Arts©Entertainment
Nebraskan
TuMday, October 26,1993
Stage joins
coffee at
local joint
theater
preview
By Mark Baldridge
Senior Reporter
When Mark Shriner looked
around for something new to offer
his customers, he thought of the
ater.
Theater and coffeehouses have
a history of working well together,
ever since the popularization of the
coffeehouse as performance space
a few decades back.
“I don’t have a background in
theater,” he said. “1 just wanted
something extra for the store. I
wanted to offer something to bring
in a different type of clientele for
the weekends—to have something
for people to do.”
But Shriner, who owns and op
erates the Coffee House at 1324 P
St., needed help to make it all hap
pen.
Help arrived in the form of Ron
Silver, fresh from Los Angeles.
“I met Ron the day he came into
town,” Shriner said.
And so the Off Broadway, On
L incoln Theater company was bom.
Silver had the necessary theater
experience, after working for sev
eral years in the Los Angeles area.
He came to Lincoln, he said,
because of business opportunities
to be had here and the riot to be had
there.
“I was just looking in the
Haymarket for a studio space,” he
said. “1 wanted to start a theater.”
But the Coffeehouse offered an
ideal home.
Construction began on the stage,
which will occupy the back third of
the store, and plans were made for
the first season.
At some point Laura Strope
joined the company as its publicist.
Strope was a broadcasting stu
dent at the University of Nebraska
Lincoln.
She said her education has served
her well.
“I write press releases, and pub
licity, stuff we learned in school,"
she said.
The first season consists of pub
1 ished plays, but Silver said he wants
to move to scripts by local authors
Jay Calderon/DN
Judd Fetters, UNL junior, and Angela Williams, sophomore, perform during a dress
rehearsal at The Coffee House Sunday. The two are members of the Off Broadway. On
Lincoln Theatre Company, which will perform four one-act plays starting in November.
in the second season.
Rehearsals are already under
way for the company’s first show,
which opens Nov. 4.
The one acts are:
“The Enchanted Mesa” by
George Maguire — which Silver
said was a dark comedy about a
post 1960s couple trying to save
their marriage.
“Piece For An Audition," by
Stephen Mark Tenney—a fantasy
dream state monologue.
Mike and Susan, which is ex
cerpted from a longer play called
“Lovers and Other Strangers.”
And “The Tiger” by Murray
Schisgal, which Silver describes as
a drama.
He said he selected the plays to
work together because they have
the common theme of male vulner
ability.
“The men in these plays are not
the typical male leads,” he said,
“and the women characters are
stronger.”
Silver and Shriner said they have
been hard at work on the theater,
and that they have high hopes for
the company.
Silver said he was particularly
interested in working with local
scripts in the future.
“This kind of thing is very pop
ular in bigger cities, he said.
Drummer,
trio dazzle
in Lincoln
Concert
review
Kahil El’Zabar is something of an
institution on this campus. On his
fourth visit to the University of Ne
braska-Lincoln, he referred to Lin
coln as his “second home.”
And certainly he has been made
welcome.
A group of community organiza
tions and businesses joined the uni
versity to promote a two-week stay ,
for EfZabar, as well as a week for his
band Ritual Trio.
Their stay culminated in a concert
on Sunday night in Kimball Hall.
El’Zabar on trap set is something
to behold. His quirky playing style
and submerged vocalizations seem
almost comic — then suddenly, in a
blaze of light, he is everywhere, all
over those skins like some mad der
vish.
Then, just as suddenly, he’s back
in the groove — his solo ended.
Performing with El’Zabar were
Edwin Daugherty on sax and James
Willis on double bass.
Daugherty’s performance was
spectacular.
Although there was a quality of
sameness to his first two solos, as the
evening progressed, he became more
spontaneous. In the second set, his
daring work took the audience to a
spiritual plane of jazz.
Willis, an older performer, was
particularly impressive. A pleasure to
watch, as well as hear, he wasn’t
featured nearly enough — in fact
El’Zabar seemed to try to tone him
down several times and cut short his
solo at least once.
The small audience was very ap
preciative. Its standing ovation called
the trio back for an encore.
The size of the crowd may be
partly due to the poor promotion of
the snow by its various sponsors.
At least one UNL student com
plained of not being able to find out
from any of the involved campus of
fices when, or even if, the trio would
perform.
Perhaps next year El’Zabar will
have a higher profile in this city that
seems literally in love with jazz.
— Mark Baldridge
Hillbillies’ hilarities wear thin in less than 30 minutes
“The Beverly Hillbillies”
The movie version of “The Beverly Hillbil
lies” is every bit as annoying as the television
series that spawned it.
It’s essentially plotless, depending on cam
eos from stars like Dolly Parton and Zsa Zsa
Gabor, and silly slapstick humor to make up for
the lack of script.
While the movie is not intended to move the
soul, it can’t even move the audience to laugh
without using borrowed gags. It even uses Zsa
Zsa’s police-slapping incident, which was al
ready used in “The Naked Gun.”
Director Penelope Spheeris gets a decent
comedy performance out of her sterling cast,
but it wears thin in less than 30 minutes.
The jump from small to big screen allows the
Clampetts to get away with things the TV
series’ viewers could never have imagined.
Cleavage close-ups, the finger — which they
call the “California Howdy’ — and even Elly
May kicking a guy in the groin. _
Wow, the magic of movies.
After successfully taking “Wayne’s World”
from a “Saturday Night Live” skit to a movie
smash, Spheeris was apparently hand-picked
by 20th Century Fox to do the same here.
Instead, what she delivers is nine years of the
Hillbillies series crammed into a 90-minute
movie.
The Clampetts move to Beverly Hills after
they strike oil on their land in the Missouri
Ozarks. The family moves from shack to man
sion, and they bring their hickish ways with
them.
Overplay is the name of the game for the
movie’s stars. Diedrich Bader (Jethro), Cloris
Leachman (Granny) and Erika Eleniak (Elly
May) all overdo it.
Dabney Coleman and Lily Tomlin, as Mr.
Drysdale and Miss Hathaway, and Jim Varney,
as Clampctt clan patriarch Jed, all do decent
work, despite the poor script. Tomlin puts her
unique charm to work and remains interesting
throughout the movie. Varney manages to make
us forget his alter-ego, Ernest, even in the midst
of Spheeris’s overwrought campy style.
It you like to watch the adventures of the
Clampetts, stick to the re-runs. If you are a
Spheeris fan, rent “Wayne’s World’* again.
—Steven Sparling
courtesy of iwenttem century Pox
From left, Jim Varney Is Jed, tea Thompson Is Laura Jackson and Erika
Eleniak Is Elly May In uThe Beverly Hillbillies.**