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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 18, 1980)
monday, february 18, 1980 page 16 daily nebraskan , m TurMcmfmimg; fwitmy, reutitg blurred. By Debra L. Miller The production of La Turista which opened at the new Studio 12 Thursday night, though not without redeeming qualities, constituted a confusing and in. complete theater experience for most of the audience. , La Turista, one of Pulitzer Prize -winning playwright Sa'm Shepard's first efforts, deals with the vicissitudes of Kent and Salem, a young American couple traveling in Mexico. At the top of the play , both are suffering from severe sunburns, and Kent from "la turista -the tourist s cornplamt. Under the duress of his illness, Kent begins to slip into a dream-like fantasy world which exists for most of the play. The delineation between, fantasy and reality becomes unclear and often bewild ering to the audience, perhaps intentionally so. ' ' ;ultures, sex roles and life as perceived by the movies. These elements are imaginative ly conceived and staged and are generally well-executed by the cast. fegfe FGUCGVJ Playwright Shepard was one of the first "violent" American playwrights to emerge from the late 60s, probing American culture and myths for the , cruelty - and violence they believed lay at the core. La Turista reflects these concerns, although in his later plays Shepard was to handle these themes with more assurance and far greater effect. Shock value In this type of play, as in Art3ud's "theater of cruelty," much of the effect hinges on the shock value of the action, as when the blood of a sacrificed chicken is trickled gruesomely on Kent as part of a primitive cure. The uncertainty and confusion of an audience kept off balance can be part of the intention, a comment on modern man's inability to cope. But too often in La Turista the absurdity of the action becomes incoherent, die relevance of which is lost as the audience becomes alienated by rather than involved in the play. '. ' Director Donald R. Renaud's inter pretation of ,the play, relies heavily on American stereotypical ideas of ethnic But although adding to the humor and zest of the play, their purpose often seemed to be an external choice to liven a weak or obscure scene rather than relating in any particular way to the script. Commitment The cast is to be commended for its determined commitment to the frequently bizarre actions of the play. The swiftly v changing roles and moods of the dream characters called for finely honed timing and versatility on the parts of the actors, and much of the time they succeeded admirably. t One of the most enjoyable interludes was a fine ; ensemble scene a la Harold " Pinter. At times, though, the portrayal of stereotypical characters called forth gimmicks and schtick from the actors that simply did not work. L ; v ; , - Scene designer Ed Stauffer has done an excellent job of working within the limited space of. the Studio 12 facility. With the minimal scenery possible in a theater in the round.he has designed a colorful, workable space for the actors. The costumes by CM. Zuby also aid in evoking the necessary mood, but remain simple enough to allow the characters' change of roles. Lighting suffers The lighting by Barbara McDonnell, a theater arts undergraduate, is interesting but suffers from conceptual indecisiveness. Initially marked by stark changes between the real and dream segments of the play.it deteriorates into intermittent and some what bewildering effects that aid in the confusion rather than the enlightenment of the audience. Whereas the director might have used the lighting as an effective tool to develop and emphasize, it ends up serving largely as illumination of the stage. The problems of La Turista as a pro duction are for the most part inherent in the script. Avant-garde plays are often confusing to an audience not used to them. But in the best of the genre, a meaning emerges out of the chaos; in La Turista this never happens. While the audience may savor the many humorous and absorbing moments of this production, they remain, ultimately, confused. 0 tl , Photo by Colin Hackley Photography by David Plowden is currently on display at Architectural Hall as a part of the "Bridges-the Span of North America" exhibit. Bridges displayed at UNL A photography exhibit of five major types of bridges in the United States is on display at Architectural Hall until March 7. The exhibition, "Bridges-The Spans of North America," is free. It was developed by the Smithsonian Institution Travelling Exhibition Service and is based on a book of photographs by David Plowden. James Griffin, assistant professor in the Architecture College said the college has been using the display service for more than two years. He said the cost of the exhibit, which is an exhibition fee and the cost of shipping it to its next display site, would be from $300 to $700 depending on where the display goes. The exhibition consists of Plowden's black and white photographs of stone, wood, iron, steel and concrete bridges and archival documents from the Smithsonian. The exhibit attempts to mix the engineering aspects of the bridges with the aesthetic value of the photographs and the bridges themselves. Mystical lard setting for fear, magic in love story By Scott Kleager Ursula K. Le Guin has written a new fantasy called The Beginning Place, which is a refreshing combination of some old themes. Consistent with the genre, the work employs symbols that categorize it as fantasy. Here the evil is white and cold, just as the White Witch is white and cold irr C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. The book is outstanding in mixing this classicism with a modem day, boy-meets-girl love story. In the end the result is believable and fantastic. But The Beginning Place docs more than try to mix realism and magic. It does, for example, focus and develop a "heroic quest". In fact, the entire novel is a two-pronged heroic quest. Land of twilight Irena and Hugh are the main characters, struggling with their families in the real world. Both somehow find a land of perpetual twilight, each separately exploring this land, where time is 24 times faster than reality. Both travel there as an escape from their mothers (though both are in the 20s).. They are seeking some thing that neither can name, so each trip to the "land of twilight" becomes a mysterious search. The gateway to this land is a few miles from the city where they both live, in a wooded area where they meet by coincidence. This is the start of a second quest that leads deep within the mystical land and to an ultimate confrontation with fear and evil beyond. This new quest and the one preceding it represent the psychological maturation of Irena and Hugh. This process forms the essence of The Beginning Place. Well done The book is well done and is commendable for the author's use of classical symbols characteristic of the genre. Le Guin has fun with the changes in time in the world of twilight. She gives the rivers In the land magical water; she draws the sky with no sun, the air with ho sounds. She explains that the people of the land have a King, Master and a Lord, and dress like people in the 14th century. The book is both a fairy tale and an everyday story; magical and real. To give an example of stylistic tendencies, the fantasy seems nearly as heavy as Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. Within the twilight land, is a river that almost looks familiar: "He. . .stood up, and went back down the path to the threshold and into the twilight, to the clear water where, at last, he knelt and drank. The water washed his face and his hands, washed away ' shame and fear. 'This is my home,' he said to the earth and rocks and trees, and with his hps almost on the water, whispered, 4I am you. I am you.'" Philosophical Whether this hurts the work is up to the reader. One cant avoid thinking though, that Le Guin is a superb writer. She works philosophy into the narrative in a wonderful, effortless way and is an artful writer with high standards. For example, concerning the distortion of time, she writes that Hugh ; "had never experienced time before. He rjad let the clocks do it for him. Clocks were what kept things gotog, there on the other side, business hours, traffic lights, plane schedules, lovers meetings, summit meetings world wars, there was no carrying on without clocks; all the same, clock time had about the same relation to unclock time as a two-by-four or a box of toothpicks has to a fir tree."
