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The following is a brief list of
weekend events. Please call the
venue for more information.
CONCERTS
Creighton Lied Education
Centerfor the Arts, 24th and
Cass streets
Friday: Creighton University
Orchestra
Duggan s Pub, 440 S. IIth St.
Friday and Saturday: The
Grateful Dudes
Lied Center for Performing Arts,
301N. 12th St.
Saturday: Comhusker Marching
Band
Sunday: “A Judy Collins
Christmas”
O ’Donell Auditorium, 50and
Huntington streets
Sunday: Lincoln Civic Choir
Royal Grove, 340 W. Comhusker
Highway
Friday: Black Light Sunshine
Saturday: Big Bad Voodoo
Daddy
St. Mark’s, 8550 Pioneers Blvd.
Sunday: A Nebraska Brass
Christinas
The Zoo Bar, 136~N. l4ihsT
Friday: The Paladins, The
Mezcal Brothers
Saturday: Shawn Pittman
THEATER:
Lincoln Community Playhouse,
2500 S. 56th St.
All weekend: “Mr. Scrooge”
Lied Centerfor Performing Arts,
301N. 12th St.
All weekend: Big Apple Circus
Mary Riepma Ross FilmTheater,
Sheldon Art Gallery, 12th and R
streets
All weekend: “fyirin Falls Idaho”
Star City Dinner Theatre, 8th and
Q streets
All weekend: “Pump Boys and
Dinettes”
GALLERIES:
Gallery 9,124 S. Ninth St. -— -
All weekend: Allen Busch, Judy
Greff and Barbara Sullivan
Great Plains Art Collection,
Love Library Rm. 215,13th
and R streets
All weekend: “Wind and Water
on the Land”: Karen Dienstbier,
Karen Kune, Christina McPhee,
Linda Meigs and Susan Puelz
Haydon Gallery, 335 N. Eighth
St.
All weekend: “Small Treasures,”
all Haydon artists
Lentz Center, Morrill Hall, 14th
and U streets .
All weekend: paintings by Shi
Hu
Robert Hillestad Textiles
Gallery, Home Economics
Building, Rm. 231 East Campus
All weekend: “EastMeetsWest,”
an apparel collection by Hong
YounKim
The Sheldon Memorial Art
Gallery, 12th and R streets
All weekend: “Black Image and
Identity,” “Robert Colescott;
Recent Paintings,” “Judy
Burton: Visual Nuances” and
“Eugene Atget’s Views of Paris”
Students direct performances
By Josh Nichols
Staff writer
They’ve been working all semester,
and now they get a chance to show their
stuff.
This weekend, student directors in
the University ofNebraska-Lincoln the
ater department will get die opportunity
to direct a play for the publicfe eye.
Today and tomorrow in the Studio
Theatre, UNL students from Directing 1
will be directing single scenes from dif
ferent full-length plays, and students in
Directing II will be directing one-act
plays.
Tonight’s performance will feature
two single-scene productions and two
one-act plays, while tomorrow’s will
feature two single-scene productions
along with a one-act play.
Visiting professor Ken McCulough,
who teaches the two classes, said die
students chose their own material and
tried to make it contemporary work.
What they came up with was a vari
ety of stage productions.
One of the one acts is about a
famous Russian poet and the oppression
she experienced under the rule of Stalin,
while another is a Shakespeare sonnet
about gay relations.
“They are all different in style and
subject matter,” McCulough said.
“These productions show what fbe stu
dents did to transfer the work onto die
stage. What die directors did with the
scenes is interesting.”
McCulough also pointed out that
the productions are unique because they
required that the students direct their
peers in the theater department
“The performances that are the
most successful usually are a result of
the directors being able to be profes
sional in directing their peers,” he said.
“Many are able to do that in a very
mature way.”
Kyle Johnston, a student in the
Directing I class, said overall, he
thought it was nice working with stu
dent actors.
It was kind of difficult working
with people my age because of the rela
tionships we hold in taking classes
together mid having experiences outside
the department together;** he said.
“I sometimes found it difficult to
assert myself as a director, but I found
that I could collaborate with diem and
draw more from them because of the
relationship we have.”
He said the more informal process
involved a little more “screwing
around” than usual and resulted in many
good laughs.
As much as he enjoyed it, Johnston
said he would have liked to have had
even more time to work with the play.
Trying to balance his scene produc
Please see DIRECTORS on 13
Sharon Kolbet/DN
play based on the words and
writings of Jack Kerouac.
LEFT: CARMEN BAILEY and Chad
Brawn pause during their
Saturday afternoon rehearsal.
Bailey and Brown volunteered to
worfc under the direction of fel
low theater student Greg Peters
as part of Peters’directing
class final project.
. 00
Twin Falls Idaho’ a worthy debut effort
mM m , - --- . ....
By JoshEsaitter
Senior staff writer
The Polish Brothers’ debut film,
‘Twin Falls Idaho,” will undoubtedly
draw a lot of comparisons to a couple
of Davids - Lynch and Cronenberg -
. but aside from a few surface similari
ties, the film inhabits a world of its
own.
So, let’s get those surface similari
ties over with. The cinematography
owes more than a little to Lynch. Dark
blues, greens and browns color dimly
lit rooms, calling to mind “Blue
Velvet” and “Twin Peaks.” Oddball
peripheral characters pepper the film,
but unlike Lynch films, the effect is not
dreamlike. And “Twin Falls Idaho”
shares Cronenberg’s obsession with
biological mutation and its effects on
sexuality and psychology. But that’s
about it
“Twin Falls Idaho” is about a pair
of Siamese twins, Blake and Francis
Falls, who begin to pick apart their co
dependent lives together when they
meet a prostitute named Penny, played
by fashion model Michele Hicks (why
are all prostitutes in films portrayed by
gorgeous women?), in her first film
role.
Francis is ailing, and his heart is
weaker than Blake’s. Blake could live
if the two were separated, but Francis
couldn’t He relies on Blake to survive.
The film could have easily been a
hey-look-at-the-freaks display of
weirdness for weirdness’ sake. But the
Polish brothers, Michael and Mark,
have an intimate knowledge of the sub
ject matter that makes the film human.
The brothers are real-life identical
twins with their own synchronous
habits and language. In a press release,
Mark said he and his brother didn’t'
Clint DauIaiu
■ Hill HHWIH1V
Ha Facts
TOto: Twin Falls Idaho’
Director: Michael Polish
Stare: Michael Polish, Mark Polish,
Michele Hicks
Rating: R (language, mild violence)
Grade: B
Five Words: Offbeat film bizarre, yet
human
need to complete their sentences to
communicate. They had to be enrolled
in speech therapy before they started
school because they had developed
such an impenetrable language
between die two of than. They said the
film is specifically about their relation
ship.
The Polish brothers, who starred in
and wrote die film (Michael directed
it), were able to convincingly portray
the conjoined twins and their special
language. Blake and Francis speak in
low whispers to each other and talk to
others in a slow, careful monotone.
Each twin is seen as a separate per
son with his own identity but also as
half of one entity. The complexity of
this role is handled extremely well by
the real-life twins.
Hicks is also very good as Penny.
She manages to avoid the hooker-with
a-heart-of-gold trappings of ho* role fay
playing it simply, quietly and honestly.
“Twin Falls” carves out its own
niche with strong performances, sub
tlety and unusual structure. The film is
set up as a series of anecdotes.
Something happens, the screen fades
to black, then something else happens.
The only narratives running through
the film are Francis’ failing health and
Blake’s increasingly romantic relation
ship with Penny.
Courtesy Photo
IN “TWIN FALLS IDAHO,” Marie and Michael Polish play Siamese twins who
befriend a prostitute, played by Michele Hicks. The Polish brothers also
wrote the film, and Michael directed it.
Dialogue is sparse, and the look of
the film doesn’t connect it to any cer
tain period of time. The film is simulta
neously claustrophobic and full of
space, allowing the audience to get to
know the characters’ speech patterns,
movements and mannerisms as well as
their personalities.
Even in dramatic moments such as
Francis’jealous reaction to Blake and
Penny’s relationship and Francis’ ill
ness, die actors stay grounded in reali
ty. There are no uncomfortable
moments of overacting.
The film does have several prob
lems though, but most can be attrib
uted to the brothers’ inexperience as
feature filmmakers. The peripheral
characters aren’t as well-written, and
many are stereotypical, with ham-fist
ed dialogue, such as an extremely
effeminate gay photographer and a
sleazy entertainment lawyer who
wants to make money off the twins in
the circus.
TV has-beens Garret Morris
(“Saturday Night Live”) and William
Katt (“The Greatest American Hero”)
are given cameos as a nutcase who
thinks he’s Jesus and an insensitive
doctor, respectively. These cameos
have nothing to do with the film and
seem to be thrown in to make fun of
Morris and Katt.
And the film gets slightly preachy
and cutesy toward the end, contrasting
with the dark, pensive mood and subtle
message of the rest of the film.
Despite these qualms, the rest of
the film is a unique, bizarre trip that
also manages to remain human. The
Polish brothers have made an interest
ing film that deserves to be seen, if for
no other reason than to get acquainted
with filmmakers who will make a great
film in the future.
