friday, September 26, 1980
page 10
daily nebraskan
Xanadu's entertainment ingredients lack cohesion
In Xanadu did Kubla khan
A stately pleasure dome cecree
-Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1797)
Though Xanadu would seem to
be aimed at an adolescent audience, a
good deal of care has been taken to
widen its appeal to as many age groups as
possible.
While Olivia Newton-John and the
Electric Light Orchestra are aimed at
younger viewers, Gene Kelly and the big
band sound were chosen to appeal to pre
Crcase sensibilities. The idea of "the 40's
meet the 80V is nearly beaten in the
ground in the film.
Perhaps in the back of someones
mind was the notion of a movie that mom
and dad and all the kids could all see to
gether, share each other's music, and leave
the theatre all happy about life.
But like so many things that try to
please everyone, Xanadu may not please
many at all.
It may be this lack of focus that makes
Xanadu a failure, too many misdirected
energies and nor coherence. The film has
ain ingredients of good entertainment:
stars, lavish sets and costumes, popular
music, a basis in time-honored mythic
tradition and an old-fashioned love story.
But for all that, Xanadu was initially a
Warner Brothers project. Then it was taken
over by Universal, the studio reponsible
for its slick advertising campaign. It could
be a lot of what ails Xanadu is just too
much hype.
The people working in production,
chorography, and many other aspects
of the film are television veterans with
little background in cinema proper. To
a pretty voice, but there is no depth be
hind those big eyTes. How could she have
inspired artists throughout the ages?
Worse yet, Newton John is dressed up
in black leather and tiger skin for several
production scenes. She doesn't have a
genuinely raunchy bone in her body-there
delightful; it's just
do more of it.
too bad he doesn't
Photo courtesy of Universal City Sudios
Michael Beck, Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton-John performing in "Xanadu."
build audiences' expectations too high
may have been an injustice to such inex
perienced filmmakers.
Olivia Newton-John (as Kira the
muse), though she hasn't the disadvantage
of being cast as a 30-year-old high school
student as she was in Grease, doesn't seem
to be the stuff muses are made of.
She is generally likeable and she has
seems to be some kind of misunderstanding
about her screen image.
Gene Kelly's forte is his dancing
rather than his dramatic performances.
Since the former is cut to a minimum,
in Xanadu, we are left with long gaps
for Kelly to kill by crinkling up his eyes
and grinning. When he does dance, it is
Michael Beck was lauded for his work
in The Warriors and TV Holocaust mini
series, but Xanadu, doesn't give him the
opportunity to show whether he can do as
well with musical comedy as with drama.
Xanadu is full of special effects that are
intended to compliment ELCs music, and
they are lively and colorful, but not numer
ous. Once the same few devices lose their
ability to surprise, they lose much of their
appeal. Audiences expecting a great visual
experience to match ELO will be disap
pointed. There is one high-quality animated
sequence which is the work of ex-Disney
people who have set business on their
own. It is beautiful even though the in
fluences of Sleeping Beauty and Fantasia
are a little too apparent. Now that good
animation has become astronomically ex
pensive, such meticulous and well-drawn
sequences are rare. Xanadu's production
-numbers are so huge and extravagant that
most of the details are lost. There is one
costume change after another until watch
ing what the stars will be wearing becomes
more interesting than the performances.
The love story between the muse and
the mortal man (Newton-John and Beck)
and the partnership of the retired music
ian and the young artist (Kelly and Beck)
in building Xanadu are also subjugated
to this fashion-show flavor.
The bulk of Xanadu energy has been
channelled into choosing sets and costumes
and into casting a couple of well-known
names in major roles without regard for
whether these particular individuals are suit
ed for the parts.
This big, empty, expensive film brings
to mind the Xanadu of Citizen Kane, a
mansion tilled with objects d'art and lonely
people who would be better off elsewhere.
Actor makes political statement with characters
By Doreen Charles
Charles Pace, Centennial's Artist-in-Residence, had a
chance to not only display his "solo art" form technique,
but also to deliver a message to the audience in his Wed
nesday night portrayal of Frederick Douglass.
i choose to portray characters that appeal to me as
characters. They may say something 1 agree with and want
to say to the audience," Pace said.
Frederick Douglass, an 18th century slave who rose
to become an internationally known orator in the
abolitionist movement, exhibited many striking parallels
to modern day figures such as Malcolm X, Pace said.
There are some strong similarities between the philosophies
of Malcolm X and Frederick Douglass, Pace said.
"They both were advocating the liberation of black
people. They first went through a liberation of self, then
of black people, then took an international view and went
to the liberation of all oppressed people," he said.
Responses vary
Audience responses to Pace's performances vary be
cause of unfamiliarity with the art form and inability to
identify with the content, he said.
"The most receptive audiences tend to be elderly black
people in the South," Pace said. "Whites can't emotional
ly identify with a character like Frederick Douglass. They
become defensive."
Pace has also performed before inmates at the peni
tentiary and said that because of the depth of their ex
periences they could relate better to his performance.
'Prison audiences are so much more advanced than
college audiences," he said.
In Pace's performance of Malcolm X, which is
compiled ofexerpts of speeches and narratives from his
autobiography, the audience plays a direct role, serving
as the audience which Malcolm had spoken.
When doing a character such as Malcolm X or Fred
erick Douglass, Pace said he sometimes tells white
audiences to "pretend they are black" in order to view
the play with more objectivity.
Whites feel threatened
"Some whites feel threatened by a character like
Malcolm. Some blacks may feel threatened, because of
the image of him that has been projected," he said.
In portraying these characters, Pace said he can make
a political statement without being personally involved.
"1 speak politically through my characters. My life is
not political at all in terms of being an activist," he said.
In addition to Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X,
Pace also portrays ISth century English King Richard III.
In his other show, entitled "Theater in Black" he portrays
8 or 9 different characters.
Pace's technique, although alien to many audiences,
has been used by other performers. Actor Billy Dee
Williams does a one man show on Martin Luther King
entitled "I Have a Dream," and actor James Earl Jones
does a performance on Paul Robeson.
Pace said he plans to take a tour of African countries
and establish formal links with African artists in order
to develop an international theater of the black world.
Tell Africa about America
"I intend to find out as much as possible about Africa
and tell them as much as possible about black America,"
he said.
Pace said he also plans to set up a school in order to
teach his solo art form and invite black people from all
over the world to be students. He said he intends to make
records and films of his solo performances and "develop
a black cultural and artistic community to pursue topics
and projects for the benefit of black people on a world
wide basis."
"Culture is the most significant aspect of a people.
It's their politics, their religion, their economics-it's
the sum total of all that they are," he said. "Blacks
are culturally deprived as far as their knowledge of each
other."
Pace will be performing Oct. 1 at 8:00 pm. in the
Union Ballroom. The show will consist of his "Theater
in Black" performance, foDowed by a portrayal of
Malcolm X, and ending with a seminar on the creative
process and the creation of the one person show. On
Oct. 11 and 12 he will do a performance of Richard III
in Sheldon Art Gallery.
What to do blues hit on Friday
The year was 1980 and Chuck and Lynn were oh-so
much in love. They knew it was love because he had let
her drive his Trans Am twice in the same week, once when .
he wasn't even in the passenger seat. And Lynn, why,
Lynn had given up her season football ticket on the 45
yard line, just behind the band, to sit with Chuck way
down in the South end zone. What greater testament
to Love, what more powerful statement of Devotion
could a scarlet-cheeked and cream-haired Cornhusker
girl make?
LT
It was Friday night, so of course Chuck and Lynn
were going to go out, somewhere. But where to find a
suitable somewhere?
We could go to the bars," said Chuck over the sound
of the radio.
-We always go to the bars," protested Lynn, though
not very vehemently. "We've been to the bars four nights
this week."
"That leaves three nights that we didn't go," countered
Chuck. "We deserve a couple of beers to celebrate our
show of will power over those three nights."
The week is only five days long so far," said Lynn,
trying to make her point without starting an argument.
"And one of those days the bars weren't open. That
makes us four out of four."
"Hate to break an average like that" said Chuck,
snaking an arm around her waist.
"There's going to be lines at the bars," she said,
pleading just a little. "I hate those lines."
..u"0kay: S wc don,t So to barC conceded Chuck,
we can t just stay home. I mean, it's Friday night!"
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