Wichita Falls Times from Wichita Falls, Texas (2024)

June 8, 1980

Publication:

Wichita Falls Timesi

Location:

Wichita Falls, Texas

Issue Date:

Sunday, June 8, 1980

Page:

64

Extracted Article Text (OCR)

Short stories intense Carter Administration evaluated Sugar Babies' has scholarly roots memorable raffish leering burlesque comedy that flourished in the "20s and early TOs by then just filled in time between the relatively obscene performances" he says there were still some great comics classic scholar gone the way of all flash' Allen and co-writer Barry Rigby received a Tony nomination for best-musical-book for Babies which got eight nominations in all nice consideration at the least for someone whose work a labor of love In Allen's case it began when he was a young man in the SOs and tarried at the Truck Theater in Philadelphia It was a striptease palace then Quivering pastied displays of the female Figure had long since crowded out the By JAY SHARBITT AP Drama Writer NEW YORK I API Down in Knoxville at the University oT Tennessee a kindly drama professor the son of professors holder of a doctorate from the august Yale School of Drama But Ralph world does not consist entirely of Ibids op cits and dissertations lie co-authored hit show of burlesque comedy pretty women and music Babies an anomaly in my life he says just a theater tantly based on scenes of that But they aren't pure reproductions he emphasizes They've been given new angles different twists speeded up so they jar the ears of modern audiences don't sound like anachronisms written them from scratch So it really is an invented past not a remembered The rewrites and polishing took a year during which time Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller were lured from Hollywood and the rest of the cast and chorus assembled Then tried out on the road in San Francisco Los Angeles Chicago Detroit and Philadelphia "Babies" toddled onto Broadway last October and has been a hot-ticket item ever Naturally this pleases the mild-mannered professor who talks so expertly of such matters as Little Egypt a cooch dancer or Girl in who got arrested in 1905 for He even invited New York producers to come see it They said no dice no possibilities in it for Broadway came to pass he was invited to Lincoln Center here to speak with other scholars about theater in America His scholarly paper dwelt on the history ingredients and appeal of burlesque and bore the title My Mather's Knee and Other Low Present in the audience at was Harry Rigby Broadway mogul fan of nostalgia Afterwards the producer told the professor "We ought to do a Whereupon the professor said I happen to have one right here in my Whereupon work began but it was more than trotting out the old burlesque classics and staging them again had to do an awful lot of Allen says sketches in Babies' resemble in spirit and style the kind of humor that was played in burlesque in the Twenties and Thirties and they are dis throwing her garters into the audience even though she wasn't still in them at the time It doesn't bother him that academics or civilians of tender sensibility call a celebration of vulgarity know real intellectuals it seems to me like low he says the middlebrows who object to He recalls that a certain famous Broadway director he declined to name the party stalked out of "Sugar having informed him that were setting the American musical theater To this the profesor replies: really It seems to me a kind of wit and wisdom to burlesque that really la a great invention of our popular And such he says not to be sniffed at I always get very annoyed when pretentious people argue that burlesque is low and Film Clips Carter came to the White House intellectually better prepared than any recent president to deal with problems that will face the country for the rest of the century The Carter Administration has fallen short of that promise and though this is not entirely Carter's fault he must take the share of the blame There have been a number of successes in the Carter Administration: approval of the Panama Canal treaties major civil service reform and maintenance of a high ethical tone in the White House But Carter gets little credit for his accomplishments and this to due in part to failure to communicate effectively to the American people The Carter Administration has committed its share of political blunders and has been weak in some critical areas Carter has not been able to work well with Congress has failed to broaden his contacts with people outside his inner circle of advisors and has initiated den changes in pedicles that have confused people both here and abroad The Absence of is a fair and balanced analysis of the Carter Administration In identifying the complex and more restrictive political circ*mstances a president now faces he has raised a serious question about the ability of any president to be an effective leader in the immediate future IN THE ABSENCE OP POWER: GOVERNING AMERICA by Haynes Johnson Viking $1205 By MICHAEL FLAVIN Midwestern State Univ This is the kind of analysis that should be available to the American people whenever a president decides to seek a second term Readers of books like The Absence of will be better able to decide if they want the Incumbent president to seTve another four years Haynes Johnson Pulitzer Prize winning journalist now with the Washington Post has been on the Washington scene for over 20 years Here he de- scribes the political forces at work in both Washington DC and in the country in general He presents the accomplishments and failures of the first two and one-half years of the Carter Administration Any person elected president in 1976 would have had a difficult time running the country more difficult In fact than his immediate predecessors The press was inclined to be more critical of a performance particularly after the excesses of the Nixon Administration Congress was more Independent interest groups were more active and there were morale problems within the bureaucracy People throughout the United States had become very pessimistic Johnson believes Jimmy p'- 'jUk jb Ai JOURNALIST WRITES ABOUT POLITICS "ln Absence of Power: Governing America' For healthier living WHERE TO LIVE FOR YOUR HEALTH by Norman and Madelyn Carlisle Har-ceart Brace Jovaaovlch Comedy opens Friday around and I kept thinking of the possibilities He pauses to emphasize he went to see the comics not the strippers: really did I found striptease really boring taking IS minutes to remove a glove that kind of Speaking of much earlier good old days he says marvelous thing about burlesque humor was that the comics weren't True they worked a kind of a Ussled theater of the absurd but other kinds of absurdist comedy they're not bitter or cynical There was a marvelous kind of anarchy in a conventional structure that reassured He feared that what he calls a American form of folk comedy" would be lost in time So he became a burly-cue-humor buff and tracked down still-living practitioners of it guys like Billy and Hagan His labors as student collector and historian of the whiz-bang pun-filled school of yesteryear burlesque persisted through his college days and his 20 ensuing years as a university professor In 1978 it all began to bubble Allen a director as well as teacher author of four plays was asked to do a bicentennial show in Tennessee What better way to celebrate America he thought than to salute a homegrown art form called burlesque He created a show called New Majestic Follies and Lyceum Garden Revue" The Empire Strikes Back 9 with a crescendo or later it was bound to happen a book an where to live The authors live in New Mexico reasons of which should tell us something Norman and Madelyn Carlisle Ainixx how weather affects our well-being They emphasize that climatic changes can result in fatigue migraine rheumatic pain anxiety forgetfulness and a host of other irritations and ailment Humidity dryness extremes of heat and cold altitude barometric pressure quality of air and water are factors in our health Weather-sensitive ere afflicted often to THE HENRY AWARDS 1989 ed by William Abrahams Doubleday $1295 By RUSSELL HILL Staff Writer The 1960 Henry Awards Prize Stories the most distinguished annual collection of short Action in America presents 400-plus pages of the finest short fiction anywhere period No brag just fact Too often truly good short fiction is lost among the reams of commercial writing and esoteric criticism where it is commonly published The list of magazines consulted for the 1980 Henry Awards for example contains titles of more than 100 literary journals quarterlies and reviews and semes of other magazines from The New Yorker and Playboy to Rolling Stone and Mother Jones But the OHenry Awards brings to one volume stories by familiar authors Saul Bellow Peter Taylor Jean Stafford and unfamiliar authors all of them powerful or lonely or nostalgic Most of the 22 short stories in the collection are 18 pages or less the longest by far is 58 pages All can be read in the proverbial one sitting which is nice for most readers these days The short fiction in this volume intense compact polished is in fact almost poetry poetry in prose The stories displace the everyday reality of isolation and confusion with their enchanting illusions of meaning These stories actually feel good Bellows first prize story "A Silver paints the melancholy dissipation of a father's self-willed character in his modern son In in a Roman Nancy Hainan's second prize story a young American woman deserted with two children in an Italian apartment suddenly understands her bulky haranguing raw landlady Leonard Michaels' Men's Club" third prize winner depicts a different kind of male chauvanism powerless unwanted unreconc liable A surprising number of stories bear a touch for Mother" Like or Consequences' Perhaps the best surprise of the entire collection is Talk" by Stephanie Vaughn a modern realistic love story which in its 12 pages of a young couple's cross-country move creates a desperate unspoken communion that whole novels often labor to discover These stories" are not powderpuffe gushing with flowers and showers and bubblebaths They tap worlds lives experiences that arise in everyone and perhaps only lately are being acknowledged They offer meanings as tempting as soothing in a chaotic world as such as Peter "The Old Forest" or Andre Dubus Pitcher" Beggars be choosers And basically readers are beggars No brag just fact Which is what makes the 1980 a Henry Awards Prize Stories such a fortunate and welcome handout Mystery is picture not piot GLITTER ft ASH by Denote Smith Datton $9-95 By KATRICIA COCHRAN Staff Writer Bigpe mystery about this novel is not contained within the pages It to on the back of the jacket There are photographs of two men One of Dennis Smith author The other is of Sean Smith unknown No where could an explanation be found as to why the second Mr Smith should have his picture on the jacket Smith the author is a Fireman in New York City Since he has written three other books on firefighting as well as being founding editor of Firehouse magazine it can be assumed that Dennis Smith knows whereof he writes Regarding firefighting Not much can be said in his favor regarding other aspects of his newest novel Oh it starts out exciting enough A man in a black cape is hiding under trees in Central Park watching guests enter the city's newest discotheque ft filled with unreal people who say and think unreal things The hero tor example is so concerned that he and his girlfriend are not having a meaningful relationship that he barely aide to have a sexual relationship with her The giri by the way isn't worried about the meaningful aspects of their friendship While he is trying to solve the mystery the man in cape sets fire to the disco the hero is sidetracked by mother his father his sister no brother thank goodness) his partner boss policemen and sundry others Despite its enticing title ft Ash" is a shallow disappointing bit of writing The best part about it may be the mystery of Sean identity Commando gambler spy: Trio in thriller The human touch that is characteristic of Jean writing surfaces when Katy gives her recipe for corn on the cob: just leave it in the water until I get nervous" Don't Eat The and are other Jean Kerr hits that have been done on Broadway and on film She also is the author of collections of humorous pieces such as Snake Has All the and "Penny Completing the cast of are Jim Wetzel Sarah Duncan and Rosemary Whitehead The (day will run Thursdays through Saturdays until July 5 after its opening Friday A 5 matinee is scheduled June 29 Ticket reservations and information are available at Backdoor 322-5000 Discounts are offered for senior citizens military personnel students and children Jean comedy of a family beset by marital and domestic problems will open at 8:15 Friday at Backdoor Theater is characteristic of Mrs incisive talent for comedy The story revolves around Ka-ty and Jeff (Peggye McNair and Patrick Jackson) and their three sons The sons are played by Barry Lucy Ronnie Jackson and Will St Clair The oldest son brings home his live-in girlfriend from Harvard completely shocks his conventional parents and triggers the headlong events that are the core of the play own self-examination and JefFs temptation for a midlife fling with a pretty student provide the characterizations that caused New York critics to proclaim Touches "another comedy gem-romantie sentimental and funny Pure Jean Kerr" the point of mental and emotional confusion For tips on geographic health To will prove beneficial Find out why you are depressed tired and absent-minded You may want to move Musical evening to be for everyone playing the piano to keep him going Brownlow is taken to America to head up a race track illegal betting investigation A long-time horse player ability at infiltration to needed to attempt to break an off-track operate that to siphoning millions way from the State of California and track owners When Brownlow successful ty cracks the operation but lets guilt of his British upbringing override his judgment the battle of revenge begins Bocca has succeeded in putting together a novel that is just bard to put down The weave of plot and sub-plot to a brilliant mix to keep the bedside reading lamp going for hours In creating a suspense thriller Bocca's Cheshire Cat ending Is the cheesecake dessert to top off a great steak The Empire Strikes Back is a success on every level a roaring soaring laser-finng wonder-mspinrg Mm Once again ths is a story set for tuds from age 3 to 103 with enough act on to please the most demanding acbon-film buffs and a story to sahsN the critical appetites of sc-ft purists Comparisons to the original are unfa: one would not say that this is 'better' than Star Wars' or it is S-mply a sohd continuation of what happened me previous story Luke Skywaker advances in his force' tranirg with hs instructor a kttte green gnome who aso framed OtM-Wan Kenobi Han So'o stiU wants to be out on lus own but something always pufr turn back to the frght And perhaps the most important reason he comes back is the stern but det-nto-ly appealing Princess Le a As the legend of Wars g-ows more compiev the story ranges over more char acters but also goes mto greater depth on each of tner respect-ve back-g-ounds The screenplay by Le gh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan provdes rich material not or'y ter action acd corfftct but contains scap opera e'-ements w-tn dramatic twists and personal revea-hons But i ary of it ever becomes me'odramatic or heavy-handed me periecty timed humcr comes to remnd us that this is fantasy at its best One of tne most remarkable things about Wars' is the repeat business it hd at the box office that is peop'-e who came back three four or even fourteen times to see tne rebel forces dest-oy the Deatn Star The same snouid happen to 'The Empire St'ikes with Darth Vader's return by AT Yurko The Empire Street Back" from 20th Century Fox Executive producer George Luces Directed by Irvm Kershner Starring Mark Ham II Carr-e Fisher and Harr-son Ford Hated PG Review RareV the history of the cinema has a Mm been more eagerly awaited tnan the tohow-up Wm to nutted 'The Empire Strikes Back' Unless you have been bwng S-feeria tor the past three years you know tnat Star is the top moneymaking Wm of ail tune and at HeMywood one of the chr laws of Wmmakmg is that success must beget sequel It is afro an unwritten law Hokywood that the sequel does not a-ways beget success and the reasons ter tfs are varied and often unclear to the filmmakers themselves Whether it a piyigt personnel less financing a dernt director ai inadequate script or any namier of other factors this mest con-pie of arts the sequel rare iy makes ft critically or hnancia There are exceptors of course and when they occur is usually because tne h-m had me same chief gutd ng hand as d-d its predecessor An esampie would be 'Godfather Part 2 made under the gliding hand of Francis Ford Ceppoa me case The Eirp-re Straws one g-t say that this Mm as wen as 'Star wars' had as its George Lucas Athoogh he wrote as wen as drccied the onffnai him he produced Pus sequet and thus insured that even if he didn't do everyth mg (umscif it was done accordirg to tvs master pun- Gail Key Eastman Bob Hansen Vicki Miller and Jeanette Bail are working with Mrs Smith in coordinating events for the evening of June 28 Last year hundreds and hundreds of men women ana children enjoyed Under the They were attracted by the music the informality and the sense of old-fashioned neighborliness that pervaded the park It was considered a success by both those who arranged it and those who attended THE FOURTH HORSEMAN By Geoffrey Bocca Rawson Wade $895 By RANDY FISHER 8Uff Writer Maj Robert Brownlow British Special Air Services was the best of Her Majesty's officers trained in anti-terrorist activities Neither the IRA Protestant para-militaries nor the Palestinian Liberation Organization were too tough for Brownlow to infiltrate report on and walk away from with out detection But Brownlow's biggest problem was becoming a victim of his own successes When the IRA successfully assassinated a member of the Royal Family British authorities were content to while Brownlow questioned suspects Whenever Brownlow and hte men were able to unearth new Irish terrorism in the works British authorities had no qualms about authorizing commando activities Finally- the success of interrogations became recognized as excess A eourtmartial out of Her service soon followed Fourth Horseman" picks up Robert Brownlow on the down and We invite you to Visit our Booth at the Parade of Homes Building Products Show at Sikes Senter Mail Through Sat June 7th triatrial Supply Inc 1206 HATTON ROAD 1206 HATTON RGAD KELL OPTICAL Dust off that picnic basket and rinse out the thermos jug be needing them June 23 the night there will be music and old-time village square relaxation in Bridwell Park Under the will begin at 8:30 a repeat of last year's successful citywide entertainment Everything except soft drinks popcorn and such will be bee There will be all sorts of musical entertainment which will continue until II pm that special Saturday The park tennis courts will be transformed into dance floors And all kinds of music will be performed: The Mad Medics win play Dixieland jazz The Red River Bluegrass Band will be there with traditional country tunes Joyce Smith is talent chairwoman for die event and any performers who want to be included may call her at 323-1205 Mrs Smith also will be singing during the evening Other performers will be Jim and Martha Bell Doug Eastman Delores Jones and Judy Diltz Mrs Jones is president of the Musicians Chib the organization that is sponsoring Under the as it did a year ago She hopes all who come will consider it an extension a coda to the City in Concert celebration of the National Week of Music done through the affiliation with the National Federation of the his bis Cochran ffipph ghopp 322-7722 Aqr Smm ui Sh WM Wm Uk Brook at Kell The Leader in Fashion Eyewear! IN-STORE OPTICAL LAB WITH SAME DAY SERVICE ON MOST SINGLE VISION GLASS IN CR39-GLASS AND PHOTO GRAY URGE STOCK OF DESIGNER SUNGLASSES and LEATHER FRAMES WICHITA FALLS TEXAS 7i302 (8171 723-1430 PARKERSQUARI PHONE H7 -5182 Upun 900 AM to SJ 0 Ogm Thyrt 700 Sunday Manaxlnn Wichita Falls Timet June 1980 mmniiiiiiiiim 1 SUNDAY Magazine Wichita Falls Times June 1980 Music Clubs.

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