first that the or chestra knew how to play energetically without playing loudly.' The orchestra demonstrated they could handle the fortes when the music called for it when Mendelssohn let the subdued energy of the piece break loose at the end of the work. With well-defined dynamics and an ' 1 , ~ti • , ' fi4 ' • :1 t • '• $ 1 .....ti i i • wil l t .., ..t. The Friendship Fire Company Barbershop Quar tet (above) clowns around preparing for the Festival of Harmony, April 10th and 11th at the State College High School. The Nittany Knights (right), boasting of more than 30 members, will also perform at the Festival. ar s the usually tell a story. "Fanette," sung by G. Brian Kauffman, who has a beautiful ly resonant voice, relates a love affair that ended when the girl found someone new. The story takes place at a beach, and percussionist Marcy McGuigan's brushes imitate sounds of the ocean. About one-third of the songs are love songs, which is part of the reason why a plot doesn't work; it isn't easy to connect seven separate love songs in a 90-minute show. In "Madeleine," a story about going to the picture show and eating french fries at Joe's, the performers ham it up with pantomime. In his solo "Ma thilde," Samuel Smith sings "she's come back to me" with a sincerity that pre vents us from thinking the lyrics are sappy. The '6()s flavor surfaces in songs like "The Bulls," which is also beautifully choreographed. The three men play mat adors, using their jackets as capes, while the three women .Wohlbach, Peg French, and Debra Thompson stand behind them on steps (the only horizontal element of the set), mocking adoration of the men. "On Sundays, the bulls get so bored when they are asked to suffer for us . . . to die for us," the men sing while twirling their capes. At the end, the men imitate the final sword-thrusts to the bull. They cry out names of war-ravaged cities, ending with "Saigon!" as, their arms move from a sword-grip' to a rifle-grip position. Their own words stun them, and they stare in horror at their "rifles." Other songs reflect Brel's hatred of the Vietnam situation lyrics like "Sons of the thief, sons of the saint . . . all are children like your own . . . some went to war and never came home." almost mechanical accuracy, especially in the staccato paSsages, the orchestra played the piece cleanly and with very little apparent effort. Schumann removed the working title ("Spring Symphony") from his first symphony, but the images of the end of winter and the beginning of spring re main. 'the first 'thing 4 k'zioticeably different alitiut the Schumann work was the ap pearance of the woodwinds, and they were well worth the wait. The flowing, lyrical style of the oboe soared over the masterful building of the entire orchestra in the first movement. The horns seemed a little weak here, but they still lent the right colors to the movement. Thp second movement, Larghetto, originally titled "Evening," brought to mind warming spring evenings. Graceful strings and instrumentation to evoke the emotions dissapated the last lingering chill of winter. The most interesting instrumentation of the evening occurred in this work when the oboe and horn provided a , graceful passage repeated several times throughout the movement. ` .. \ Everything would have been fine with out the artificiality imposed by the at tempt to make this a play instead of a musical revue. Some members of the audience chuckled when one performei prepared to sing a solo and the others automatically sat raptly at his feet. At the end of "Amsterdam" (a beautiful song with no place in the alleged plot), G. Brian Kauffman's voice rises frantically (is he freaking out or what?) and the other men rush forward to subdue him. They actually wrestle with him; it seems rather silly. "Carousel" is a song that works well in all respects (although it too has no place in the "plot"). The lyrics are a sort of sound-poem that, with the music, imitate calliope rhythms. One by one the per formers, while singing, form a human machine that moves to the rhythm. The last performer to join must take several running starts before he manages to break into the tight, precisely moving group. When "Carousel" ends there is a sud den blackout. Unfortunately the lights come back and there is One more song. "If We Only Have Love" has lyrics like "we'll kiss with our eyes and laugh with our tears," and all the performers join hands and look like they've accom plished something marvelous. At the end of a dramatic musical, it might have been a good scene. But nothing was learned in this show; nothing was.offered but some very good songs and nice per formances. That would have been plenty for a fine show, but writers Eric Blau and Mort Shuman (who also wrote the En glish lyrics) were not content to leave well enough alone. The Scherzo, '"Happy Playmates," was energetic with a string refrain re volving around the trio combinations. The final movement, "Height of Spring," poured forth sweeping energy. It was a delight to see so many artists playing so hard at once. The orchestra played .as if Schumann had . written 75 concerti to be played together. The 'celli and'- horns deserve special mention here. The 'celli, with the basses, provided the driving energy behind the finale, and the horns showed excellent tone control in solo passages where it was needed most. The first movement of the Beethoven highlighted the winds again. They showed good intonation, and played an important part of a marvelous exchange between the flutes and strings. The second movement, with its theme starting out in the low strings and wind ing its way up through the orchstra, evidenced the intense energy that char acterized the entire evening's perfor mance. The clarinette was also featured in this movement, providing a refreshing break from the canonic presentation of the first theme. The Trio movement of this symphony is one of Beethoven's best-known movements, with its intense rhythms underlying sweeping dynamic changes. In the middle of the movement, we see visions of the Ninth and its Fanfare of Horror with a supreme presentation of timpani, brass and strings. The finale parrmi/the rest - of , the eve ning with ir . itensity'and ease in the fast,. difficult passages leading to the end of the work. The final swirling climax, telegraphed as only Beethoven can tell us he is done and wants to move on, exploded after gracefully crescendoing. Audience reaction to the orchestra pleaded for an encore. And they played an encore a Hungarian Dance by Brahms. If anything bad could be said about the performance as a whole, it would have to be the lack of spontaneity that seemed to mark some of the performance. But in all fairness, the concert could also be seen as a group of old friends who play very well together getting together to play some very cheerful old favorites. "'} ~„ n «rs j'S, ~~ Nittany Knights preserve the old-time barbershop. By MIKE HEIMOWITZ Daily Collegian Staff From throughout the Centre Region they come, ranging in age from 20 to 80. Some are professors, many are local businessmen, a- few are retired and two are students. One is even a barber. And they all love to sing. The tie that binds them is the Nittany Knights, a local bar bershop chorus group. The Knights have entertained audiences in the area since 1962 with their old-time barbershop harmony. The group's 18th Annual Festival of Harmony is coming up April 10th and 11th at the State College Area High School. The perfor mance highlights the Knight's yearly calendar. In addition to their own performance, this year's Festival will feature two guest quartets, the Friendship Fire Company and Vaudeville, both from Alexandria, Virginia. Dave Kibler, an associate professor in the University's civil engineering department, has sung for the Knights since 1975 and acts as the group's publicist. Kibler said the Friendship Fire Company does not sing in the strict bar bershop style. "Their emphasis is on entertainment. They do a lot of antics and routines that are non-bar bershop related. They've been putting on shows up and down the East Coast since 1971," he said. The second guest group, Vaudeville, follows more of the pure barbershop style. They placed first in the international preliminary quartet contest for the mid-Atlantic district which was held last month in Philadelphia. "The emphasis (of Vaudeville) is not as much on humor as barbershop style. They don't come on with crazy outfits and emphasize jokes. They're for the barbershoppers in the audience," said Kibler. Barbershop harmony's deepest roots reach back as far as fifteenth century Europe when all barbers were musicians and barbershop walls were covered with musical instruments for use by waiting customers or the barbers themselves. This practice caught on and at the turn of the century it developed into it's present form in the United States. The Nittany Knights are one of 900 local chapters of the national Society for the Preserva- Monday, April 6 18 Lion and Encouragement of. Barbershop Singing in America, also known as SPEBSQA. The society, which, was founded in 1938, counts among its members almost 40,000 men in the United. States and Canada. SPEBSQA is tr largest all male singing organization in the world. Joe Malafarina, the Nittany Knight musical director and choral director at the Bellefonte, Middle School said, "barbershop is unique four part harmony acappella, which means there is no accompaniment, no band." The four parts of barbershop harmony te tenor, lead, baritone and bass. The lead carries the melody. The tenor sings the high harmony above the melody and the bass forms the found tion. The baritone fills in the notes between the tenor and bass. Kibler said that the Knights hale 12 or 13 basses, ten leads, five baritones and three tenors. 411 Barbershop songs usually have simple melp dies stemming from the turn of the century through the thirties and they contain standard themes, explained Malalfarina. "Love songs, (songs about) girls, nostalgia Or the 'good old days,' and (songs about) 4 dov,in south' " are common themes found in biit bershop songs, he said. Judging by the practice I attended lalt Wednesday, the show later , t this month should e quite a treat for the audience. The 33 voices 91 the Knight's active members blend together beautifully. The lack of instrumental accompani ment is not noticeable as the voice is the instA ment in this kind of music. Malafarina guides the group firmly, but in ap easygoing manner. The men are in light, joking moods and full of exuberance and enthusiasm. They move from one number to another quickly . , stopping only to make minor adjustments in a note here or a note there. It's obvious that a 144 f hard work goes into making the group's perfq mance as perfect as possible. The proceeds from the Festival of Har mony will go toward the Institute of Logopedicp headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. This national charity is dedicated to teaching those with speech and hearing handicaps. The Flavor of PENN STATE STILL HUNGRY? If you're still hungry, you'll want to enter THE WEEKLY COLLEGIAN contest. We're giving away $lOO in prizes including a $5O gift certificate to VICTORIAN MANOR Restaurant and a $5O gift certificate to IGA supermarket. And with prizes like that, you won't stay hungry for long! WE'RE NOT SELLING FOOD ... But we are selling THE WEEKLY COLLEGIAN: For the next two weeks, a series of four ads will appear in THE DAILY COLLEGIAN. 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