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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 1971)
5 ! ?f!WL L,f WITH MAX SHULMAN ESP Revisited A few weeks ago I did a column on extra-sensory perception (or ESP, as it is called by its many friends and relatives). The amount of mail I received from you about this column, dear readers, was so heavy that I find myself with a heart full of gratitude. (I also find myself with a ruptured postman.) I would of course like to write each one of you personally, but that is obviously not possible, so I will try to answer some of your questions in today's column. QUESTION: Last night I tried an ESP experiment with my boy friend, Precog Nissen. He sat in one room and wrote a list of numbers. I sal in another room and tried to guess what numbers he was writing. Out of 25 tries I guessed wrong IS times. I feel icky and worthless and have decided to kill myself. What future can a person have without ESP? ANSWER: You must not despair. Lots of people without EST manage to live useful and productive lives. For example, there was a coed at Duke a few years ago, M aud Gonder by name, who tried gue? ing numbers, just as you did. In fact, she tried it every single day fcr the entire four years she spent at Duke, and all she ever got was wronj numbers. But it didn't hurt her one bit. Miss Gonder today is gain fully employed as a telephone operator in Durham, North Carolina. QUESTION: This has nothing to do with ESP, but maybe you can teU me anyhow. What can you do for dry hair? ANSWER : Wear a wet hat. QUESTION: My ESP tells me I was put on earth to do some kind of important job, but I don't know what it is. So far Jte had hundreds of jobs and I still haven't found the right one. How will I know when J do? ANSWER: YouU know, don't worry. Take, for example, the fa mous case of Hans Helmut Steppenwolf. He too knew he was born for some exalted task, but what? First he worked in Kansas gleaning beans but that wasn't it, so he got a job with a logging firm in Montana. Here the erstwhile bean-gleaner worked as a stump-thumper. But that wasn't it either, so he moved to North Dakota where he tended the furnace in a granary (wheat-heater). Then he moved to Omaha and got a job admitting cattle to the stockyards (meat-greeter). Then he went to New Orleans and worked for a chiropodist (feet-treater). Then to Minnesota where he cut up frozen lakes (ice-slicer). Then to Las Vegas where be determined odds at a crap table (diee-pricer). Then to Germany where he pasted camera lenses together (Zeiss-splicer ). Still Han Helmut hadn't found it. Back to America he moved and got a job in Milwaukee at the Miller High Life brewery, inspecting the ingredients that go into Miller High Life Beer and rejecting those which were not perfect (malt-faulter). And so finally, at long last, fulfillment came to Hans Helmut. For this was his mission, bis lofty purpose on earth to make sure that you and I and every other life-loving, health-oriented, flavor-directed American should rest secure in the knowledge that the next can or bottle of Miller High Life which passes our discriminating lips will be just as free of fleck and flaw as the last can or bottle of Miller High Life which passed our discriminating lips; that can after can, bottle after bottle, keg after keg, Miller High Life will remain ever amber, ever ambrosial, ever honest, sincere, true, good, beautiful, decent, kindly and relevant. And so, dear friends, to that small but shining list of human bene factorsmen like E. Pluribus Ewbank, for instance, who invented the opposable thumb without which millions of Castanet players would be unemployed; women like Rosa L. Sigafoos, for instance, who invented the bio-degradable roommate let us humbly and gratefully add the name of Hans Helmut Steppenwolf. Right on, watchful malt-faulter! Surely the story of Hans Helmut has left a lump in your throat. We, the brewers of Miller High Life and sponsors of this column, know a pleasant way to remove said lump. It comes in earn, bottles and kegs. Review by ROLAND L. REED Director John Wilson has pulled together a group of charming young actors and talented designers, all of whom give loving care to the Lincoln Community Playhouse production of Under The Yum-Yum Tree. The tempo is quick, the lines are clearly articulated, the tired gags are generally well timed. . Scott Root, as Dave Manning, is smooth as silicone as he swoops around, taking command of the stage and the play. The visual effects are handsomely conceived and executed. In fact, this is the most attractive technical work at the Playhouse this season. THIS EVIDENCE of artistic sensitivity is inconsistant with the choice of such a play foT public performance. Every hint of humanity and intimacy created by the warm presence of the players is obliterated by the script's sly innuendo incredible predictability. There is a narrative formula which has earned, or rather, "brought in" more cash to authors' coffers than any other in the past few decades. It is hard to say whether the formula first struck crude oil in the dime novel industry, the Hollywood expose magazines, the true confessions slicks or the Broadway stage. This formula has remained a staple of these industires of two reasons. Very little refining is needed. And regardless of the pollution of human sensibilities created by these products, the American public continues to consume them at a fantastic rate. THE FORMULA: -Any situation involving three or more humans, at least one of them a member of a sex opposite to the other two or more. -Words and&or behavior suggesting illicit sexual arrangements. ("Suggesting" or in "suggestive" is the key here for "fulfillment" would change the whole genre and greatly reduce its income producing potential.) -Resolution. Resolutions can be quite varied. I E., thev didnt. Not actually (or) we don't know if they did not, but if they did (swift elbow to the ribs) WOW! The latter, the sophisticated variant, is employed by Roman in Under The Yum-Yum Tree. THIS PLAY used the two fellows and two gals gambit. A young lawyer (Scott Root) and a cute student (Mary Frey) are the youth representatives. A rich, lecher-landlord (Wally Richardson) and a divorcee, of course, (Shelley Edison) provide identity objects for the over-thirties. Predictably, the kids are in love. So are the o-t's as it happens (although they deny it until the final scene of course). Yes, the youngsters are unsure about pre-marital sex. (Certainly their appetites are healthy and normal). The o-t guy tries for the young chick, of course (They're all "'normal," thank God). The o-t gal is not interested in the young fellow in this variation. Predictably, the opening night audience frequently broke the silence with laughter and applause. The majority. if J :- -t "xr v . Mr i -f "VAX" Formula for 'Yum-Yum' is Iw-hum Hogan (Wally Richardson) tries to convince Dave Manning (Scott Root) that he really is a well-meaning landlord in Lincoln Community Playhouse's production of Under the Yum-Yum Tree. 1 Photo by Dan Lsdely Calder-Marshall excels in 'Wuthering Heights' Review by BILL WALLIS The critical criteria for inter-media studies are as of yet without refinement and therefore a widely-known critical terminology, so this review will concern itself primarily with evaluating a good motion picture which (it seems to this reviewer) has little to do with the art of bmiiy Bronte's great novel, Wuthering Heights. The film's historic value is that it is filmed in the locale in and about which the storv was written. The result of this is a beautifully toneti and integrated film picture, and a dsstinct flavor of authenticity which is inescapably attractive. The film's aesthetic value in its relation to the original story is minimal. This will be obvious to anv viewer. It is a youth-oriented play with a hopelessly romanticized ending, celluloid art tastefully done, which .draws two major characters from a novel, sets them in the environment of the novel's birth and proceeds to condense the plot (and story) of the two characters' passionate involvement into two hours of vivid and abrupt entertainment) Anna Calder-Marshall is surpassingly excellent as Cathy. Her cloaked sexuality smolders, she struggles with half-thwarted but superb conviction. Timothy Dalton as Heathcliff, her half-brother and lover, is all method. But the static portrayal is not all his fault, the camera work which surrounds him is sometimes boringly bad. Caider-Marhsall's Cathy, on the other hand, is a lively, instinctual imp, with the depth and life of human will itself. Together the two manage to capture much of the passion of the love which drives Bronte's characters to their cruel (and brutal) end. Director Robert Fuest has a good camera eye but the characters he directs before the viewer's eyes are tor the most part unmotivated; situations are unnaturally tense for this reason, the entire story seems unsatisfactorily told for this reason. Dalton is often frozen in five to fifteen second near still shots which are not in any way justified by his face with its sneering curled lip or panting attitude. The Yorkshire landscape gleams malignantly throughout the show-it does take slightly more than this to motivate a cast of characters, however. Cathy is real, therefore her motivation rings true; that is the power of her performance. The imaginative exercise that the novel form allows the reader to cultivate must have an equivalent constituent in the cinematic art forms. I suggest that in the case of Wuthertng Heights, it is to be found in the depth and appeal of characterization. Only Cathy delivers. PAGE 6 THE DAILY NEBRASKAN THURSDAY, MARCH 18, 1971
