Arts ^Entertainment
Thursday, December 1,1994
Page 9
Theatrix takes a darkly poetic look at relationships
By Paula Lavlgw
Senior Reporter
Several fragmented poems are weaved
together to portray one man’s journey from
falling in love to falling apart.
Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaiken's play
“Savage/Love” was originally written for a
one-man solo reading, but Theatrix director
Jeanne Long decided to make it more theat
rical by adding music and nonverbal skits.
Long made two male and two female ac
tors work together to depict one man’s trials
with love. The four actors portray one couple
at two different times. The man (Byron
Bonsall) and woman (Melissa Clausen) re
flect on their relationship in the past as a
younger man (Robb Goff) and woman (Jill
Doolittle).
Long said she still liked the poetic na
ture of the play because it added emotion
and intensity. After seeing the play a few
years ago, Long said it influenced her life.
“Eveiything constructs love as a roman
tic fairy tale, and being the cynic that 1 am,
I don’t believe in happy endings,” she said.
“This play kind of destroys that”
“Savage/Love” is a deeper, darker look
at how love is not always pleasant and con
structive, she said, because it shows how love
can ruin people.
The play challenged her interpretive na
ture, Long said, because Shepard wrote the
play from a deep, personal level.
Long said it was difficult for her and the
actors to determine the show’s actual mean
ing, even though she could tell it held a gen
eral appeal.
Bonsall said he struggled with the mean
ing and poetic format of “Savage/Lovc,” but
he said it provided him with the most fun he
had had working on a performance.
“Anybody who has performed Sam
Shepard anyway would say ‘I don’t know
what Sam was smoking when he wrote this
stuff,”’ Bonsall said, laughing. “It’s very
obscure, with a lot of metaphors.”
He said personally he had a hard time
with poetry but enjoyed the serious subject
matter.
Bonsall said it was easy for him to relate
to the play because he saw many of the inci
dents mirrored in his own life.
“I was in a relationship in college, and
my girlfriend and I played all these little
mind games,” he said. “One minute we’d be
yelling and screaming, and 10 minutes later
everything was fine, and it was as if the ar
gument never happened.
Quik Facts
Show: “Savagc/Lovc”
At: Studio Theatre. Temple Building
Times: 8 p.m. today, Friday and
Saturday; 2 p.m. Saturday
Tickets: $2 at the door
“Everyone who has ever been in a rela
tionship will be able to identify with some
aspect of this play.”
“Savage/Love” opens tonight at 8 p.m.
in the Studio Theatre in the Temple build
ing. Additional performances are 8 p.m. on
Friday and 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Saturday.
Tickets are $2 at the door.
Jaff IMm/DN
Aitxd Kazantsev, anattttM»mldtnM atthtSuvyaAitAalltry, works on a painting
Wodnosday at tho gallory.
Gallery is artist's ‘home'
By Mm Fulwldf
Staff Reporter
Surya Art Gallery is not like
most art galleries.
Amrita Mahapatra, the owner,
said the gallery was like an exten
sion of her own house.
“Every time I have a new art
show, it’s like I’m decorating a new
house,” she said. “The paintings
just seem to belong.”
The Lincoln gallery has an in
ternational focus, she said.
“We specialize in international
art — art not only from different
parts of the world, but art that por
trays different cultures,” she said.
The building housing the gal
lery is much different from the
usual. It is not a normal “museum
with four walls,” as Mahapatra
calls regular galleries. Instead, a
restaurant formerly stood in its
place. The huge, wood bar is still
in place.
Mahapatra said she opened the
gallery in January 1992 because
her home was overflowing with her
art. She already owned the space
the gallery now occupies.
“We had the space; why not fill
it up?”
Even the gallery’s artist-in-resi
dence is unusual.
Mahapatra said Alexei
Kazantsev, from Moscow, showed
up at the door of her gallery one
day holding a rock he had picked
up along the road. He knew only
one English word' “yes” — and
with difficulty told her that he
wanted a place to sculpt.
“He reminded me of myself
when I came to the United States,
so I let him in,” she said.
The rock was converted into a
beautiful sculpture in one week,
Mahapatra said, and that con
vinced her to let Kazantsev stay.
For Kazantsev, who creates
limestone and marble sculptures
and oil paintings, art is life,
Mahapatra said.
%
“His lifestyle reminds me of
\hn Gogh,” she said. “Without the
craziness, of course.”
The gallery also includes many
of Mahapatra’s own works. She
said she liked to depict everyday
things rather than grand, univer
sal themes — in contrast to
Kazantsev’s work.
“Alexei is always so philosophi
cal,” she said.
However, one of her paintings
in the gallery, “Wise Men from
Asia,” has a deep meaning for
Mahapatra.
In the painting, she depicted a
story she heard as a child about
six blind wise men who touched
an elephant in different places on
its body; and from that touch, each
man came away with a different
perception of the animal.
“TTiey were all right in a way,
but also very wrong,” she said.
When Mahapatra came to the
See GALLERY on 10
Card game gathers
would-be wizards
By Joel Strauch
Senior Reporter
“Magic: The Gathering,” a -
trading card game started by
Wizards of the Coast Inc., has
become so popular that it is dif
ficult not to suspect some kind of
arcane help.
The game was introduced first
in August 1993, and a cult fol
lowing has driven it into a fully
mainstream success.
According to Carrie Thearle,
the marketing representative for
Wizards of the Coast Inc., the
game originated after the
company’s president, Peter
Adkison, asked a man named Ri
chard Garfield to make a “game
that was easily transportable and
could be played in a short time.”
The result of Garfield’s effort
was the original deck of Magic.
Five expansion sets and almost
800 pew types of cards later, the
game is being played all over the
world.
“It is sold in every state and
in other countries,” Thearle said.
The game allows players to
use their imagination to simulate
a battle between wizards. This is
done through the cards, which
consist of lands, creatures, arti
facts and spells.
Players can incorporate any
one of the five different colors as
well as artifacts to build a deck
to match against another or sev
eral other players.
“There are so many different
varieties,” Paul Nguyen, a junior
electrical engineering major,
said.
“It’s a challenge trying to beat
other people by using different
strategies,” he said.
Rob Michaelis, a senior math
ematics major, said that he en
joyed the game because it always
was different.
“With over 1,000 different
types of cards, it’s not likely to
be played the same twice,” he
said.
The fifth expansion set for the
game, “Fallen Empires,” recently
was released, and the booster
decks are being sold almost as
fast as businesses can order them.
“This latest expansion was
four times as large as ‘The Dark, ’
our last expansion set,” Thearle
See MAGIC on 10
Playhouse presents
Advent of absurdity
ly Paula Uvlgiw
Senior Reporter
Three successive Christmas
parties turn into domestic disas
ters as three couples search for
more than just holiday spirit in
“Absurd Person Singular” at the
Lincoln Community Playhouse.
The play is broken into three
acts, each depicting a different
scene in a different couple’s
kitchen.
The first scene unfolds in the
spotless kitchen of Jane and
Sidney Hopcroft (Liz Banset and
Scott R. Glen). The Hopcrofts
have just come into financial
prosperity and marital bliss and
are trying to impress their
wealthy friends.
Eva and Geoffrey Jackson (Su
san K. Garrett and Kent Krueger)
serve as hosts for next year’s
party as their lives and their mar
riage start falling apart.
The pill-popping psychopath
Eva can’t even succeed at her
zany attempts to kill herself over
her insensitive lout husband.
The (day ends in complete ab
surdity in the Victorian kitchen
of Marion and Ronald Brewster
Wright (Peg Sheldrick and
George Churley) when Marion
emerges drunk in a pink night
gown to entertain her guests.
“Absurd” contains a mixture
of humorous comic bits, but the
action moves too slowly at times
to blend them together. Parts of
the characters’ dialog bog down
the humor.
Apart from needing some
work on their British accents, the
actors succeeded in developing
their characters and their rela
tionships.
See PLAY on 10