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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 18, 1983)
P j 3 1 2 . L.- v 7 V..J . V7 V L.j. V... ' w v ... 6f o onii 'liririiiiDU'1. lumv-f ii Hi C- "J I If , hJf Ju4 A 4rw A 4 The joy and triumph cf ncepel rcu:.!c come 3 acrcos clear end strong la a splendid docuir.er.tcry "Say ' Ancn, Somebody "which shows at the Sheldon Film Theatre tonight and Saturday it 7 end 9 p.m., with a Saturday ms.tir.es tt 3 pxa. Directed by George T. Kicrc itik?rjj, way Amcnj Somebody b a chert intro duction to the hiotcry cf gao; tl nut's and o er plo- tt tl.o firor.t cfths chjrch cr.d socn the co!!ective . --:'-i 13 ccl:?:ed fcy the pc::t encs: ths Dorrctt Ltcr3 cf ChlcrD l:d by vibrr.t D:bli Barrett ; end perhaps rr.cit esdtir: cl til, ZcIIa J-d-sai A IaI v jjJ lu4iVAi.vviJ dirr.rcr.t frcn ether pcrfjm?rs, without ccpcrct- Film Review ration of its present dlkntmas 3 well C3 vehicb for lifting the eudisnce up with some very powerful singers. Two figures are &t the center of it Thomas A. Dorsey and his student, Elothcr Willie Mae Ford Smith. Dorsey, who played for the great secular star Ma Eainey, turned to forming a cultural movement almost alone: training singers, trying to get black churches to accept what was called "coonshine music," arranging the first national gospel music convention. "He wanted you to be good or nothing Smith says and his force comes across in every movement and colorful expression. Most of the film centers around a tribute to Smith done in the Antioch Baptist Church of Saint Louis, and . Nierenberg uses it to epitomize the whole movement in a way, to say: This is where we are." White-clad multitude The film thus opens with a white-clad multitude 'Ashes': Anguish of childlessness yL f -t.- M VWA1 Ai .4b-- W4tiilAf 4 t lv V JL4L4l'W4 There b an extraordinarily ctrcr.g trar.c!atisn cf iiiv -w & Xi 1 Li, .-.i AvI tW U -i I At J we C-t the entire experience in the flm. People i:int toward each other b eiident, and cixrj tody in the church, down to Mother Smith sittin,'? in the front row, responds with shouts or soft affirmations to what is happening. "This tribute does a lot for me," she says. "It makes me look back and see all the people IVe encouraged. I'm gettin' old and I'm tired." . There are quieter moments when this service and devotion are shown she counsels Zella Jackson Price about the difficulties of an expanding career and intelligently advises a young singer how to sharpen his music. Other facets of Smith than the one3 we see are alluded to; her daughter recalls how glamorous her mother was in another time, as we see a photograph of Mother Smith looking very beautiful and sophisti cated with a chic hat the Pullman porters would go craiy over her. They'd jurt bow and serepe to h:r rr. J zlrSd c tr-t c-,-- .? ? - T .-1. -' t 'il . I mcvcnicnt noiy.xxe .ccnrldcrcd v.ith cIler.cy and . f.. - . "" A C.xV. -...;-". ir ..,.,:- -1 f 1- f -i-vl iuh,5 il-i . "I ft. ft T-''"-'"TT to a bu:!r.c:3. - . . - - , j - tier crus; And several women Ddob Errett Campbell, Zdla Jacteon Price, and Smith herself- are shown in tailing about or working out the diSIeulties of having a family and a traveling musical career both. Neither they nor their families get excited about it or raise their voices Vdt it b clear that theoe women find it dilTicult to get across to their families how music and career are something essential and dif ferent to them, for which extensive compromises in other areas must be made. The documentary ends with a music convention in which the entire auditorium is puriSed with white and Tommy Dorses great song, "Take My Hand, Precious Lord " is played as Dorsey advances slowly with his aluminum walker. The cumulative feeling of the film makes this advance a rare and singular triumph. . : Review fcy Eric Petersen i The implications 'tt thfe- "frustt&ted f ' desire to have children are explored in" a Nebraska Directors' Theatre produc tion of David RudMn's play "Ashes," which will run at the NDT theater, 421 S. Ninth St., Suite 112, tonight and Sat urday at 8p.m. . The first scenes center around the blanket-covered table on which Anne ' Harding, played by Marcia Grund, is examined for her child-producing cap-1 acity, to the left and front is the doc tor's desk in another part of the clinic or rather, of the several clinics to which the man and wife go in their desperation. - :.V v '- What results is an impression cf indignity, sometimes comic, being forced on the couple, though the man, Colin Harding, played by Charlie Bach mann, is really the center of the play. The doctor-examiner figure, played by Charles E. Bell, changes clothes to . indicate slight changes in rcles, but always has the same sort of technical - and mundane advice: if you want to . Have a kid, bathe in cold water, get rid of your central heating, mal:e love in a certain position and always direct after the female has had an enema ... The list goes on, as the prim and clini cal female sex expert, plrycd by Lind say Reading Korth, tahes notes. The scenes break cd suddenly and switch from light to dark to give an impression cf sameness to all the advice the couple hears. Charlie Caehmann's expressions of impatience and frus tration are good or as he. talks in an i Irish accent, to the- crgari , that isn't doing what i's supposed to. The basic interest in the early part of the play lies in the couple's effort to maintain a humane and warm rela tionship though the doctor and sex erpert characters seem to be working so hard against it. After a particularly tense period when Anne's hopes of conceiving a child are ence again ob structed, Grund turns sightly away and Bachm ann inclines hb head in the same pp'tre. Accord becomes increas ingly diTHeult for them to maintain. T" . . --If mpt to meta- There b a real a Ashes addrcrs not cn!y the a cf the' frustrated ccuple," but phjsical questions cf value and pur pose. These attempts often do net ; convince, however; there are a let cf times, when "Ashes" seems to be turn ing L.to Rudan s vctic!e for Eakng evolationary-mystieal speculations and soliloquies about the homeland cf "Eire which have, no convincing con nection to anything we have seen until lerv t speech b lust s ueh a mono- -logue, so that the emotion cf the speech and the performance fail to transfer, - and cr.e mryh".v: a f: ling cf being J:rt out cf whatever b going on. After the early p irt cf the plzy, with some comic "Ashes" can become uninvching and ft twO lwrk. fewHy .-p mm. Abv-swA 3 :Te! 9 Bare,-, very rare, b the TV .show . Newsweek hos featured on' its' cover. , The .Day 'After"- (Sunday,- 7 pxt'-cn channel 7) b far frcm the run-cf-the- '. mill'.' rr.a-;!for-tc!.r,t:.ion movie. -The happen if a nuclear bomb were to be dropped in the heart of the United . States. Several croups have condemn-' . ' ed the shew, sryingthat it bboing used as a device to' enlist support for the nuclear freeze. Supporters cf the show claim it does nothing cf the sort Rather, they say it depicts the human toil cf nuclear attack. Despite the con troversy, ADC b still airing the show, fuaiwMvd by a pncl deuo.on foatur- - V ; .' Ly Don Uicnilra , ; - . "Clues Frcn the Za4 Car (Ctur' - day,'.C3pxi. on char.r.-l 12) features pvA - f-- v -. j f'-V .' laot July. In addition to the fine mr.de, an interview with the Cl.ior-.-) Hues master v.iH be shoT.ii. Ti. 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