Page 10
Daily Nebraskan
Monday, October 4, 1982
Arts iz Enkejdmimiieni
Big-name shows
brought to UNL
with UPC help
By Pat Higgins
There's going to be some really big
shows coming up this month, as Ed Sul
livan used to say. Fleetwood Mac on Sat
urday and Diana Ross on Oct. 15 will
appear at the Bob Devaney Sports Center,
and Romeo Void will be at the Nebraska
Union on Oct. 17.
"Doing three shows in a little over a
week is going to be a challenge, but it
should come off pretty well because these
acts have different audiences," said Patty
Pryor, chairperson of the University Pro
gram Council's Concerts Committee.
There is a distinction to be made bet
ween the sports center shows and the
Centennial Room concerts, Pryor said.
National promoters take the profitloss
risks of the sports center shows. Because of
this, there is no student discount rate avail
able. "On major shows like this, we don't
have to put up our own money," Pryor
said. "Feyline or whoever calls us up
and we negotiate with them, but it's all
the promoter's money. We usually don't
debate about doing shows like tiiis. We're
lucky enough to get them at all."
Students on the committe are in charge
of day-to-day organization of hotel accom
modations, ticket counts and security. For
this, UPC receives half of the hall rental.
This money is being salted away in a con
certs contingency fund that one day will
allow UPC to promote its own shows at
the sports center.
Shows to increase fund
"Just from this week of shows, we'll
be able to substantially add to the concerts
fund," Pryor said. "Someday shows will
be presented by UPC instead of Feyline
and UPC."
The Concerts Committee has a budget of
$3,700. This money will be put on the line
for the shows in the Centennial Room.
"We just confirmed the Romeo Void
show the other day," Pryor said. I'm really
glad to be bringing Romeo Void here
because 1 think that it's part of our
purpose to bring in acts you couldn't see
otherwise."
An endless number of acts could be
brought into the Centennial Room, she
said. The Concerts Committee would like
to have a show there at least once a month.
The difference between these and sports
center concerts is that students have more
direct involvement because they partici
pate in negotiating contracts, setting prices
and acting as roadies.
"It would be nice to make a profit on
these shows at the Centennial Room,"
Pryor said. "The main goal is to at least
break even. If Romeo Void does sell out,
we will make a decent profit," she said. "It
is risky, so we have to count on the
audience out there to. show up."
Students represented
Pi7or said that the Concerts Committee
tries to represent students as much as
possible. There are IS people on the com
mittee, and decisions are made by voting.
The goal is to have a variety of styles
represented. For example, the Coffee
house series showcases local talent and
charges no admission to students. It-has
been tentatively scheduled for the South
Crib at 2:30 pjn. every other Wednesday.
Jazz concerU at Kimball Recital Hall are
under' consideration. Pryor said use of the.
Coliseum also is a possibility. .
Tickets for Romeo Void go on sale
today at the union, Dirt Cheap and Pickles.
The Click will open the show, A video of
Romeo Vofd will be shown at 10:30 ijti.
Wednesday during -Rock World" in the
union's main lounge.
"I'm really excited about the Romeo
Void show Pryor said. "It all comes
down to what is available and will sell,
not that well do just anything that will
sefl.-
Oblomov hides in bed
By Eric Peterson
Ilya Oblomov likes to lie in bed
all day, and he has reasons.
"Oblomov," the second in the
University Program Council's
Foreign Film Series, is based on
a 19th century novel by I.A.
Goncharov and will be shown
tonight at 7 and 9.
Sleep takes him from the
vexing present to his drowsy
father and mother and all their
drowsy servants. He and his
Movie
Review
German friend, Stolz, look at the
sleepers as if they were exhibits.
Sleep seems to be a complacence
and lack of will which both
Stolz and Oblomiv want to es-"
cape.
But at 30, he has retired to his
bed while Stolz has become suc
cessful. He is a mover and shaker
that Oblomov respects but doesn't
envy. The first scene in which we
see the adult Oblomov is funny
and slow.. His servant Zakhar
tries everything to wake him, but
revels in their shared sloth.
He laughs at the cobwebs on a
statuette which look so much
like hair. -
When Oblomov thinks of human
destiny, the narrator tells us, he
feels wretched and scared - but
in his wretchedness and fright
he turns over in bed to sleep
again. Zakhar brings the words
out into the open: "What's the
good of you ever being born?"
Stolz bursts into Oblomov's
life with awful-looking shredded
vegetables. He is determined to
free Oblomov from his sloth and
introduce him into the world.
Oblomov celarly hates it, but goes
along for Stolz's sake.
Our view towards Oblomov
changes quickly when Bya tells
Stolz he has never wanted to be
an over-achiever. Most people in
society, he said, are concerned
with how they live, not why.
"If we live, there must be a
reason for it," Ilya reasoned,
even as a child. It comforts him to
think of himself as a leaf on the
whole tree.
At one point, it looks as if
Stolz's hopes for Ilya's reforma
tion are realized. He falls in love
with Olga, a singer who Stolz
looks on as a child, and is a
changed man. She lives in the
world but loves his repose.
For her, Ilya changes too.
He rises at seven and reads, and
talks with pedantic charm about
the Italian Renaissance. He single
handedly - and this is a perfectly
serious test of his love and will -tears
out a bush that displeases
Olga's aesthetic sense.
Their night of surest love is
pictured in startling blue flashes
of lightning. But Oblomov can't
always live in lightning, and he
stays away from her garden party
during the next few days, not
wanting to spoil it.
Oblomov now realizes he is too
different for her, and can't
change. He has to watch in mulish
anger as Stolz takes the
"matured" Olga off on a bike
ride.
The narrator now intrudes in
an overlong sequence to end
Oblomov's part of the story.
Oblomov severs all ties to Olga,
marries someone else and dies.
Stolz and his wife are soon com
pletely a part of the sordid
commercial-political world that he
thinks is so superior to Oblomov's
revery.
But there is another little
Oblomov, Ilya's son, who runs
in traditional peasant clothes
across the fields to the music of
an ancient and holy Russian
chant which seems to be the sky
rather than come out of it.
La Ronde': Freudian
theorg brought to life
By David Thompson
"La Ronde," the UNL theater department's current
production, comes to us from the cramped interiors of
Vienna in the 1890s. The subject of the play is the con
tinental counterpart to Victorian England, the repressed
desires that people hid under so many stuffed shrts and
skirts.
If you get into people hopping into bed as soon as
they get behind closed doors, then this is the play for
you. If repartee drenched with Freudian symbolism
seems a bit tedious to you, then your time could be
better spent.
The play's author, Arthur Schnitzler, was pretty
chummy with Freud, hence their shared obsessions.
i . -"Wl . v
8
"...'.', ' . f ... ..
y-'i: :
-
SUff Photo by Craig AndroMn
Jan Frerkhs Maddox uses a variety of metals and shapes her contem
porary jewelry In geometric and organic forms. Maddox, who now
lives In Bethesda, Md., received her bachelors of fins arts dcrtt
from UNL. Her jewelry wi3 be on display and for taJt In Sheldon
Memork Art Gallery thrcujh Sunday,
Theater Review
Schnitzler's play is Freudian theory brought to life.
It consists of a series of 10 scenes in which couples
hang around trading witty lines, waiting for the right
moment to rip their clothes off. They don't take them
all the way off, though. When you're as stifled as these
folks are, there isn't time for that.
The premise of the play is interesting. Here are people
who live in a society where sex is not discussed. The
only knowledge they have of it is gossip and myth. This
leaves them straining to get what they want and at the
same time knowing that they're not supposed to have
what they want. So they all walk a very amusing tight
wire. They always end up at the same destination, though
not necessarily in the same place. No, these people do it
anywhere. On the ground or a bench, in a brorJhel or a
restaurant, you name it, it's been done.
The structure of the play alsq is mterestin, Thejre ar
10 couples, but every person is a member of two 'coupVs.
So we see a man first playing the devoted husband, then
trying to seduce a young woman into becoming his
mistcess. In between each scene, we see the characters
when they're not exposing themselves. They glide about
in the plastic masks that everyone wears after they've
safely stashed their primitive impulses.
This sequence of role changes moves smoothly from
one tryst to another by shifting the furniture on a set
that is austere and ideally suited to the switching going
on. The only constant elements on the stage are a group
of fallen women, painted in the bawdy style of the
period that echoes the illustrations of Aubrey Beardsley
or Toulouse-Lautrec. They hang in the background,
reminders of the reality behind the nimble ballet of the
characters.
The only real problem is that Schnitzler is more of an
analyst than a playwright. He was a doctor when he wrote
the play in 1897, and his script comes across as a clini
cal portrayal of Freudian theory. He gets his points
across in a most uncreative fashion, beating us over the
head with his symbolism.
In every single scene, there is a reference to the dark
ness that these people draw about themselves in hopes
of hiding their guilt. In order to have sex with his maid
while the other servants have the day off, a young
gentleman asks her to close the shutters. Then he says,
"Now it's too dark for me to see anything."
Once is fine, but remark after remark tends to spoil
things, not to mention the excess of phallic symbols,
longing glances, panting and references to Intoxication.
When the same young man is upset over his impotence
with a married woman, she says to him, Tome, give me
your little head." Need I say more?
Of course, Schnitzler could have constructed all of his
dialogues in a similar fashion to make us aware of what
these people share. Prostitute or poet, wife or soldier,
when you get right down to it, we all want one thing.
In one scene, a count is doing what he can to get
his paws on an actress. At one point, he says, "People
are the same everywhere. Where there are more it gets
overcrowded, but that's really the only difference."
The casting is appropriate, and particularly spicy in
the scenes featuring the poet, played by Robert Ball,
and the actress, played by Constance Hill They play
their roles to the hilt. Everyone else does an adequate
and, for the most part, entertaining job with a script
that lacks the complexity that makes other Freudian
analyses like The French Lieutenant's Woman" far more
interesting.
This one amused the audience but be'longs on the
back burner nevertheless because it continually plays
with the same Ideas and symbols. Contrary to what
Freud says, we like to hear about more than sex and
excuses for haying It.
J A,th..f..,int ,n ona KtM "I woulii he been
beautiful if I'd only kissed her eyes
