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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 9, 1987)
Monday, February 9, 1987 Daily Nebraskan Page 7 i! il H P II M A fj ) I Ij -3 trim I1) f-'i?T fit i-'fit By Scott Harrah Arts and Entertainment Cci.tor C(J;n ,la-.:cs U;y sits in the CCS neecrdi executive culccs in New York, talking lo a non-stop litany of journalists from coast to coast. On the phone1, of course. He's been talking all afternoon, answering the same question over and over: "So, tell me, Colin, just what did happen to Men At Work?" Just a few years ago, Men At Work tnc nnuit'ind c muu'ehnvlnm "". f rti t u v-i V,ivV 2 Jtpv-i tit uun i) V cttiUit such hits as "Who Can It Be Now?" and "Down Under" climb to the top of the charts from Los Angeles to London, Their videos were floating across the MTV airwaves every hour, sending a bunch of misfits from Melbourne, Australia, into pop history. Then suddenly the adulation ended, people stopped buying cans of Vegemite in import food stores, and Aussie mania started to wane. Men at Work punched their last pop cultural timecard and faded away into oblivion. But Hay refused to believe that the artistic t:?r;-j h? had emplayed in Men At Woik would merely turn into memories and post-band sever ance pay. , As I sit at my desk talking with him, he vehemently answers the question he knew I planned to ask him. v'" "Very simply," he says "Men At Work is no more." Hay has just released "Looking for Jack," a solo effort that he hopes will give him the creative freedom and response that just wasn't possi-' i hie "within the boundaries of Ms former band. "This is a solo record and I . worked very closely with the mater ial," he says. "I got to record songs that couldn't fit in a band." "Looking for Jack" focuses on a musical side of Hay that he says he was unable to surface in Men At Work the acoustic guitars and Gaelic soul he was raised on in his native Scotland. Although the public often con siders Hay an Australian, he actually lived in Scotland for the first 14 years of his life. But it was in Austra lia that he developed his love of music. He started playing music at age 16, but he was unable to find an outlet for his Scottish underpinnings. 'Bead ofWinter' too dumb to chill; By Stew Magnuson Senior Reporter "Dead of Winter" is a suspense movie without too much suspense. Director Arthur Penn attempted to make an old-fashioned thriller in the Movie Review tradition of Hitchcock, with one vital twist. Instead of the women being totally helpless and her boyfriend husband coming to the rescue, the woman uses her own ingenuity and resourcefulness to get out of the situation herself. After seeing a half-dozen new "boyfriend comes to the rescue" movies this year alone, this new twist is greatly appreciated. And Arthur Penn and the scriptwriters pull the twist off well. But they forgot to include a credible plot. Mary Steenburgen plays Katie Mc Govern, a New York actress hired by Mr. Murray (Roddy McDowall) to finish a feature film because the leading actress has left the set. It seems Katie looks exactly like the missing actress, so 'tjnr or'is.'jrj'S'i'jif r f C:::.i J;:,::3 K: i to ether musicians," he says, "they didn't understand them becau3 the i.l:s were aeoustie-based and Gaelic in origin. Eon Strykert (Men At V.'cik's guitarist) was the first person 1 met I'd connected with immediately. He and I played together in tLLs far a year. That's when vs r:;!:T?J .e could tran-i z, 2 the acouLlb e'jb to an electric Lrrnat." The two farmed M played the pub scene ar.J 1 popular enouch to get a recording contract. Their debut album, "Busi ness As Usual," became the most successful debut effort in U.S. music history. The follow-up, "Cargo," sold more that 7 million copies, and the band won a Grammy for Best New Artist "By the third album, 'Two Hearts,' we'd moved down to a three-piece group," he says. "There were a lot of problems in the band then and we'd parted company with the rhythm section." "Two Hearts" was a commercial and critical failure, and the boys plot freezes suspense Mary Steenburgen in Murray brings her to a deserted old mansion, the home of the wheelchair ridden Dr. Lewis (Jan Rubes), to do a screen test. Her husband Rob is a little suspi cious, and so is the audience. The isi VV - i - " " ' Jesy c! CSS Records from Me I bourne eventually split up. Howevtr, Hay claims, polarization and creative differences had been building up to a catastrophic cres cendo le: X before. "I think success acted as a catalyst to problems that already existed in tl.e b.rid," he says. M ; : j Lr. e hint. . 1 that MTV he! ped I 1 1 1 1 nd's i::l:i 1 success, but i: v l i , :-:t it '. - fheir dJvv mm !i m tnat at ! tl.i-i iiito fciiLW AiAtsi vJUi&j&i v .'. ... "The effect of MTV v.as exagger ated, but it did help," he says. "Looking for Jack" is Hay's all- out bid to gain a new audience and show people that he's more than just part of the "ashes" of a defunct supergroup. "There's a lot more variation on 'Looking for Jack'," he says. "For me, it's a lot more exciting. What I want most is being seen as having more dimension as a musician." And, most likely, he says, he also wants the world to realize that he's "still around." I Courtesy of MGM "Dead of Winter." mysterious Dr. Lewis is obviously up to no good. Katie can't phone home because someone has cut the lines and a raging blizzard keeps her from leaving the old house. See WINTER on 8 Theme of 'Susannah ' leaves you disturbed By Lise Olsen Associate News Editor A physical and mental loss of inno cence. A gradual disintegration of de light into despair. This is the story of "Susannah," a 19-year-old Tennessean betrayed by friends, fellow church members, faith and family, victimized by false accusa tions and raped by religion. Opera Review Audience members drawn by the drama of events presented on the Kim ball stage this weekend might have found it hard to remember that they were watching an opera, an art form often considered difficult to under stand or appreciate. "Susannah," written by Carlisle Floyd, has none of that high-brow, fat-lady opera imagery. Instead, the contem porary opera, produced by UNL's School of Music, brought together a small orchestra with a smoothness of vocal lines that augmented the dramatic tale without disguising its harsh message or over-elaborating its impressive sim plicity. Susannah, a 19-year-old blond inno cent, played by Wendy Lueth, is raised by her brother (David Price) in the woods on the outskirts of town. Susannah's innocence and goodness is questioned byjealous church members as she grows into a beauty. Their doubts harden into accusations when the church members discover her bath ing nude in an isolated creek. She is cast out of the church after a half-wit friend, believably played by Thomas O'Brien, is forced to confess that he "felt her up in the worst way.,K Susannah later confronts the con greation at a revival meeting where a visiting preacher (Randel Wagner) in vites her to be saved. She runs away and he follows her home, first to per suade her to be saved and instead seducing her, discovering her virginity. When her brother, Sam, returns from a hunting trip, he learns the truth and sets out to act decisively for the first time in his life. Sam shoots the preacher 'Susannah 9 raises 'anel By Chris McCubbin Diversions Editor Eight local scholars Friday discussed questions raised in the opera "Susan nah" by Carlisle Floyd, performed last weekend by the UNL opera company. The panel consisted of Dr. Otis Young, pastor of First Plymouth Congre gational Church; Nelson Potter, asso ciate professor of philosophy; Dan Bernstien, associate professor of psy chology; Robert Stock, professor of English; Father John Foley, a composer and Jesuit priest; Patrice Berger, associate professor of history; Sister Jane Russel of Creighton University; and Dr. Suzanne Ortega, associate professor of anthropology. Robert Hansen, director of "Susannah," also participated. "Susannah" is a modern retelling of "Susannah and the Elders" in the Apocrypha of the Bible, set in the American South during the Great Lincoln Parks and Rec sponsors photohike at Ager Nature Center The Lincoln Parks and Recre ation Department will be sponsoring a Photohike in Black and White at the Chet Ager Nature Center in Pioneers Park on Feb. 22, 3:30 to 5 p.m. Participants should bring their own cameras loaded with black-and-white film. as he's baptizing in the creek, ironi cally at the same spot where Susannah was discovered bathing. Lueth's expression and attitude ac cented the emotional change in Susan nah, who in the first scenes delights in a square dance on a "pretty night," and in the final scenes chases church goers away with a shotgun and says she has forgotten how to forgive. Of note also was Wagner's perfor mance as the evangelical minister. He presented the role with a hearty, almost false feeling, an over projection of emo tion that helped establish his charac ter's dual role as hero and villain. But the acting overall was noticeably not as strong as the musical perfor mances, which were often exquisite. However, the production's greatest weakness was the stage itself. Kimball': notoriously small stage, coupled with the design of the set, seriously limited the characters' movement. In a very important scene where Susannah is found bathing naked by the elders, the set blocked the view for a portion of the audience. The set change from church to Su sannah's cabins was also inadequately accomplished by a swinging awning attached to the church. It would have been better to simply leave more or less to the audience's imagination. However, the lighting wonderfully complemented the content. Background lights progressed from green (noting Susannah's delight in nature and hint ing of the jealousy of church members) to blue (showing Susannah's sadness at being betrayed and falsely accused) and finally red, highlighting the anger and violence of the final scenes. As the opera ends, Susannah is embittered, the preacher is dead and Sam is a fugitive. The opera's message of 'judge not, lest ye be judged" is not new. Nor is a tale of a loss of innocence. In fact, the original version of "Susannah" appeared in the Apocrypha of the Bible. But pres ented in this Americana setting, accom panied and supported by tender, intense and angry music, the timelessness of the thoughts the opera invokes and the questions it raises are unmistakable. The audience cannot help but leave disturbed. questions Depression. The chief themes of the opera are religious hypocrisy and loss of innocence. The panelists briefly addressed the work according to their particular fields, then answered questions from the audience of about 40. Many of the panelists stressed that they thought, despite the unfavorable light in which the opera portrayed religious people, "Susannah" was not anti-Christian or anti-religious. The opera was extensively compared and contrasted to the apocryphal story. "Susannah" also was compared to Greek tragedy and grand opera. The panel also considered the feminist themes in the opera, speci fically the theme of Susannah as a female victim of a male-dominated society. Opinions differed among the panelists as to the extent that Susannah's downfall was caused by the village elders, her society or herself. Discover and capture the texture and shadows of nature. A critique session will be on March 8 at 3:30 p.m. There is a $5 fee. For more information and to register call 471 7895. Preregistration is required. debates themes