DTH Omnibus Page 7
Thursday February 21, 1991
MIS
This thriller is all in fun
Deathtrap
Thursday, Feb. 1 through Sunday March 3
8 p.m. nightly
3 p.m. Sunday matinees
Carrboro ArtsCenter
929-ARTS
Tickets: $7 public, $5.50 Friends
onight the ArtsCenter opens
Ira Levin's comic thriller,
Deathtrap. " ... two acts,
one set, five characters, a j uicy
murder in Act I, unexpected
developments in Act II, sound con
struction, good dialogue, laughs in
the right places, highly commercial."
In the first moment of the play, Ira
Levin tells us, fairly accurately, his
own summary of his work.
Levin is best known for several
stories that have been turned into
movies. These stories include, in ad
dition to this play: "Rosemary's Baby,"
The Boys From Brazil," "A Kiss Be
fore Dying" and "The Stepford
Wives."
A thriller, by definition, is diffi
cult to write because the story comes
more from surprise than from any
where else, so it is ethically taboo for
The UNC Jazz Band performs in
Even their
By Layton Croft
Assistant Editor
Thank heaven for whims! My
friend J immy dragged me down to the
: women's gym at Woolen last Sunday
night and I was thoroughly moved by
1 a group of dancers. Until then, I knew
; little and cared less for modern dance,
j or neo-dance for that matter. Thank
heaven for UNC Modernextension,
a club sport that should also be classi
fied a romance, tear-jerker and gut-
. wrencher.
The troupe is run entirely by stu
dents and has two faculty advisors,
Killian Manning and Marian Turner.
The men and women who make up
Modernextension do it all: the chore
ography, the music selection and ed
Greg Miller
mm
me to reveal much about the plot. But
since many people did see the movie
of the same name, which was based
on-this play, I will say this: they tam
pered needlessly with Levin's work.
The movie was fun, though. Since
the story has a definite British who
dunit feel, Michael Caine was perfect
as Sidney Bruhl, the forgotten play
wright ("Nothing recedes like suc
cess."), and Christopher Reeve was
surprisingly believable as Clifford
Anderson, the aspiring playwright
who apparently strikes gold with his
first effort. Surprising only because
we know him so well as the "man of
steel." But if you have seen the movie,
be prepared for some fresh surprises.
The rule seems to be that I can tell
you the beginning, but not the middle
or the end, so here goes. Sidney Bruhl
is a once-prominent playwright down
on his luck, 1 8 years down on his luck
and so down on his luck that he has
stooped to giving college seminars
and living off his rich wife's money.
The play opens with Sidney and
his wife Myra in his Connecticut
Great Hall Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m.
dress rehearsals dazzle
iting, the organization and of course
the dance, and they do it right.
Sunday's concert was an informal
'dress rehearsal' for the group's con
certs in Memorial Audirorium April
20 and 21. I had never been to a
modern dance performance and its
power encompasses the realm of
emotion in art and the art of emotion.
. The last of the six pieces performed
was called "Time-Piece." No one
breathed even tuc dancers. Abso
lute brilliance in choreography to
music by Phillip Glass from Akhnaten
gilded this piece with ery. Gen-
try Gibson and Micht.
rand
were outstanding, gracing ev ,
with performed delicacy but r
vated by intense raw emotion..
ve
i.K.e
home. He has just finished reading a
carbon copy of a play sent to him by a
student who attended a recent semi
nar he gave. As mentioned in the
above paragraph, it is highly com
mercial. Sidney calls Clifford, the
young playwright, and invites him
down to talk about his work. Clifford
accepts the invitation from his men
tor and promises to bring the original
so that Sidney will not have to strain
his old eyes reading the carbon. We
then find out that these are the only
copies and no one else has read it or
knows he has been working on it.
You can see where this is going.
Sidney needs a success and wants one
so badly that he begins entertaining
the possibility of murder, much to his
wife's and her bad heart's cha
grin. Not a bad beginning, but be
prepared. Surprise is definitely the
rulerin this play. The plot twists and
doubles back on itself endlessly. In
fact, the end is' so contrived as to
appear mockingly weak. But that is
what it should be.
"Deathtrap" has very little depth,
but it doesn't need it or, for that
matter, want it. It is, quite literally, a
farce of itself, its genre, its author and
even its audience. It seems to write
itself as it goes. I'm looking forward to
the ride.
DTH Sarah King
with other area collegiate bands.
kindled lava.
"Time-Piece" will be performed at
Wake Forest University later in the
spring as a part of a national competi
tion. The group prefaced Sunday's con
cert with a warning that the dancing
may not be dazzling and the choreog
raphy was still in primitive stages.
They said the Memorial Hall shows
would include lighting, costumes,
better sound and polished routines.
But if those artistsathletespoets
of emotion could move an indifferent
ignoramus like myself to modern
dance with a shabby 45-minute 'dress
rehearsal,' then there is no doubt they
will move mountains of souls come
April!
ART
The Ackland Art Museum has
been busy acqu iring new works even
during its three-year refurbishment.
The exhibition, "Recent Acquisi
tions: Prints and Drawings,' will
feature donor gifts and museum
purchases since it closed for renova
tions in 1986. Works on display
date from the 16th to late 20th
centuries and include prints by
Edouard Manet, Henri Matisse and
: Pablo Picasso, and drawings by Rosa
Bonheur and Milton Avery. The
display highlights the direction the
Ackland's collection of drawings
has taken in the last five years. Also
featured in the display are an Andy
Warhol color lithograph, "Liz,"
which depicts Elizabeth Taylor and
cartoonist Honore Daumier's 19th
century lithograph of a seance run
amuck. The exhibition will run
through April 7, and admission is
free.
Works by Chapel Hill artist
Glenn Arndt are on display in the
Carolina Union Art Gallery
through March 8. The exhibit,'
"Terra Incognito," features digitized
photographs, computer-generated
graphics and text. The artist said
the two sections of the display have
highly structured and political
themes.: The first section consists of
narrated pictures and the second is
a visual commentary on plant and
environmental mutation.
BALLET
The Chapel Hill Ballet Com
: pany with guest artists Tyler Walters
and Katie Wakeford, present
Cinderella; the classic fairy tale bal
let at 8 p.m. on March 23 and at 3
p.m. on March 24 at Chapel Hill
High School. Tickets are available
at the door and at Dance Design,
Rams Plaza Chapel Hill. For more
information call 942-2131.
MUSIC
Pianist Michael Zenge will
present a concert of the "Music of
Mozart, Kirchner, Chopin and
Brahms," on Sunday, Feb. 24 at 8
p.m. in Hill Hall Auditorium. The
program will feature four major
works for the piano, including the
first regional performance of Leon
Kircher's "Five Pieces for the Pi
ano." Originally conceived, pub
lished and performed as a cycle of
songs to texts by Emily Dickinson,
ffiM
OMNIBUS
Kircher reworked the material into
a suite for the' solo piano.
The UNC Symphony Orches
tra will present the Department of
music's annual "Scholarship Ben
;; efit Concert" on Tuesday, Feb. 26 ;
at 8 p.m. in Hill Hall Auditorium
Directed byTonu Kalam, featured
artists are the winners of the an
nual UNCConcerto Competition.
The performing students are:
Angelo Gomes, cello; Dawn
Adamiec, flute; Virginia Green,
soprano; Ruth Ann Woodley, pi
; ano and Joel Fox, baritone. Con
certos by Beethoven and Haydn
are two of the works highlighted.
The New Music Ensemble of
UNC-CH will present the Spring
1991 Concert of The Composer-Concert-Series
on Thursday, Feb.
28 at 8 p.m. in Hill Hall auditorium.
The concert will feature the work
of three major American compos
ers and the world premiere work of
by Dalton Winslow, who is just
beginning his professional career.
The four compositions are written
for instrumental ensembles ranging
from a trio to a chamber orchestra
of 11 players.
For more information on the above
listings call 962-BACH.
Remember the Jazz Festival this
weekend. Student Jazz performance
i in the Cabaret at 8 p.m . on Feb. 2 L
Dial & Oatts in Memorial Hall at 8
p.m. on Feb- 22. Ahmad Jamal in
Memorial Hall at 8 p.m. on Feb.
23. and on Feb. 24 from 2 p.m. to 5
p.m. in the Great Hall, college
bands will enterta in. Later at 8
p.m. Don Cherry will be in Me
morial Hall. Don't miss a great
weekend of jazz.
THEATRE
Lab Theatre presents On Tidy
Ending? directed by Allison Herring
and Kim Kessler. The plays revolves
around the confrontation between
the ex-wife and the lover of a man
who just died from AIDS. The play
is one of the first to deal with the
aftermath of AIDS instead of the
discovery of the disease. Playwright
Harvey Fierstein takes a look at the
friends of the deceased picking up
the pieces and coming to terms
with each other and the truth.
Performances are held in the bot
tom of Graham Memorial at 4 p.m.
and 8 p.m. Sunday and Monday,
and on Tuesday at 5 p.m. Admis
sion is free. Good things come out
of the Lab Theatre. Check it out.
oift to jmwa