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Viewers behold the hard at-Kansas City gallery
By Martha Murdock
Not marble nor the gilded monuments
of princes shall outlive this powerful rime. . .
Through the works of William Shakespeare, one can re
capture the flavor of Elizabethan and Jacobean England.
Although he wrote of many periods in history, the bard's
works reflect bits and pieces of his own England that he
knew so well.
And yet, this foothold in the past does not diminish
Shakespeare's relevance in our own age. As his contem
porary, Ben Jonson, wrote, "he was not of an age, but for
all time!"
These two aspects of Shakespeare's work make up the
central theme of an exhibition, "Shakespeare: The Globe
and the World," on display through May 9 at the William
Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art in Kansas City, Mo.
19-month tour
The exhibition is taken from the collection of the
Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., known
as the finest Shakespeare collection in the world. It is on a
19-month tour around the country, making stops at five
major art institutions. Kansas City is the second stop on
the tour.
At the Nelson gallery, the exhibit is housed in a maze
of small galleries. In the center of the first room stands a
bust of the poet. The walls are covered with his words.
On an electronic scoreboard appear facts about Shake
speare, his works, and the exhibit. Voices speak oft-quoted
lines in varying accents and inflections, ranging from
dramatic delivery of the stage to the remarks of everyday
speakers.
The viewer enters a series of rooms filled with colorful
displays illustrating the life and times of Shakespeare.
Three-hundred-year-old books describe the countryside,
amusements and activities of 16th century Stratford-upon-Avon.
Objects and papers belonging to the rulers of
England illustrate political and court life. Maps from the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries show the explosion
of exploration and trade that England experienced.
Well-preserved copies of the first editions of Shake
speare's works as well as those of his famous contempor
aries, Ben Jonson and Christopher Marlowe, display the
fine work of early printers.
Included in the exhibit are a copy of Queen Elizabeth
'Serial' is funny despite moralism
By Jennifer Bauman
Marin County, Calif., has one of the highest average in
comes per capita in the country. Ironically, it also tops the
list for divorce rates. Such a combination makes it a haven
for sociologists and satirists.
People with too much money and leisure time are en
joyable targets, especially for those who feel the pinch of
too little money and not. enough leisure time. Serial,
directed by Bill Persky, is set in this Marin County milieu
of spoiled people looking for novelty and freshness in
their lives.
Serial is drawn from Cyra McFadden's 1976 novel,
The Serial, A Year in the Life of Marin County, an epi
sodic, tongue-in-cheek treatment of the lifestyle of these
affluent people.
In some ways the screenplay of the film captures the
tone of McFadden's novel; writers Rich Eustis and
Michael Elias take much of their dialogue directly from it.
But Eustis and Elias chose to add a moralizing tone to
their screenplay that is neither appropriate nor enjoyable.
By creating deliberately flat characters and by using
short episodes that reflect the people's fast changes from
one fad to another, McFadden paints a neat surface
picture of this superficial culture. Wisely, McFadden
chooses not to delve deeply into the personalities of her
Marin County society; the implication is that the sur
faces that these folks carefully nurture is just about all
there is to them. McFadden is indiscriminate in choosing
her targets, but she lampoons in the novel good-naturedly.
Continued on Page 1 1
I's personal Bible, two manuscripts that were once in
Shakespeare's own hands, and young Henry VIH's copy of
Cicero in which he wrote "Thys is myne, Prince Henry."
First printed play
The world's only surviving copy of the first Shake
spearean play printed and the most famous volume of the
1623 First Folio, containing 36 of the bard's plays, are in
the show.
A small stage protrudes into the center of one room,
the walls of which are painted with the forms of an Eliza
bethan audience. The theater atmosphere created in this
room and the 16th century music resounding in several
of the galleries brings the former age to life.
The effect of the displays is powerful. As I examined
one case of artifacts, an old woman next to me gripped
my arm. She said, "My dear, when you grow up, you must
go to Britain. It may be difficult at your age, but when
you are as old as I am and you reach out and touch an
11th century chapel, or go to the Roman Coliseum, or
walk on Hadrian's wall, it all doesn't seem so long ago."
As she finished speaking, tears filled her eyes.
The latter part of the show focuses on Shakespeare's
influence through the years. Memorabilia from past the
atrical productions, programs and production posters
from all over the world, and popular items such as Shake
speare t-shirts fill the galleries.
Preserved costumes
In a glass case is preserved a costume worn in a produc
tion of Richard III by American actor Edwin Booth,
brother of President Lincoln's assassin.
The last three galleries are devoted to film clips from
productions of Hamlet, Henry V, A Midsummer Night's
Dream, ihdius Caesar, Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.
Well-known actors such as Laurence Olivier, Orson Welles,
James Mason, Leslie Howard, James Cagney and Mickey
Rooney appear in the various versions.
Three costumes used in the recently produced BBC
Shakespeare series are on display. What on television
appear to be rich garments ornamented with gold and
jewels are actually plain costumes decorated with painted,
plastic trimmings.
The exhibition is a thorough look at the world of
Shakespeare, past and present. Surely no one can come
away from the show without feeling more intimate with
the man, his times and his works. '
Shakespeare is such an intregal part of our lives that
indeed , for his works, "all the world 's a stage ."
Fantasy, reality are interwoven inZevon release
By Kim Wilt
Entertainment Editor
i
Whatever bad luck streak Warren Zevon
has been riding out seems, to have ended
with the release of his newest album, Bad
Luck Streak In Dancing School, coming
two years after his acclaimed Excitable
Boy:
FGUESUJ
Desperado," in which a zoo-imprisoned ape
steals the narrator's car keys, locks him up
in the cage and sets off to make a new life
for himself in the California sunshine.
The dry lines, "Most of all, I'm sorry if
I made you blue. I'm -betting the gorilla
will, too" are an excellent use of under
stated humor.
Dark humor depresses
'Play It All Night Long," its rural
counterpart, is bleak and relentlessly de-
pressing-and filled with dark, dark humor
throughout. The harsh words, set to a fast,
determined beat, make a ludicrous contrast
and the listener is in the immediate, un
comfortable position of laughing at lines
that really aren't funny at all.
Bruce Springsteen co-wrote "Jeannie
Needs A Shooter," and his (lark-night, on-the-edge
influence is evident in lines lik'e
"And the anger and the yearning, like fever
in my veinsSet the fire burning," whereas
Zevon comes on strong in the chorus (the
Zevon, who spent the interim drinking,
insulting audiences and generally creating
chaos to the point that his band nicknamed
him "F. Scott Fitzevon" has sworn off the
bottle for good, and has created a tightly
woven offering filled with the same themes
as' Excitable Boy, toned down only
slightly.
Indeed, the two albums are so themat
ically similar that one could match them
song for song "Empty-handed Heart" is
much like "Accidentally like A Martyr,"
"Jungle Work" has the same mercenary,
do-or-die attitude as "Roland the Headless
Thompson Gunner," and 'Gorilla, You're
a Desperado' treads on the same edges of
fantasyreality as Werewolves of
London."
Guns are a fascination
Zevon displays the same fascination for
guns and insanity that marked Excitable
Boy to the extend of putting a gun on the
back cover, on top of the ballet shoes-just
as he served a gun as. the main course oh a
plate of food on the sleeve picture of
Excitable Boy. x
What makes this palatable is Zevon's
ability to deal, out black humor and love
songs with a generous hand, alternating the
ace of spades with the joker and the jack
of hearts. For a twisted look at urban life,
look no further than 'Gorilla, You're a
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Album photo courtesy of ElektraAsylum Records
Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School is the latest release from Warren Zevon.
song's title) and "Her father was a lawman-he
swore he'd shoot me deadCause
he knew I wanted Jeannie and I'd have her
like I said."
Zevon had some impressive help on this
album, as he did on Excitable floy-which
featured Jackson Brown, Linda Ronstadt,
and Karla BonofT among others. Brown,
Ronstadt, Springsteen, and Joe Walsh are
all on Bad Luck, as is Waddy Wachtel, an
excellent guitarist who has played with
Zevon before, as well as on some of
Ronstadt's albums. Ronstadt provides a
lilting descant on "Empty-Handed Heart,"
singing a longing verse of love lost and
remembered, while Zevon repeats, 'Then
I've thrown down diamonds in the sand."
Some of the songs miss being good, and
settle for mediocrity, losing that edge that
Zevon brings to most of his work. "Bed of
Coals" is a nice try, again with good
Ronstadt harmonies, but at 5 minutes, it's
just too long, and too repetitive.
Storyteller
The same can be said for "Jungle
Work," which is too guns-blood-and-macho
to be more than an interesting slice 6f life.
"Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner"
glorified the same idea, but less blatantly,
and with a better story line.
Zevon is one of the best storytellers to
come down the road in some time, and late
at night, the tales he tells can chill, shock,
and amuse. At his best, he is the outlaw by
the fire at the end of a long day, the dusty
hard -rider with amazing things to describe.
He displays a cool disdain for modern
restricted life, singing "Well, they tried so
hard to hold himHeaven knows how hard
they triedBut he's made up his mindHe's
the restless kind," in "Wild Age."
One gets the feeling that Zevon would
welcome the chance to hand his keys to
that gorilla in the L.A. Zoo, and ride out
into the night, across the border, and out
of the country, sending back an album
every so often from the road.
