Tuesday, May 1, 1C34
Pago 8
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'Summer and Smoke a melodramatic joice
By f.Icrta Z. ICoppelrar.ii
In Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke there's
a line that says something like, "I think we should
wish for everything and prepare to get nothing." N
Audience members who went to the UNL theater
department's production of Williams' play with that
attitude probably weren't disappointed.
Those who went expecting more than nothing
Theater
Review
probably were disappointed.
Lack of solid characterization, slow pacing and
melodramatic direction turned a classic play by a
master playwright into a made-for-television produc
tion, v
Summer and Smoke is about Alma Winemiller, a
frustrated dixie spinster hopelessly in love with
John, the boy next door. John returns to their small .
Mississippi town after attending medical school in
Native American writer says
poetry can heal, bite conscience
Rv Jackie Fox
Laura Tohe is a Native Ampriran nop who origi
nally is from the Navajo reservation in New Mexico.
She now lives in Omaha and commutes to UNL,
where she is working on her master's degree in Eng
lish. Her work has been published in Southwestern
literary journals and in The Greenfield Review, a
New York publication which features Native Ameri
can artists. In addition, she will be featured in All
My Grandmothers Could Sing, an anthology of
Nebraska women poets to be published this summer
through Free Rein Press.
A good friend encouraged Tohe to be a writer.
: I always wanted to be an artist of some sort," she
said, "but never felt like I had confidence to write, or
. ' . -.Pests'
At Mexican Spring
Up here I can see the
glimmering lights of Gallup calling the reser
vation like a whore standing under a light post
the way they do in Juarez .
in Gallup when our sons are born they say,
. "she gave birth to a wino."
Gallup steals our children
returns them empty and crumbled
But here the hills are quietly breathing
the earth is a warm glowing blanket
holding me in her arms
It is here among the, sunset in
every plant
every rock
every shadow
every movement
everything
I relive visions of ancient stories
First Woman and First Man.
theirchildren stretched across these eternal
sandstones
a deep breath
she brings me sustenance
life
and J will live to tell my children these things.
Reprinted by permission of author.
Previously published in Songs from this
Earth on Turltes Back, 1983 Greenfield Re
view Press.
the big city. Always a hellion, John's interests center
on drinking, gambling and loose women. Alma, the
prissy and affected daughter of an Episcopal minis
ter, can find no way to win John's heart though he
comes to admire her in his own way.
Williams' characters are complex humans who
feel and think on many different emotional and
intellectual levels. Friday night, I could tell the
actors had done a lot of work on characterization,
then promptly forgot about it the minute they
walked onstage.
Carolyne Hood in her MFA role as Alma, did the
best job of expressing the complexity of her charac
ter. Out she unfortunately interpreted Alma as
prissy and bubbling, instead of as a confused woman
trying to deal with her own sexuality.
Jill Ehrisman as Alma's mother had a small part
bu.t good characterization. Ehrisman stole the show
during several scenes as she parroted Alma's pre
tentious language and gestures.
Two small parts that needed a lot of work were
the father and daughter Gonzales team. Who de
vised those cheap Mexican accents anyway? These
accents (straight out of a bad Western) were par
ticularly disruptive during the pivotal murder scene
in the second act.
' The weak characterizations may in part result
from slow pacing. The play seemed to drag: It was
obvious that director Constance Hill had decided to
pick up the pace between scenes, but the real slug
gishness was between cues. Many scenes seemed
overly dramatic, with time for heavy sighs accom
panied by fidgets, smothered yawns and program
shufflings in the audience.
. Technically, the set crew did its usual fine job of
designing and building a solid, versatile set. The only
thing that seemed out-of-place was the multico
lored backdrop.
The costuming was lovely, turn-ofthe century
and southern bellcsque. The jaunty hats sometimes
over-shadowed faces, but not distractingly so.
Two big bellyaches-,First, the pyrotechnics could
have been done differently or eliminated all together
unless the director wanted laughs from the
audience, the oohs and ahs were a little much.
My biggest gripe concerns the soap opera music
played between scenes, for entrances and exits, and
in every instance except during Alma and John's
first kiss (I was surprised at the omission), Even
ABC wouldn't have dared to treat Tennessee Willi
ams like One Life to Live.
that anything I wrote would mean anything."
Her friend told her how easy it was to get into
writing, so she signed up for a writing class at the
University of New Mexico. The class was.taught by
Rudy Anaya, a prominent Chicano writer in the
Southwest.
Tohe's first short story was one her mother had
told her. "(It was) a Navajo creation story which I
put into contemporary terms. He (Anaya) really liked
it,"and it was published. Then he and some other
minority writers took interest and encouraged me.
That's when I got started," Tohe said.
" Ccntir.d cn Pas 9
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- - v
Ghemo be'sr &war-ah&ad
84
Glenn: This school year is coming to a close, and
I, for one, am sad. It reminds me of the transitory
nature of our existence. Tom tells me that his
mother said she would be pleased if we did just
one substantive column this semester. Well, here
it is, Mrs. Mockkr. The column filled with sub
stance that, you and all our adoring fans have
been waiting for.
Tom: What column is that, Glenn? ,
Glenn: This one. Rather than wind up with
commentary on the past, Tom and I are going to
make predictions on the future.. We will see with
lorn .Mc elder Cz
Glenn Stuvn
our ail-seeing eyes what lies ahead in the nebu
lous reaches of time. 1
Tom: You sure are long-winded, Glenn.
Glenn: Brevity isn't always the soul of wit.
Tom: I thought you were going to write about
predictions, not assault my character. You pig.
Glenn: Right, old sport. Predictions. I predict
that Ronald Reagan will be voted out of office,
and his beautiful wife Nancy will be so-disgusted
with him that she will leave him and marry an
Arab oil sheik. ' - "'. ' i
Tom: That's a stupid prediction.
Glenn: All right, then. I predict Ronald Reagan
will be voted into office and will launch a ther
monuclear war, just for kicks.
Tom: I predict that no one will vote this time.
Everyone will fcrgst to.
Glenn: Well, now that's just a little hard for me
to believe I mean, there are some 230 million
people in this great land of ours somebody's got
to.
Tom: Not necessarily.
Glenn: Twirp.
Tom: I predict that Hegelian dialecticism will
produce a new dance craze.
Glenn: I predict that Bob Kerrey will marry
Catherine Deneuve, and that a jealous Debra
Winger will try to publicly disrupt the wedding.
Tom: I predict that Bob Kerrey will attempt to
get the Falstaff brewery put under public owner
ship and control. This, of course, would once
again thrust Bob Kerrey into the limelrht be
cause it would be the first attempt of its kind
Glenn: Yes, wouldn't that be wonderful
government-subsidized beer just pennies a
glass Glass after glass after golden, bubbling
delicious glass of Falstaff beer.....
Tom: But remember, these are merely predic
tions they haven't happened yet.
Glenn: Debra Winger will agree to star in
another Lincoln movie, Attack of the Amazon
Woman, The movie will be directed by James L
Brooks, and will be even more successful both
critically and popularly than Terms of Endear-
I . - .. . Ccatiased on Pss S