■••nBigAL
volume 10 number 7
charlotte, north Carolina
October 15, 1974
NCSL Composed
Of Various Majors
by rita mccloskey
The NCSL delegation of
UNCC titled Students for
Political Action, has been
chosen for the 1974-75 session.
The students form a variety of
interests other than those
pursuits solely concerning
politics. One Spanish,
architecture, several english,
history and economics majors
offer quite a crosssectional
sampling of student of sampling
of student representation.
The major purpose of the
Students for Political Action
throughout the two academic
semesters is the investigation,
research and formulation of
two, possibly three, bills for
presentation before the entire
North Carolina Student
Legislature at a meeting' in
Raleigh in April, and all colleges
and universities in the state are
invited to attend. Forty per cent
of all bills passed by the NCSL
have gone on to become state
laws through passage by the
North Carolina State
Legislature. Bills previously
presented to NCSL have dealt
with subjects such as: state
abortion laws, establishment of
pre-natal care facilities,, student
rights on their respective
campuses, and financial
allocation to state educational
institutions. Meetings held at
intermediate periods before
Raleigh meeting at various
colleges and universities around
the state are important to elect
officers to various committees.
The NCSL for Political
Action's co-chairpersons for the
1 974-75 session are Ed
Hendricks and Cynthia Bennett,
with their advisor being Dr. Bill
McCoy of the Political Science
Department. The Students for
Political Action are to meet on
Sunday, October 13th, at 7:00
in Sanford Lounge to debate
various proposals and
ultimately decide the major ills
to take to Raleigh. Student
input on bills to be presented
would be welcomed by any
NCSL member.
Creative Arts Review
USA: A Moving Portrait of America
by mike mcculley
The scene is jurrping into
time, bringing off the creation
of an era, of an entire country
running full throttle into a
global war, a Great Depression,
and the Selling of a Dream. It is
1974, and then quickly, it is
1900, and the people look
vaguely familiar and strangely
different.
Underneath a giant dollar
bill, a rear-screen projector
flashslides images of Woodrow
Wilson, war mobs, a tiny
wobbling air machine hanging in
there by a couple of
d o - i t • o u r se I V e s bicycle
mechanics. Stage right a quarter
of dancers, slinky women and
cool men, turn an arrogant and
passionate cheek to it all-while
Rome burns. Heroes of both
sexes, Valentino and Isadora
Duncan, bare a raw breast of
truth, and their myths explode
like some paper-maiche head
stuffed with Fourth-of-July
firecrackers. Headlines speak to
you, the crazy and the crucial,
the voices living echoes in warm
bodies. You know when to
laugh, the comic juggler has
been severed, the sermon slides
down with a dose of Billy
Sunday. The Way We Were goes
down hard..
The play, an adaptation by
Paul Shyre of John Dos Passos'
USA, was experienced on a
Sunday evening during its final
performance. There was a small
but warm crowd of mixed ages,
and though they did not offer
the players a standing ovation,
you felt it was not from a lack
of appreciation for the superb
performance; the play drained
and sucked, balanced you
between tragedy and comedy
until your sense of values was in
limbo, numbed, as Dos Passos
knew at would be. The satire,
which covered the period from
1900-1938 like a speeding reel
of New York Times on
microfilm, had bite and was
performed with a special touch
of deadpan seriousness that
disarmed you without mercy.
You know why the play's
contemporary performances
appealed and outraged at the
same time.
Anyone who knows
anything about theater knows
what blood-and-love are given to
create a full-seal nini-universe,
and- the cast of people who
offered their services for USA is
tremendous. The mere listing of
names would never do justice to
what it means to participate in
theatrical creation--so much
time and energy and sweat,
attention to every delicate
detail. And this family of hu
man beings, with all its maze of
human complexity, became a
living vehicle, and they know
that they grew and learned and
shared and became lovers in and
through their art.
William Rackley's overall
steady hand was clearly
professional and sensitive in
guiding the play's ultimate
shape. And Robert Croghan, Jr.,
again revealed his imagination in
costuming, both appropriate
and evocative. The stage, a
transmogrified wonder built on
the ruins of a previous
adventure with Don Quixote,
enabled the panaroma of scenes
and actions all the background
needed without dominating: an
excellent lesson in scenic design
and adaptation.
In a cast that as a whole
gave some of the best
performances UNCC's ever had,
there were some special
standouts. John Lowrimore,
playing J. Ward Morehouse to
an American Businessman's
epitome, reminds me of Dustin
Hoffman and has a career in
theater if he wants it. His
characterization was total and
commanding. Eddie Williams
handled his various roles
admirable as did veteran
performer Diane Hoff. Robert
Montgomery is still giving
evidence that he is the best new
face and talent at UNCC in
recent years, his monologue as
Rudolph Valentino
notwithstanding. Catherine
Taylor and June Altizer played
beautiful women, complex
women, and each showed
excellent and fresh talent.
I was caught off-guard by
the closing sequence-even
though its power of a soldier
chorus going ott to yet another
war as cannon fodder was
gripping. Still, there was the
sense remaining that continuity
was implicat in such an ending,
that Dos Passos had stopped
writing but his play,with us is
his characters, kept rolling
along, rolling on across more
amber waves of grain, making
everything tidy for democracy.
Fragmented existence as
Americans, told in ragtag
fragments to ragtime music-this
was USA, as in good old and
land of and as a spirit like Dos
Passos lived it. It was all there
Sunday night again, grace be to
the memory of theater, to the
souls of actors, actresses,
playwrights, technicians,
rrusicians-those who bring us
the bits and pieces, life
measured out in coffeespoons.,
paraded on view like so much
dirty laundry.. Bravo!