friday, October 23, 1981
daily nebraskan
page 13
Spanish farce translated for modern audiences
By Chuck Lieurance
In many circles Don Pedro Calderon de la Barca is con
sidered the Shakespeare of Spain's Golden Age. This
renaissance period in the arts produced such figures as El
Greco, Cervantes and Lope De Vega also. Calderon is
probably the best of Spain's dramatists and the least
accessible to modern audiences.
Modern audiences were given a surprising entrance into
his work by the UNL theater company when, for the first
time in the United States, they produced a David M.
Gitlitz translation of the farce, Beware of Still Waters.
Castro on Love Boat
for peaceful episode
(The scene: The Love Boat. As the saccharin steamship
cruises the Pacific coast, the stage seems to be set for ano
ther 60 minutes of tropical schmaltz. But all is not well
aboard the ship. Captain Merrill Steubing calls a meeting
in his quarters.)
"Ladies and gentlemen," he says, with the stiffness and
dignity that have made him seem so out of place all these
years on the pleasure boat. "As you know, we have been
waltzing on the waves out here in the Pacific for quite
some time, and we've had a lot of fun."
The members of the crew had heard the captain start
lectures this way before, but there was a certain amount
of apprehensive whispering among them.
"As you know, we opened the fall season with a special
cruise that took us through the Panama Canal into the
pitf dark
Carriobean.'
"Yeah, it was great," interjects Isaac, the bartender.
"Carol Charming, Betty White, Lola calana ... a big name
cast like that probably drew in some great ratings. 1 can
hardly wait to get back to shore to see how we did with
the critics."
"It's not the critics I'm worried about," says the cap
tain. "See, things aren't the same in the Carribbean as they
are in the Pacific. The Carribbean has Cuba in it; a nation
that is not on the friendliest of terms with our own. On
our cruise through the Carribbean, the Love Boat veered
somewhat off course, accidentally entering the territorial
waters of Cuba. Cuban patrol boats relayed the informa
tion to shore, and it soon came to the attention of Fidel
Castro. Well, to be as brief as possible, let me just say that
clue to our actions Cuba has declared war on the United
States."
"Gosh, that's too bad," says Julie, our cruise director,
in monumental understatement.
"What we do, see, is give Fidel Castro an all-expense-paid
cruise on the Love Boat," says the captain. "He will
be hesitant at first, but we will tell him that Reggid Jack
son is going to be on the cruise. Fidel loves the New York
Yankees."
"Then we kill him and win the war!" says Gopher ex
citedly. "This is not The War Boat" says the captain.
"Anyway, find some catchy character actress; say, Val
erie Bertinelli - somebody young and perky and just a lit
tle naughty maybe. After all, we do have trashy image to
protect. On the ship she comes to Fidel Castro and ex
plains that she is trying desperately to defect to Cuba to
escape the decadence of American Ufe."
"Then we invite Ronald and Nancy reagan on a cruise;
the same cruise. The Reagans love to take vacations. When
they get here, we will assign them 'accidentally' (nyuk,
nyuk) to the same room with Valerie Bertinelli. When Cas
tro comes to her room to explain to her the defection
plan I have written into the script, he and the Reagans
recognize each other immediately. At this point, Adam
Bricker, the ship's doctor barges in to say that the room is
quarantined because Valerie Bertinelli was not vaccinated
properly when she left the States. We lock them in the
room, they work out a truce, and everyone lives happily
ever after."
"It's so crazy, it just might work!" squeals Julie. "Let's
try it, and save civilization as we know it!"
' jTH & "P" ST. 475-5969
TONIGHT: 7:40 & 9:40
SATURDAY & SUNDAY
AT:
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The movie that leaves
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A AMERICAN
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Peter F and rut
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Irwy'rt going lor
Beware of Still Waten adapted well to the small
surroundings of Studio 12, becoming a much less formal
play in this setting. The translation was also refreshingly
void of formal high Spanish dialogue.
There was some awkwardness, however, when Gitlitz,
chairman and associate professor of the Modern Langu
ages and Literatures Department, tried to inject very
modern puns into the banter, including a joke about
busing that received an uncomfortable moment of silence
from the audience. Because of this "modern" translation,
there was the danger of reducing a complicated comedy to
a rather banal melodrama, but the cast, at least most of
the cast, rose above that and met the challenge.
Complementary member
Christopher Darga as the dashing Don Felix, who re
fused to fall in love, fit into his part with ease and comple
mented other members of the cast quite well. J.
Christopher Wineman, as the foiled suitor Don Pedro,
showed he was quite talented and very able to play the
straight man to the more assertive members of the cast,
but one feels that perhaps Calderon did not mean for him
to be quite so endearing to the audience. When his love is
thwarted in the end it is hard to feel good cheer for the
others.
Julie Uribe and Joi HofTsommer as the two most
sought-after daughters of Madrid, Dona Eugenia and Dona
Clara respectively, work well off of one another and are
very capable actresses.
Most of the rest of the cast seemed to come off as
simple caricatures. Thomas lxughlin, as the overly-
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concerned father, has moments of stage mastery, and
Brian Dunbar as the paranoid, temperamental Don Juan
rises above the superficiality of his character at some
points.
Royalty celebrations
As with Shakespeare, many of Calderon's plays were
produced for royalty or to celebrate a royal event. Beware
of Still Waters was probably written as a memorial to the
marriage of King Philip IV of Spain to the Princess Maria
Ana of Austria.
The play contains several rather clumsily interjected
descriptions of the wedding festivities. These portions
were probably a little more subtle in the original trans
lations, and such things certainly come off better in
Shakespearean drama. But in this translation the long tales
become tiresome.
There is some relief from this in that many of the
players clown about during the speeches, taking most of
the tedium away. The main actor responsible for this is
Scott Dienstbier as Hernando, Don Felix's servant, who
takes none of the pomp seriously and releases the bore
dom of the audience with his hilarious facial expressions
and slapstick routines.
Beware of Still Waters is a worthy comedy performed
well by an entertaining and lively cast. As a translation it
is still a bit flawed and the flaws, deserve attention in order
to retain some of Calderon's classicism and the feel of
Spain's Golden Age. As an entertaining evening at the
theater however, the play is top-notch, with a quick
energetic pace.
Burt is
at it again
In the,
comedy
hit of
the
season.
PARAMOUNT PICTURES PRESENTS 3URT REYNOLDS n 4 GORDON MOONJEAiU TOKOFSKY PRODUCTION
PATERNITY" BEVERLY D'ANGElC NORMAN FELL UL DOOLEY ELIZABETH ASHLEY LAUREN HUTTON
Executive Producer JERRY TOKOFSKY Written bv CHARLIE PETERS Produced y LAWRENCE GORDON , i
jnd HANK MOONjEAN Directed by DWID STEINBERG . A PARAMOUNT PICTURE :f
PG nwra ounce skbihiii-! ' ""'""' -
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Box Office Opens At 10:30 p.m.
Tickets $1.50 Show Starts at 12:00
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I ..MLL WE I
( CONTINENTAL
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1)1 VIDE
3
