HIGH GEAR Page 17

"Desire" at You Are Cabaret Audience turned on

by R. Woodward Alive and kicking as vigorously as ever is Tennessee Williams' "Streetcar Named Desire" playing at the You Are Cabaret Dinner Theatre in North Royalton through September 15.

This production is no faded magnolia. Besides being a lively entertainment, it provides some fresh insights into the play's main character Blanche DuBois and how she relates to those around

her.

The play centers around the struggle between Blanche and Stanley Kowalski, the earthy individual married to Stella, her contentedly pregnant sister.

Stanley, like many people who have always been strong and

Classy Fest

(con't from last page)

Acting in different plays on different nights is very hard work, and the various top quality professionals hired by the Shakespeare Festival should have more emotional response than they have been getting from audiences. Live theater, to be entirely successful, has to be a collaboration between the players and the audience. Those employed by Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival have been doing all of what they should be doing and ey deserve audiences consisting of something else besides the walking (or sitting) dead.

The presence is needed of your alert self.

For information and reserva-

tions you can call 216-521-0090.

you are cordially invited

to

JUST A LITTLE -

-

APPLAUSE

starring MISS CATHY CRAIG

* GUESTS INCLUDE *

MISS KATE ALEXANDER * MISS ANGIE MONROE

* MISS NIKKI SUMMERS

SPECIAL GUEST STAR

HEATHER

MC QUEEN

healthy, tends to be indifferent if not callous toward those who are not altogether well. He has the rude, bull-in-a-china-shop innocence of someone who has never been obliged to live close to any ugly realities for any great length of time.

Upon Blanche fell the responsibility of taking care of a number of slowly dying relatives alone after her sister ran away from home, and now, after finally burying everybody, she is mentally exhausted as well as financially depleted. At the beginning of the play she arrives to visit her sister and to tell her that the family property has been lost.

What she does not tell her sister is that she was practically kicked out of town. A high school teacher, she has been fired from her teaching position for getting sexually involved with one of her students. She was already regarded as being the town character. Desire, she says, when exposed and cornered, seemed like the farthest thing from all of the dying around.

cially Blanche's unintentional vulgarity.

Mrs. Zappe, under the direction of David Bamberger, plays Blanche with a certain zestful ruthlessness, frequently regaling, always fascinating the audience, and shedding light into certain recesses of Blanche's being that other actresses have left dark.

Blanche in the play is always trying to avoid the harsh light of reality. She avoids broad daylight and demands that naked light bulbs be covered with pretty shades. Fortunately for us, Bamberger and Mrs. Zappe do not share her inhibition, and seeing the garishness that she wants hidden helps us to understand her better.

This is a Blanche torn between the genteel, ladylike tradition in which she was brought up and her strong physical appetites which have only been able to find sordid outlets. She has not been as lucky as her sister Stella who has been able to give full rein to her appetites in a context relatively wholesome as well as socially acceptable. Blanche has been obliged to fight a losing battle with herself.

Stanley regards her frantic attempts at keeping up a ladylike front as being a flimsy wall of lies to be kicked over for the exercise. Not stupid, but with his intelliColumbus news gence trained only in being clever, he can only see her pretensions as being attempts at ripping him off. He notices that Blanche is sexually attractive and interprets her coyness as being a come-on. As far as he is concerned, there is only one

by Blanche

The animosity between her and Stanley is due not just to his being different from her but also due to a certain similarity. His uninhibited animalism is a continual reminder of the strong sensual side of herself that has been getting the better of her.

Bill Beck is one of the best Stanleys ever, one of the few actors in this role who manages to be all he should be without being too much. As Stanley he looks perfect, moves perfectly, sound perfect, and projects well, without overdominating the play and taking its main focus away from Blanche.

Jackie Engle as Stella conveys clearly and convincingly all of the emotions that go with the part, although she does have some difficulties with the Southern phonemes, sounding at times as if she is doing a Kay Francis impression.

Vic Lambert as Mitch, the sincere, ungainly friend of Stanley's who is embarrassed at how much he perspires and takes an interest in Blanche, has gotten totally into the part, and while watching him, the playgoer cannot imagine this part being acted more convincingly.

One aspect of David Bamberger's direction is a mistake, but the rest of it is brilliant.

He mistakenly supposed that the play could be detached from the period of the late Forties in which it was originally written and produced. Few plays are so completely of a certain period as is "Streetcar Named Desire," and updatings of details that he has done here and there are completely unconvincing. The audience still assumes that the play is set in the late 1940's and sees the altered details as being annoying anachronisms if it

bothers to notice them at all.

This one error of judgment does little harm and is easy to ignore.

One particularly good idea in the casting and directing was having Blanche project more sensual than Stella. The tension between Blanche and Stanley is established immediately and the play's conclusion has never seemed more inevitable.

Bamberger shows us a Blanche who seems new but who was really there all of the time in the original script waiting to be discovered.

You can call for reservations at (216) 237-3220.

MCC holds variety show

By Rob Davis

Shadows of Our Lives was the title of a variety show sponsored by MCC/Columbus. The perforappropriate response for a mance explored "What it's like to

come-on.

Tennessee Williams would

probably rejoice at watching Barbara Corlett Zappe who is playing the role of Blanche at

Your Are Cabaret.

Most actresses playing the role of Blanche seem more concerned with saying her good name than with getting her character across. They feel sorry for her in the wrong sort of way, and exploring her pathos makes them inhibited about exploring the role's comic potential, espe-

NEW

R

be different, caught in a world of stereotypes." The show focused on growing up, beginning with childhood and youth, and continued into adulthood. This production was billed as a "Gay show for a Gay audience," and it certainly spoke to many of us.

The new musical team of Joe Heimlich and Rue Phair wrote several new songs for the show, as well as the orchestration for the production. The music was an integral part of the presentation. The show was fairly tight and well performed. The show was both entertaining and gave a message.

A highlight of the show was an original song titled "Friends".

(Heimlich/Phair, from The Fairy Godmother). This song illustrated the close friendship of two young men as they began to realize how special they were to each other. They sang of how they did everything together and how they always helped each other. Their strong affection for each other made them inseparable childhood pals. At the end of the song, the Fairy Godmother, MC for the show, came up to them while they were holding hands and asked, "Are you SURE you're just friends?" Later in the show, one of the two recited the poem, "Discovery", by Jack Rapala. He explained how he was confused by the feelings he was having: "I'm not Gay. I just want to love men." At the end, both appeared in a closing number." "I'm Gay" (Heimlich/Phair'.

Many of the already-written

songs were given a new interpretation, to express same-sex love. For example, in "Where is Love?" (Bart), the male singer sang "Where is He?" In a different part of the show, a man and woman ran towards each other in slow

motion, imitating a familiar shampoo commercial. In this case, they passed each other and the man continued until he went and embraced a man on stage. Off stage, a voice: "The closer he gets, the prettier he looks."

This writer viewed the produc-

tion as a celebration of love for persons of the same sex. Many in the audience found the performance speaking to them in a var iety of ways about this kind of love. It showed our selfdiscovery, growing up as we realize we are different. It affirmed our right to be different: our duty to be different.

SEPTEMBER 16, 1979 SHOWTIME 4:30 PM

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"Are you JURE you're just friends?" the Fairy Godmother asks. (Photo by Rob Davis)