Monday, March 7, 1983
Daily Nebraskan
Entertainment
vol's
layso'oojiinidl': ScCnooB ptemiradl agaomsu body
By Eric Peterson
If idle hands are the devil's workbench,
then an Australian boys' school must
be . . . "The Devil's Playground." The
UPC foreign film, directed by Australian
Fred Schepisi, will run tonight at the
Sheldon Film Theater at 7 and 9.
You see him - the devil - before the
film starts, worked into a Gothic capita!
letter. He doesn't really look that
dangerous, and the evil shown in the film,
while it is there, never threatens to over-
Film Review
whelm; everything in the film seems to
fall into a pleasant languor of color and
shade.
It is a film about Catholic Guilt. The
capitals are necessary because the film
seems to insist on making us realize the
fact. Over and over, the nicer, healthier
priests who teach at the school shout
that the school's hellfire sermons and
repressive rules are making the boys
morbid.
Opposed to the "good" priests is a
thin, ascetic-looking prig, who sneaks
around eavesdropping behind hedges and
yells at a boy who indecently showers
in the nude. Obviously, such a man has to
have raging demons of lust inside him and,
sure enough, we discover him swimming
in a dream with lots of naked women.
It's a lyrical scene, with a fluid, blue
beauty to it; but his desire becomes ob
scene and makes us snicker when he is
at the public swimming pool, ogling
what he condemns others for having.
In the end, the prig has to go mad.
"I hate life. I hate it!" he screams. 'The
body dominates the mind, clubs it to
the very coiners." The oniy answer, he
concludes, is to give in to the body -and
lose your mind.
But the madness is in the place as
well, liven the ruddy complexioned, red-
bearded visiting father - a picture of
Friar John - preaches crazy sermons
about hell and curling red worms and
compares eternity to a metal globe the
sie of the sun being rubbed away by a
swallow's wing.
The main subplot in this leisurely film
is the escape of a boy named Tom Allen,
played by Simon Buike, from this repres
sive place full of Catholic Guilt. Tom
wets his bed every night, his anxiety
feeding on itself. He falls into the bad
company for a short time of the school's
secret society of fanatics, who whip each
other into ecstatic vision. "It's not bloody
natural!" one good-natured priest says
about the group and about the school's
denial of the body's needs, making clear
that the sado-masochism is the result of
the repression and guilt.
Tom falls into more innocent experi
mentation with a giggling schoolboy in the
woods; they wander in front of a labyrinth
of branches and don't succeed in the
attempt because of ignorance and inexper
ience. "If you do it, do it properly!"
Tom shouts reproachfully.
And Tom has a grand romance with a
girl who visits for a little while; their ex
change of letters is stopped by the head
of the school and, when Tom tries to
confess his sins to a gruff, formidable Irish
Play: Mankind will survive,
even by the sldn of its teetii
By David Creamer
"The Skin of Our Teeth," is a
delightful play with three acts, three
directors and three moods, all of which
convey one basic philosophy. This
philosophy is that mankind, which is
represented by the Antrobus family,
has and will continue to survive dis-
Theatre Review
asters, either natural or man-made, by
the skin of its teeth.
As the play begins, the audience
sees the Aiitrobuses, who have sur
vived fire, flood, pestilence, seven
year locusts, the Ice Age, the black
pox and the double feature, as well
as a dozen wars and as many depres
sions. The audience comes into the play
in the middle of an ice age in the first
act.
Julie Uribe, a junior, who plays
the Antrobuses' maid and cook, Sabina,
keeps the play moving at a quick pace.
Her frequent departures from the
play to talk to the audience on a more
personal level keep the audience
involved in the play.
Under the direction of graduate
student Tim Mooney, Act I creates
the mood of the rest of the play. It
seems light and slightly abstract, in
agreement with the overall atmosphere
of the production.
This play follows no ordinary rules
the three acts are disconnected. Also,
during Act II, Mrs. Antrobus announces
that she and Mr. Antrobus are
celebrating their 5,000th wedding anni
versary - reminding the audience that
the Antrobus family is representing
mankind.
In Act II, the Antrobus family is
faced with a life-threatening flood,
while at the same time experiencing
many family problems.
Whereas Act I is set in the Antrobus
home in Lincoln, Act II is set in Atlan
tic City, on the beach. The scenery
for this act is brightly colored and
blends well with the false theme that
Mr. Antrobus announces early in the
act: "Enjoy Yourself."
To emphasize the importance of the
concept of the family in this act, the
director, .Constance Hill, wrote this
note in the program "When the world
seems against you, when all you touch
turns bad, when your life is full of
hurt and no one is around to soothe
the pain, the bottom line is: THE
FAMILY.
Act III, directed by James Stanley
Haehl, has a different mood. Act III
is more serious and deliberate in con
veying the message that mankind must
continue to struggle and that, in order
to come through, humans will have
to come through together.
The third act shows the Antrobus
family as they come through a war
any war. It also deals with personal
conflicts between Mr. Antrobus and
his son, played by freshman Jeff Tal
bott. The costuming is bright and almost
comical in itself, but with the charact
ers, the combination becomes quite
humorous.
Overall, Thornton Wilder's "The Skin
of Our Teeth" is a good play with a
diverse cast, many of whom play three
different parts. The play is funny, yet
has a direct message that connects the
seemingly unrelated parts.
The final five performances of the
play will be in the Howell Theatre
March 8 through 12 at 8 p.m.
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"Devil's Playground" shows tonight at
Theatre as part of the University Program
confessor, he is continually shut up with
"Rubbish! Rubbish, my boy."
The school officials, with the exception
of one humorous old man, aren't truly
sympathetic to the boy (though no one
comes off looking hateful in the film),
and after a futile, solitary call to God,
Tom runs away. As he rides away in a car,
he feels lighter and lighter, his smile
7 and 9 in the Sheldon Art Gallery Film
Council's Foreign Film Series.
persists and we see the sky reflected in
the shiny window of the car. The reflec
tions look like flakes of light curtaining
him off; the effect is beautiful.
All of "The Devil's Playground" is
like that, actually . . . the pace is so calm,
everything is so nice to look at, that
worry and guilt are like a murmur in your
ear rather than a shout.
Comedian FranMin Ajaye: We
have to stop being omtsicies's
By Ward VV. Triplett III
A sharply dressed Franklin Ajaye, tape
recorder in hand, walked purposely to
center stage amidst scattered applause
about 8:30 p.m. Thursday. Ajaye was
supposed to be the main attraction of the
Black History Month celebration at UNL,
yet only slightly more than 30 people
greeted the comedian as he began his first
Lincoln appearance.
"Wow. . .standing room only," Ajaye
remarked at the outset. "Is this all the
black people in Lincoln?"
Little went right for Ajaye that day.
The show started late- because his clothes
were flown into Omaha after he had taken
a commuter flight from Omaha's Eppley
Airport to Lincoln. The small turnout
seemed like an extra bit of exasperation
for him, the last straw of frustration for
Ajaye in Iris whole Nebraska experience.
"I haven't seen a crowd like this since
I started 11 years ago in New York City,"
he said. He made one joke about crowded
New York streets and how he and his
brother finally "went ahead and robbed"
a couple that purposely avoided them
for several blocks. Then he decided to
adapt completely to the situation.
"It's very difficult to do comedy
straight out to 15 people," he said. "What
I'd prefer to do is open it up to questions."
Ajaye has appeared in "Convoy,"
"Car Wash," "Stir Crazy" and "The Jazz
Singer," but pointed out there were no
guarantees.
"Even after 'Car Wash' it was tough,"
he said. "Some of the roles I've been
offered I just wouldn't do. The scripts
mostly have us (blacks) as pimps and so
on, and to do a role, you have to commit
yourself to the part. I couldn't do that
with a negative role."
Ajaye was born in Brooklyn, moved to
Los Angeles when he was three years old
and went to the University of Southern
California for a year before transferring to
UCLA.
At that point, Ajaye seemed to torget
about the small crowd. He talked about his
experience as a freshman football player
at USC - all 26 seconds of playing time -and
being a live dummy for the Trojan
varsity defensive tackles.
He performed for more than an hour,
bringing up Julius Erving (who traced his
roots back to a Converse-wearing Nambia
native, Slamma Dunke), Los Angeles police
(who once arrested him and a friend on a
charge of "niggers on a sunny day" - and
what could we do. . .we were guilty) and
how sex will make you call up people you
don't even like.
In an interview afterwards, Ajaye said
the ability to learn the ways and methods
of the white power structure in America is
the most important thing a black person
can learn in college.
"We have to stop being outsiders," he
said. "Blacks have to get that education.
It's imperative that you be able to realize
that whites hold the power in this society,
be perceptive of them and be able to
communicate with them.
"I believe a black attitude with a white
language is where I'm at now," Ajaye
said, himself a graduate of UCLA's law
school. "It's an attitude that is in the
society, but not of the society. That's
what I believe blacks should be seeking
today."
As Ajaye answered questions from a
small group of students after his show, the
names of his fellow black comedians, Eddie
Murphy, Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby,
came up. Ajaye said he doesn't watch any
of them much anymore.
"I think I'm at a point where I don't
have an thing left to learn," he said. "I
want to remain an individual and I don't
want to be influenced by somebody else."
Ajaye did, however, give his opinions
on the three.
"I haven't watched much of what Eddie
has done," he said. "But he has got a lot of
confidence. Comedy is the way you per
form as much as what you say.
"Sometimes you can captivate an
audience, to a point where they are waiting
to laugh at you, and you don't have to
make them. Eddie has that ability. The
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