Page Four
.—

SCARLET AND BLACK

Friday, February 13, 7969

 

Phitoctetes: Unintegrated Implausibility

By KEN HICKS

F 'As i leit ARH last weekend
.niter watching Grinnell’s pro»
uuctlon of Sophocles’ Philome-
les, i tried to figure out just
,what it was that had confused
me. I had been bombarded with
great emotions, immense sut-
,iering and Herculean conﬂict;
my ears rang with the resound-
in g colloquial eloquence of
greater-than-lile people solving
greaterthan-liie dilemmas; i

had seen the island of Lemnos
bathed in special effects; and
as I left the theater l began to
Search for the point 01 it allr
In looking for some unifying
thread of theme or interpreta-
tion, it appeared there hadn’t
been any I saw most of the
pieces of a production laid ollt
in proper order but never quite
joined together; a great deal of
passion with no object, a great
many elfects for no purpose,

 

" tissues tourist

Corner 4th & Broad
Grinnell, Iowol

Being with each other, doing things together . . . know-
ing that your affection IS growing into precious and
enduring love, Happily, all these cherished moments
twill beiorever symbolized by your diamond engagement
iring. If the name, Keepsake, is in the ring and on the tag.
you are assured of fine quality and lasting satlsiactlon.
iThe engagement diamond is flawless, of superb color,
yand precise modern out. Your Keepsake Jeweler will
yassist you in making your selection. ,. He‘s in the yellow
pages under ”Jewelers.” Rings from $100 to $10,000.
Illustrations enlarged to show detallPTrede-mark reg.
M, H. Pond C0,, lnc.. Est. 1892

REGISTERED
Kegpﬂzg'

DIAMOND RINGS

HOW TO PLAN YOUR ENGAGEMENT AND WEDDlNG-l

Fleece send new 20-page booklet, "How To Plan Your Engage-
ment and Wedding“ and new lZ—pnge full color iolder. both for

Clty-———-—————_—.
9ta!e——_.Zip

only 259, Also, 36nd special 0'19! oi beaulllul 44-31339 Brlde'a Book. I
i no

I

I

I

I

|

KEEPSAKE DIAMOND RINGS. BOX 90, SYRACUSE. N. Y. 13201

____.____.____._________________._J

-—*—_—

and a great crescendo of sound
and fury signifying little.

First of all, I’d like to say in

, passing that the Alumni Recita-

tion Hall was quite appropriate-
ly named. it is a recitation
hall, and not a theater. The dis-
tractions inherent in the physi-
cal layout of the hall are such
that any production mounted
there is immediately in trouble
All three productions given
there in the past two years
have suffered from slamming
doors and the impossibility of
masking an unavoidably unat-
tractive stage, The balcony is
too high and too close, and the
absence of wings and entrances
makes eftective blocking most
difﬁcult

Fascination with Effect

The set immediately remind-
ed me or Gulliver's flying island
of Laputa. Throughout the proa
duction I wondered whether the
action was taking place ’aboard
a ship or on dry land. The rake
of the stage seemed uncom-
fortably steep, and provided not
only problems of blocking but
also the possibility that one
false step would have meant a
tumble into the laps of those
sitting in the front row of seats,

The set seemed to be a vague
Intellectual conception which

‘had little relation to what was

happening dramatically, The
same can be said, I Lhink, of
the lights, music. and costumes,
While the initial effect of the
lights was very exciting, Cun<
centrating on mood and not on
realistic lighting, i soon began
to want desperately to see the
actor’s faces a play, after all,
is meant to be seeniand too
much of this one wasn’t.

Paul Zonn‘s electronic music
come as an initial shock, but

later In the 'play did add to the
mood, I wonder, however. it it's
the mood Sophocles had in
mind

I was completely thrown
by the costumes of the chorus.
Besides being very daring they
seemed to me inappropriate.
Agam it was a case of fascina-
tion With an effect which had
little to do with the dramatic
content of the play. Dressed as
slaves, and not as the patriClans
they should have been, the
crew llever seemed capable or

“looking out for Neoptolemus"

good,” nor tor that matter of
mounting any effective attack
against Troy. They were not
"dressed like Greeks." and
when Philoctetes says they are,
it is apparent that plausibility
has been sacriﬁced to effect
Plausihilty sacriﬁced in Acting

I think plausibility was also
sacrificed in the performance
given by Peter Arnot in the
title role. Mr. Arnot’s exagger-
ated declamatory style, so ela-
quent in his puppet shows,
tended to become pure rant, to
[use its effectiveness, and final-
ly to become hollow and tedious
in a production with real people.
Mrs Arnot seemed to be more
concerned with his technical
virtuosity than with the prob-
lem of presenting a believable
character. I couldn’t believe
his anguish, i couldn‘t sympa—
mice with his predicament, I
couldn‘t Jindersland his con-
ﬂict, and I finally wished some-
one would drop him overboard.
I think a little more communi-
cation with his fellow actors
would have made Mr, Amol’s
performance much more en-
joyable.

Penelope Reed’s style of acting
was the opposite of Mr. Arnol‘s,
The conflict Neoptolemils had

 

Meanwhile”;

Back in the CRYlNli ROOM

Once we ilnd onions that are grand enough to be
pampered and fussed over and transformed into
those golden-crisp onion rings that King's are so
famous for—well, we're so happy we just cryl
And cry. And cry. (But we really don't mind, be-
cause only the BEST will do for KlNG’S...and

BEYMER’S

YOU.)

ELI“ KING‘S Food Host u.s.A.

W

GRINNELL

with his conscience was per-
haps the only clearly deﬁned
conflict in the entire produc-
tion, and the reason for this
was that Miss Reed was ob-
viously making the character as
believable as possible. To make
her character “real,” however.
in a production which was any-
thing but real, Miss Reed was
also forced to exaggerate the
style of her performance to the
point that it became implaus.
ible. Obviously, the primary
reason for this was that she
was cast as a 14 year old boy,
which itself seems to me to
provide almost insurmountable
problems. As it was, she seem-
ed stylistically out of place on
the Stage: one more part Of all
unintegrated wholer
Effectiveness Reduced

It struck me as l‘watched
Odysseus laying’his trap that
this Was a man of incredible
strength of will and purpose, of
amazing cunning and clever.
ness, of such power that in the
end it is only the gods who can
stand in his Way, I think that
Robert: lngham’s performance
often lacked the strength neces~
sary to the role, and that ex-
cept in spots in the first and
last scenes, this “greatness” of
character was not consistently
conveyed. Ultimately. of course,
the greater responsibility for
this inconsistency of character-b ,
zation must lie With the dime
tor, but regardless of origin, the
fact that Odysseus came across
as a mischievous prankster in-
stead of the epitome of hard-
headed pragmatism detracted
from both the dramatic irony
and the effectiveness of the
conflict.

I was confused about the Ilse
of the chorus. Were they, actu<
ally, a Greek chorus, in which
case the attempt to give each
member individuality as a part
of the crew was out of place?
01- were they individually sep-
arate characters, in which case
their Occasional monkish in-
cantations seemed uncomfort-
ably contrived? Apparently, a
Combination at these two func-
tions was attempted, but i think
this resulted in the etlecuvo
utilization of neither, ‘

Bits of inspiration

What i saw last weekend,
seemed to be a great many in-
consistencies stiung together by
a thin thread of isolated effects
Lights, sound, costumes, set.
tings. acting styles: all these
seemed to he bits of inspiration
which were never closely exam-
ined as to their mutual compati.
billty. There seemed to be little
control over the production; it
was'as though the effects had
gotten the bit in their teeth and
were racing passionately to no
apparent end I was never
sure why I was to consider
the action taking place on
stage as at all important. Thun-
der and lightning doesn't neces»
sarily make a storm, nor does
volume and intensity make a .
playi Metaphorically, it this
production had been ailiving,
breathing thing, which 1 don't
think it was, it would have
been examining itself in a mire
[on Or, better, it would have
been Phiioctetes, standing with
arms upraised in awe of a god
whose voice sounds remarkably
like his own.

 

