SHAKESPEARE GETS PANNED February 2, 1960

REVIEWER CALLS “COMEDY OF ERRORS” LOUSY  by Valerie Weeks

February 2, 1960

The program notes for University theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s “The Comedy of Errors” express surprise that it is not played more often.  After seeing it, one knows why.

In fact, one wonders why University theatre purposefully selected what is notorious for being Shakespeare’s worst comedy, if not the worst of all his plays.

It was probably selected because it was felt the comic and slapstick elements in the play could make a successful light production, if not a memorable one.  But, without a cast of dyed-in-the-wool, hardened professional comics this is impossible no matter who is producing the play.

In other words, “Comedy of Errors” is a lousy play.  It was badly written and poorly constructed and followed through.  The comic scenes are repetitious and dull.  One is never quite sure, of all the twins, who is on the stage, and one is worn out watching the play without having derived any merriment from it.

Shakespeare listed the play from Plautus’ “Menechini,” where he should have left it.  It is one of Shakepeare’s earliest comedies, and it has all the signs, a complicated plot; stiff, unnatural dialogue; and a peculiar, undeveloped mixing of tragic and comic elements.

So, given these preliminary problems, there is little a cast of university players can do but bear with the play and try to get around it by using what little they know and rarely get to practice about low, slapstick comedy.

There is little desire on the reviewer’s part to continue.  The play is a bad one.  the players and director did their best but what resulted was not an entertaining production.  The only production of the “Comedy of Errors” that ever had any potential was Rogers and Hart “The Boys from Syracuse,” a 1930’s musical saved by the music.

To the credit of the play, it was well-paced and never dragged, a decided possibility in the tedious unraveling of the plot in the second act.  The action was good and the players told their story without belaboring it.

In addition, the play looked good.  That is, the groupings and movement on stage was quite effectively done by means of different levels and a variety of entrances off and onto the stage.  There was a studied effort to place the characters where they would look the best in relation to other characters and to the plot.

Set against a most effective background, built to represent a street in early 19^th century Europe, the stage pictures were very pleasing.  However, the contortions the actors went through to set up these stage pictures not only wore out the actors but also the audience.  At once point, the abbess walks across the stage, up some stairs, and turns immediately around and comes back down, while reciting a speech.

On the debit side, there is the acting out of the play.  It was dull and rarely humorous.

If there was an outstanding performance, it was certainly that of Paula Ragusa [later Paula Prentiss], as Adriana the shrewish wife to one of the twin brothers.  She was the perfect shrew with the loud voice and the flaying arms.  [sic]

Paul Hardy, as the twin Antipholus of Syracuse, did a competent job.  He gave his lines what life he could, but did his best work in pantomime and silent reaction to situations.  Several of the comic bits he and Larry Smith, as his servant Dromio, were the most effective in the play.

Smith, who played both twins Dromio, was most enjoyed by the audience.  He resorted to low comedy routines, as he should have, rolling on the stage, falling, doing double takes, and acting generally unaware of much that was going on.

If there was any fault in his performance, it was that he over-played his part without working with anyone else on stage, except Hardy.

Bill Pogue, as Antipholus of Ephesus, and Sharon Risk, as Luciana, Adriana’s sister, read their poorly written lines without inspiration, in contrast to Hardy and Ragusa.

And Robin Deck, as the courtesan, looked and acted the part brassily enough but never stopped moving the entire time she was on the stage, although attention was rarely centered on her.

The costumes were the poorest this season.  Although there is no particular objection to doing the comedy in Empire dress, the colors are badly matched (particularly that of Antipholus) and the women’s costumes appeared to have been hastily thrown together, one swatch of material over another.

It is too bad that University theatre had to select a comedy like this one to display its talents.  At least “Endgame” was a conscientious effort to experiment and “Caesar and Cleopatra” was an entertaining extravaganza.

This play was last produced at Northwestern in 1939.  Perhaps it would not be asking too much to wait 40 instead of 20 years before the next production.

[Notes:  Weeks never does name the director, but -- judging from the cast -- I suspect it was Krause.  Perhaps it was also Krause who directed in 1939, maybe to better reviews.  But this is speculation.]

Here's a pre-performance publicity clip from the Daily Northwestern.  There was no story.  Thirkield's name is misspelled. Paula Ragusa is unnamed.  

A CRANKY REVIEW OF "DON JUAN" March 1, 1960

Dave Roberts became Tony Roberts

DAILY NORTHWESTERN  March 1, 1960

ROBERTS’ GOOD ASSIST SAVES UT’S DON JUAN

(D NW Editor’s note:  Since the regular Daily reviewer was out of town last weekend, Norman Mark was assigned to review “Don Juan” for the paper.)

The Northwestern theatre department is currently presenting a delightful evening’s entertainment, an “Introduction to Dave Roberts,” under the name of Moliere’s “Don Juan.”

In the role of Sganarettle, Don Juan’s valet, Mr. Roberts carries or participates in nearly everything that comes off right during the evening.  Facial reactions to other characters’ dialogue, pauses scattered through his own lines, the bits of humorous business -- all produce the desired comic effect without resorting to slapstick.

The play opens with Sganarelle speaking to Gusman (David Cremosnik) about Don Juan’s life and loves.  Gusman speaks his lines so lifelessly, in comparison to Sganarelle, that the reviewer is forced to surmise that he is not really interested in the play.

In the middle of this scene, Don Juan enters, played inadequately by David Zegers.  The seducer of 1,003 women in Spain doesn’t know how to wear his costume or live up to his legend.

Errol Flynn and who cares?

Everything about him tends to enforce this impression -- from the distracting movements of the head and hands to the emaciated bit of peach fuzz under his chin.  Someone playing in the legend of John Barrymore, Doug Fairbanks, and Errol Flynn (all past Don Juans -- in films), should at least look like he has some talent in the bedroom arts, rather than a boy caught in the wrong costume party without his I.D.

As soon as Don Juan enters, Sganarelle goes to his knees and from then on the part could have been played by an amputee.  With the focus being on Mr. Roberts so much of the time, why did the director choose to have him in a position where it is difficult for the audience to see him?

Roberts and Walther

Don Juan announces that he has found a new love and he is going to give up his present one, Donna Elvire.  After she comes in and scolds him, for some unknown reason he has to leave.  Then he almost drowns off the coast of Scotland, makes love to two peasant girls, goes through a forest manhandling, saving Spaniards and inviting statues to dinner on the way to the end of Act I.

Gretchen Walther (Donna Elvire) is much more convincing when she returns in the second act to reform Don Juan than in the first when she gives vent to her anger.  Holding crosses rather than beating her side with riding crops seem to be her forte.

Marcia Rodd

Pierrot (Pat Brumbaugh), Charlotte (Susan Shanks), and Mathurine (Marcia Rodd), all portray Scottish peasant folk almost too well -- their accents sometime obscure the dialogue.  

On the technical aspects, the set does not look Spanish.  It . . . [piece missing]

play was Donna Elvire’s brothers, Don Carlos (Laird Williamson) and Don Alonzo (Larry Kamm).  Embodying the “pundonor,” or point of honor that bound Spanish noblemen to revenge a family disgrace with the blood of the debaucher, the two brothers help Don Juan with one of his better scenes, when they try to decide whether or not to make him part of a shish-ka-bob.

The second act goes from the wild to the weird, with fathers scolding, tradesmen being outfoxed, a statue coming to dinner and finally a full company of spectres and demons.  All of these supporting characters are quite believable in their roles.  Unfortunately, they have to deal with Don Juan, who isn’t.

After having dinner with the statue, Don Juan tries a hypocritical reformation and outwardly embraces religion.  This deceit precipitates his final downfall and, in the last scene, hell (located immediately under the stage) opens and gives him a bid.

He accepts with reluctance, while demons leap out and run around in tights for the pledging ceremony.  There is some static, probably unintentional, is followed by Sganarelle’s last words which left Saturday’s [gap] on the public address and at last Don Juan leaves the stage.

The effect of the acting by the two leads is perfectly summed up in the last lines when Don Juan says that hell is burning his feet and the audience is moved to the extent that one wants to get him a Dr. Scholl's food pad.  This

 . . . [rest is missing].

_________________

This is the publicity on February 18, 1960.  I’m surprised to discover I was the assistant director!  

PLAY TIME

“Don Juan,” Moliere’s comic tale of the legendary Spaniard who was reputed to have had a thousand love affairs, will be the final winter quarter production of the Northwestern University theatre.  The play will be presented Feb. 26, 27, 28, and March 4, 5, 6.

The production will include two scenes generally omitted from printed and performed versions, director John E. Van Meter said.  The scenes were cut out after the initial production because the audience misinterpreted them as blasphemous.

A favorite in France, the play has not received much attention in this country.  The legend is fairly well known in the United States because of the popularity of Mozart’s opera, “Don Giovanni.”  the opera is a more swash-buckling version than Moliere’s play, which concentrates on the comic adventures of the Don.

FEBRUARY, 1960, THE DAILY NORTHWESTERN DISCUSSES WORKSHOP

DAILY NORTHWESTERN   Wednesday, February 3, 1960

WORKSHOP IS MOST CREATIVE ACTIVITY ON NU CAMPUS

(D.NW's Editor’s Note:  This is the first in a series of three articles devoted to the Northwestern speech school’s workshop theatre.  We chose to publish such an extensive series on workshop because we feel it is probably the most creative and at the same time least known activity on campus.  This first article deals with the organization and development of workshop.  the second article will discuss the problems workshop faces.  And the third article will be a close look at an original scene by Gary Vitale, now in rehearsal.)

by Norman Mack

The room is dingy . . . there are a few wooden chairs around . . . cracks in the ceiling . . . dust generally and a wooden creaking floor.  In the center of the room is a girl, who is ordinarily beautiful, but is now dressed in blue jeans and a sweatshirt with little make-up and unruly hair.  She is shouting angry words at a boy while her director encourages her.  This is workshop theatre.

The scene shifts.  The same girl, in the same working outfit, is in Centennial hall.  The same director is encouraging her, only her performance is considerably subdued -- the walls in Centennial hall are hard and echoes result.  This, too, is workshop.

Now the applause has died down, most of the non-theatre majors have left the speech auditorium.  Miss Alvina Krause, faculty sponsor of workshop theatre, stands on the audience’s level and praises the girl’s performance.  This workshop bill for the director and the girl has come to a happy conclusion.

Workshop is the first arena where the hopes of novice directors, actors, and actresses get tested at Northwestern.  It adds more students to the to school education than any other activity on campus and it gives the new blood of the theater a chance to present themselves to an audience.

And yet this activity, so important to speech majors that as soon as new tryouts are announced every book containing the new plays disappears from Deering, is nearly unknown to the rest of the school.  What is workshop?  What is it for?  When?  Who and why?

According to Dr. Mitchell, head of the theatre department, workshop started out under the  name of Studio Theatre on May 4, 1932, charging 50c admission, paying royalties, running two nights and having publicity.

“However, this allowed less freedom in choice of material because recent plays could not be used.  We then stopped charging admissions but limited ourselves to plays in the public domain,” he said.  “Eventually we drifted into the present way of doing things -- with one performance, little publicity and no admission charge.

“This is the most successful method we’ve had with better performances, larger audiences and a wider choice of material than ten years ago.”

Miss Krause states that workshop was instituted “primarily to give opportunities for acting and directing, under liberal supervision.  A greater number of of people are studying theatre than are in university theatre productions and workshop keeps them acting and working.”

It originally was planned to be a practical application for the techniques learned in directing class.

Through the year as many as 18 plays or scenes or cuttings from plays are presented.  Two bills, containing three plays of forty-five minutes or less are given each quarter.

In the past workshop has presented scenes from “Lysistrata,” “Merchant of Venice,” “Peer Gynt,” “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “Taming of the Shrew.”

Directors are chosen by Miss Krause, usually have attended a directing class, and have had experience in earlier productions.

In turn, the directors choose the play they want to do (ranging from Shakespeare to Tennessee Williams to originals) and their actors and actresses.  While the talent be anyone enrolled at Northwestern speech majors make up the bulk of the people on the state.

The rehearsal schedule is three or four hours a night, five days a week for three to four weeks.  This would be an exhausting timetable in any other activity, with accusations of slave-labor being mumbled in the ranks.

The people in these productions are a dedicated lot and it is not usual to hear of Saturday morning, Thanksgiving vacation, and “let’s get together and run through that once more” rehearsals.

The practice sessions take place at 1831 Chicago, Centennial hall and, because of its tight schedule, only twice on the speech school stage.

Currently in rehearsal (to be presented this Wednesday, Feb.10, at 7:30) are an original student written and directed play, “The Love of One Captain” by Gary Vitale and two other scenes directed by Mary Gottlieb and Dan Roth.

In the past workshop has produced such stage stars as Gerald Freedman, who is directing “Taming of the Shrew” in New York and who also directed several workshop production here; Charlton Heston; Jim Olson, once actor-director in workshop, now appearing in “The World of Susie Wong”; Inga Swenson, who has played “Juliet” in Stratford, Conn.

That is the basic outline of workshop theatre -- an activity that’s extra-curricular.  A great amount of time is spent on it with near professional productions being the result.  It is a trainer, a trial by fire and another step on a theatrical ladder.

INADEQUATE PROPS, SPACE HARASS WORKSHOP THEATRE  

Workshop theatre can be compared to the proverbial statue with the feet of clay.

The audience sees a well-acted, near professionally directed play.  But if they would look closely at the feet of this statue, the technical end, they would note a paucity of good lighting, little or no scenery, and props that sometimes seem out of place.

As Gary Vitale, present director of a workshop production, said, “Workshop is a proving ground for actors and especially for student directors, and, in the same way, it should give experience to the technicians in theatre -- the lighting, set, and costume designers.”

One of the chief reasons for the above mentioned technical problems seems to be the philosophy that workshop is strictly a classroom exercise in directing and that if anything were added to it, it would tend to become a production.

It is for this reason that directors are allowed no budget for their plays, and, also, why they often provide costumes such as $25 silk pajamas out of their own pockets.

Workshop seems to hold the unenviable position of being just out of the classroom but not quite in the theatre.  It is not allowed to make any props nor to have a budget and yet it is expected to entertain an audience.

But the problem gets more complicated when one realizes that even if money were given for costumes, etc., there would be no room to make them.  The existing costume shop, about the size of a large guest closet, is just too busy making UT apparel to work on workshop.

A suggested solution to this congestion is to expand and consolidate the far-flung speech school.

This new theatre plant would have to include new shops and a replacement for the ancient stage now used.  But this utopia has been planned for the last 15 years. 

Some say the reason for the delay is lack of endowments, or the fact that the present stage is too old to remodel while a new building is too expensive to build, or that all the money taken in by UT productions does not go back to the speech school.

The lack of proper facilities is felt in many areas.  Because of the cramped schedule for the speech auditorium, lighting can only be worked on two days before curtain time.  The scene shop, a damp, coldly inadequate place near the lake, is too small to handle any scenery needed for productions.  The same holds for props.

A certain amount of the crowded condition could be alleviated if UT moved into Cahn and workshop into speech building.  But because of maintenance the the fact that a fireman has to be on duty if the full stage is used, it costs $75 ro rent Cahn per evening.  This, and the fact that it is difficult to take flats from scene shop to Cahn eliminates this as a possible solution.

Another complaint stems from the fact that most of the props used in workshop come from the university theatre bins under Kresge.  Only technical assistants can go down there and, because of this, directors are required to give them a list of what they need.

Problems raise their ugly little heads because the bin won’t have exactly what the director calls for and the assistant has to play mind reader for what’s closest to his wishes.

Some of the scarcity of props could be alleviated if basic units, such as windows and doors, were made especially for workshop.

Still, from a technical angle, the technical assistant and not the people in lighting classes design the lighting for the productions.  This lessens the possibility of practical experience for people interested in stage lighting.

To move from behind the scenes, the acting and directing situation seems to be better than the technical end.

Occasionally one hears grumbling about the “star system,” meaning that certain people tend to get more roles than others.  Opinion seems to be divided on this matter, with some students saying that “some people are just better than others,” while some claim that directors “don’t take enough chances on inexperienced people.”  Most students can justify the latter complaint when they realize that the director himself is usually inexperienced.

Favoritism in casting of directors casting their friends is universally denied.  Theatre majors all say that a director would be a fool to jeopardize a production just to cast a friend and that casting is done “amazingly on the basis of merit.”

After looking into workshop theatre from both the technical and directorial angles, one is struck by the multitude of unanswered questions.

Will there ever be a new speech building?  Why is it that Northwestern, with such a good speech faculty, is stuck with a theatre plant that is disgraceful?

Why is it that while NU has the foremost teacher of lighting in the midwest, Mr. Theodore Fuchs, students graduate with less practical designing experience in this field than can be had in other schools?

Why doesn’t workshop have some basic props?  When scenery is so scarce for workshop productions, why are old flats stored in Dyche stadium, two miles from campus?

Why can’t directors go into the bins under Kresge?

In short, what is workshop, merely an extension of directing classes or a test of the abilities of everything connected with theatre?

WORKSHOP WILL PRESENT ORIGINAL, IMPROMPTU DRAMA 

“You see there’s a beautiful day, a lovely day, with sun and flowers and there’s a path, a winding path, going right through the middle of this beautiful day.”

“You want me to marry a twelve year old?  Who do you think I am?  Bing Crosby?”

The above lines were spoken, completely extemporaneously, at a rehearsal of “The Love of One Captain,” done in the Comedia de L’Arte manner, directed by Gary Vitale, to be given Wednesday, Feb. 10.

This play serves to illustrate what a usual workshop production is like and also, the way workshop can portray unusual ideas.

Drawn from the 15^th century plays in which townfolk sought to portray stereotyped characters in impromptu situations, this play presents seven personalities going through a plot outline given to them by Gary.  The characters, themselves, have to supply the dialogue.

The cast is representative of every grade level on campus from freshman to grad school.  It ranges in experience from appearances in seven school productions to Northwestern audiences and is split 50-50 between independent and affiliated.

The director in addition to appearing in several workshop dramas has been seen as Hamm in “Endgame,” as Henry IV in “Henry IV, Part I,” and in the “Legend of Lovers,” “Sandhog,” and “School for Wives.”  He took a directing class from Dr. Schneideman this summer and, last quarter, applied to Miss Krause to direct this play and was accepted.

Joy Hawkins, playing Isabella, a typical sweet young thing, is a direct contrast to Mr. Vitale.  A freshman, with some experience in musical comedy in high school, this is her first appearance at this school.

For her the most impressive thing about workshop is trying out which is an experience in itself, whether you make it or not.  It helps you to get your own interpretation of a part instead of trying to mimic others.”

Gary tried to make most of the character types relevant to our own society.  for instance Isabella was modeled after a southern belle while Columbine, Isabella’s worldly friend played by Marsha Rodd, is modeled after a New Jersey gun chewing waitress.

On the other hand some of the characters have a long history in theatre.  There is Arlecchino, portrayed by Richard Kovara, who is a basic servant type.  In the beginning of this character’s existence  he was a stupid lout, like the Dromios of “Comedy of Errors.”

Through the ages he was transformed into a witty, fast talker, although sometimes given a black mask on stage, Eddie Cantor.  Al Jolson and Emmet Kelly are modern examples of this character.

Along the same line is Pedrolino played by Bud Beyer, who is a deaf mute in this play but whose ancestors and grandchildren can be seen in Pero in “Don Juan.”  Felix Adler and other white faced clowns, and Charlie Chaplin.

Bud, a radio-TV major, claims that this part “develops comedy timing and forces quick thinking.”

Other characters include Dr. Gratiano, played by William Mumms, a learned, philosophical mind who can ponder for hours the proposition that “if a ship is on the high seas it cannot be said to be in port.”  One gets the impression that he is a caricature of a college professor even though he was formulated in the early 15^th century in Bologna.

There is also Pantalone, played by Tom Foral, a miserly octogenarian who is always ready to enter into “marriage type situations.”

And finally Captain Spavento, played by Doug Dudley, the bragging coward mentioned in the title.

Universally the actors praise the improvisational play as an excellent vehicle, one which every theatre major should participate in at one time or another.

On the other hand the particular part of the workshop theatre that they would pick out as worthy of note raises a multitude of opinions.  “The experimental angle is best”; “you see every rehearsal is a performance”; “the close relationship with actor and director -- the freedom to criticize without fear of hurting someone”; or that it “gives a lot of people a chance to do different roles than they are used to.  It’s a good training ground.”

While there were several comments about the fact that the audience for these productions is probably one of the more difficult to please.  Richard Kovara claimed, perhaps rightly, that this is a good thing.

“I usually enjoy going to workshop more than UT because the plays are more for a college audience.  The three presentations are on the same wave length with people who come to see and discuss theatre.  The specialized audience is a good thing.”

Summing up, “The Love of One Captain” will, according to Gary Vitale, be “completely spontaneous the night of performance.”  For the director, that night will culminate a successful college career, while for the younger members of the cast it may very well start one. 

DIFFERENCES THAT UNITE US

Karen Black was in my cohort at Northwestern University School of Speech.  Not for the whole time, because she disappeared.  At the time I had no idea why -- some people may have known.  Some of us assumed it was because Alvina Krause didn’t like her.  Maybe AK didn’t like Robert Benedetti, her roommate at the time, either, but he was a big smart guy no one pushed around and he found a way around AK.  He was just the kind of man she always tried to press into heroic parts, but he resisted and some thought that was why she resisted Karen Black.

Sometimes you can find more insight into someone through their dislikes than their likes.  There’s a great deal of information about Karen out there now because of her recent death, and that includes the memorial in Hollywood which can be seen in compilation at this link: http://vimeo.com/75189301   The best parts of the video are the beginning, which is a montage of clips from ALL her movies (quite different from each other) and the end, which is a montage of still photos from birth to death, some of them shocking and most of them seductive.  

I was fascinated to see Karen’s sister, who looks much like her.  You get a pretty good idea of a well-loved extravagant sweet non-intellectual child-woman who loved sex, cats, and -- well, long walks on country roads, sunsets, kittens, and . . . other corny stuff.  She could sing and compose.  She wrote plays.  She also very shrewdly played scary roles in horror films and was often funny.  There’s a good deal of intelligence behind that, which would exasperate some people.  It’s hard to know how much she was watching herself.

My basic theory is that AK didn’t like Karen because Karen scared her:  she was a person who had abandoned all caution, while AK had staked her life on prudence and discretion in relationships, academic life, and  -- well, she wasn’t always cautious when she taught acting.  In some ways she was as instinctive and as able to pick up on undertow and subtext as KB was, and everyone says KB was an ace at it.  But KB always supported and appreciated those inner springs, while AK wanted to analyze and shape them, which is what she understood to be the task of the actor, especially a traditional realistic proscenium stage actor trained to address tragedy and heroism.  Big ideas, subtly expressed.

Personally, AK had to have respectability because that was her safety.  She was a small, ambitious woman who grew up the youngest in a big family on a Mid-West farm and survived with a sonorous voice, a vigorous erect body, and the singlemindedness of a sword.  If she had been labeled a lesbian, her career would have ended.  She never risked acting professionally.   It would be going too far to say that she had a German northern temperament while Karen Black had a Mediterranean Jewish soul.  But not much.

Karen was a voluptuous, generously sensuous, man-loving person whose salvation was innocence.  She didn’t cling or demand or try to prove anything.  So far the only complaint I’ve seen her make is that she was treated badly on the set of “Day of the Locust.”  It’s a bitter, punishing piece of madness and somehow that got attached to her.

The career of Benedetti was quite different.  I haven’t had anything to do with either of them until recently and then only read Benedetti’s books, watched his movies, emailed a bit.  KB is on Twitter. The two lives went in quite different directions and yet stayed together in friendship, which was always KB’s policy.  Karen’s husband released the story of why she suddenly disappeared from our cohort and why she and Bene stayed such close friends: they conceived a child together at Northwestern.  http://karenblackactress.blogspot.com  Both biological parents have embraced this woman, who is an artist with family.

It’s hard to imagine either one of her bio-parents considering abortion and in those days it was probably illegal if not life-threatening.  The stigma, lack of social support, and theatre dreams of both youngsters made raising a child alone impossible.  The two families were local, proud, and who knows how they felt?  Or whether they knew.   Adoption in those days was rigidly private -- the government SWORE it would be forever hidden information.  

There’s no such thing.  

The State of Illinois has opened their adoption records so that the child made right under our noses -- I suppose some of us might have known, including AK -- found her bioparents, Karen and Bene.  No doubt results are mixed and such an enterprise is not always well-advised, but in this case all three had known about each other and tried to find each other.  It turned out just fine.  The Benedetti family, generous and warm Italians that they are, pulled her in -- along with her children and grandchildren.  She and Karen painted together towards the end and she helped with Karen’s care.  KB refused morphine as much as she could bear so as to absorb this happiness.

Benedetti has a strong social conscience with a special concern for African Americans in the South.  Karen was more of a “mom” who took care of everyone, regardless of who they were.  Whether the social constriction the two shared as the price of love was part of creating their ethic or whether their natural character saw them through the ordeal, I see it as a triumph in the end.  Integrity.

I suspect that when KB looked at AK, she saw a path she could never take and wouldn’t want to.  All that caution, all that self-discipline and self-denial would have been impossible for her.  Conversely, I suspect that when AK looked at KB she saw a life she could never lead: all restraints dropped, all goals surrendered to fate and hard work.  I sat in the back of Annie May Swift auditorium, watching, and was more like AK than KB, but appreciated KB anyway.  Do we have to make choices? 

In some ways, AK’s choice betrayed her, because her fame and the emotional pressure she put on her students to break them out of their shells scared the corporate managers of the university apparatus so that they eased her out a little early.  She was wise to have the backup of Eagles Mere and then Bloomsberg where all the calls were her own and a certain amount of abandonment was part of the regime, so long as you got to rehearsals on time.  She and Lucy spent wonderful summer Sundays out in a little boat (it had to have been pea green) with big hats against sunburn. AK scribbled on a notepad, thinking furiously about the playwrights’ knots to untie for an increasingly savvy audience.  All the while Lucy in her faithful, rather stout way, rowed quietly along on the mirroring water.  KB’s idea of such intimacy might have meant stripping and plunging in, which would have ended local affection.  Except for the stalwarts who would heroically swim out to save her.

A writer’s game -- watching, making word pictures, passing judgment on people many have loved -- is a risky business.  Maybe more immoral that sharing physical pleasure when the opportunity arises.  Maybe more immoral than pressing youngsters against their own psychic thorns in hopes of awakening them.

In a way AK probably had something to do with KB’s development but I don’t know whether anyone ever asked either of them.  Sometimes it’s the people who wave us on who teach us most.  Like, not to waste our time on a fate that’s not ours.  Karen didn’t need Eagles Mere -- she was a natural film personality, not a stage presence, though she did well in New York.  It was the California climate that let her bloom, and we are grateful.

THE EMPEROR'S NEW UNIVERSITY

When I was an undergrad at Northwestern (1957-1961) pretending to be a harmless speech ed major when I was actually cramming in courses in theatre, Angna Enters (1897 - 1989) came to campus. She was performing as a mime, though she was a pan-artist, half Isadora Duncan and half Yoko Ono. This was not Marcel Marceau pretending to be in a box or pestered by a fly. This was the transformation of ordinary movement into gestural dance.

One of her bravura pieces was the enrobing of a pope -- or was it a dauphin? At any rate, it was a pantomime of putting on layers and layers of medieval clothing, each more elaborate, voluminous and magnificent than the last until it was topped with a mitre or crown. Rather like the enrobing of Elizabeth II for her coronation, which made her advisors worry that the weight of the vestments (the crown weighed something like thirty pounds) might press the eighteen-year-old down to the ground. The Japanese have a tradition of brides assuming layers and layers of kimonos, but they are silk and relatively light.

Angna Enters was capable of a sort of mass hypnotism so that when she finally stood wearing no more than she had begun with, we could “see” her emperor-worthy clothes, just as in the myth. I am not going to hold up this metaphor (you know it too well) but the reverse: a situation in which all the robes and trappings and prestige are actually present, but the clever emperor, in naked authenticity, has dodged out the bottom and escaped. This is a riff about our institutions: church, university, court, hospital -- all those situations where the priest, professor, judge, and doctor -- who once wore simple black or white gowns to show their prestige and role -- have been so over-layered with additional garments that they have been paralyzed. Pressed into services of all kinds, buildings of pretentious significance, regulations of labyrinthine intricacy, and endless insurance oversight, these institutions now require mammoth endowments and barely have the energy to inspire, teach, judge, or heal.

This is a long blog but a short essay, so I’ll single out universities. One can take such little tales too far into metaphor, but perhaps now that the universities are getting ready for their coliseum seasons of homecoming gathered around the stadium where cheering former students watch ghetto recruits give each other head injuries so they can afford their drug bills, children can point . . . but that’s sensationalism. Surely classes meet and research proceeds, even if international industrial corporations control the curriculum and the teacher is a graduate assistant instead of a tenured professor. No doubt replacing the dusty books in the library with shiny new computers is more than justified. Foreign students who write and speak better English than those from our own country are simply more selected (and more able to pay the tuition). Still, at some point, one has to ask whether universities still educate in the classic way of guiding hard thought to sound conclusions.

People keep fussing about the radical (root) changes in human knowledge brought about by research on DNA, fMRI, particle physics, nano-technology, extra-terrestrial geology, and particularly the internet. U of Chicago's Randel, quoting Readings’s history of the modern university says:

"In general the modern University has had three ideas. The story begins . . . with Kant, who envisioned the University as guided by the concept of reason. Kant’s vision is followed by Humboldt’s idea of culture, and more recently the emphasis has been on the techno-bureaucratic notion of excellence. The distinguishing feature of the last on this list is that it actually lacks a referent. (p. 54)

". . . With the decline of the nation-state and its replacement by a transnational economy in which capital pursues profits across all boundaries . . . The economic counterpart of the hollowing out of political subjectivity that accompanies the decline of the nation-state" is 'consumerism–which is correctly perceived as the most pressing threat to the traditional subject of university education in North America’ (p. 48).”

http://iotu.uchicago.edu/randel.html

I’m a terrible snob when it comes to universities. In my NU undergrad years, I was very elitist about the arts, defining their initiated adepts as more gifted, more “real,” and more penetrating (go ahead, make a pun out of it) than others. But I wasn’t good enough for Broadway (the only possible destination was Manhattan) so I did a reverse (it was the days of Peace Corps) by going to the Montana reservations. After twenty years there and also back in Portland (long story), I had a chance to attend the U of Chicago through the back door by enrolling at one of the small seminaries in the “Cluster” around their eminence. I earned a master’s in the U of C Div School and have gloated over it ever since. In fact, armed with new confidence (possibly unjustified), I’ve returned to my beloved Montana reservation.

It works, you see. Because it’s not about content, it’s about process, it’s about learning how to learn no matter where you are or what the circumstances. Forget prosperity, forget recognition. Forget even the great networking and name-dropping potential. Books -- well, everything becomes a book. Most brilliantly of all, it’s no longer necessary to be on a campus because the Internet has replaced the need for adjacency, as my little cluster seminary now recognizes in its plan to sell the building and leave Chicago.

The problem, for both the university and myself, is monetization. My degree is useless here. I send no big checks back to either alma mater. I do work for which there is no certification, just satisfaction. My scholarship is social security. I’m not the only one. The aging former student body has become a planetary diasphora.

Is that good or bad? Dunno. Mostly just unrecognizable. What will it do to the traditional vested (invested) investment-wearing university? Dunno. Somehow it was the university education that returned me to the naked world of aging hunter-gatherer, gleefully capering over the horizon with a laptop under my arm, proud of myself as any bare-assed three-year-old. Think of it as a pantomime. I hope it would make Elizabeth II smile.

EDUCATION SURVEYS

This morning, mixed in with the night spam, was a questionnaire from one of my alma maters, or however one forms the plural. The questionnaire, from Northwestern University, makes assumptions as all questionnaires necessarily must do. This one assumed that by now I was rich, honored, and grateful -- therefore would write a check to NU if they could find the right button to push.

Most of the questions (besides income) were about which organizations I might belong to within the NU realm (I had not realized there were so many!) and through which media I got my information. There was no allowance for alternative newspapers or radio or 'zines -- just the category as a whole. I did not check ANY organization. (A surprising number were based on athletics -- well, maybe I’m not surprised: this is NU asking.) I’m probably the only alumn this side of Tahiti who doesn’t watch television, doesn’t HAVE television. They wanted to know my major, but it doesn’t exist anymore. The School of Speech is renamed and reorganized. They didn’t ask whether I ever went to any other universities.

They did ask me whether my classes prepared me for my vocation. I had to say no, but it wasn’t their fault -- no place to mark that. I was educated to be a nice upper-middle-class high school dramatics teacher in a city east of the Mississippi. When I asked the placement bureau for jobs west of that river, she informed me there was nothing there. But while crossing the "Big Nothing" through Montana on the way home I bailed out and took a job teaching Blackfeet on their reservation. What I discovered that I needed was to know how to teach elementary reading to high school kids.

There was no place for me to mark which courses changed my life: Alvina Krause’s acting class, Paul Schilpp’s philosophy of religion class, three weeks of a physics class before the faculty discovered I couldn’t do math. I loved them all passionately and they have equipped me to wrestle with human and cosmic issues ever since. None of it was of any use in a high school English class, at least not if the principal and parents had anything to do with it.

The assumption behind these questions was that if the pr folks knew what my organizational affiliations were (and they were careful not to ask about any political organizations or religious allegiances) and where I got my news of the world, they would be able to coax me into sending them money. Not for any specific purpose but for the further benefit of one of the richest universities you could find, assuming you could discover its true worth. We KNOW that any corporation (no matter that its purpose is high minded) would be considered derelict if it didn’t hide its assets as deeply as, say, the Catholic church or the Wilderness Society. The point of view was simply commodified education, not for the good of the nation but for the good of the institution. (Warren Olney asked for tomorrow's "To the Point," "Can capitalism without democracy succeed?" I have a feeling we're already finding out that capitalism kills democracy, so we'll know shortly.)

Somewhere these question askers must have information about what difference it makes if people get their news from TV (though there must be radical differences among the various channels and networks) as compared to blogs (though again the whole spectrum must be out there). No allowance was made for the huge decline in the value of newspapers as a source of info or a check on the cynical chaos of the nation. They are no longer clams, digging for news; now they are oysters, clinging to the pier and grabbing whatever floats by. I mean, I read newspapers because of what they used to be. Maybe I’ll stop pretty soon.

One of my several other alma maters is the University of Chicago, also well-heeled, but very conscious of their elevated reputation as progressive intellectuals. (Maybe conservative when you get to politics or economics.) Still, they could NOT have given me the education of an Alvina Krause, which was “Method” acting -- a plunge into the depth of passion and crisis that the U of Chicago confines to student health, though it ferments all around the campus (in both students and professors) and is addressed by a ring of helpers and therapists, usually either Jewish or black and therefore not afraid of emotion. U of C money-raising is far more subtle. And the “Criterion,” publication of the Divinity School, actually contains valuable essays, not just boasting. They do still call it “Divinity School” though maybe that’s not as inclusive of religion as some would like. (Not all religions are based on a divinity.)

I predict Meadville/Lombard, my denominational alma mater, might change its name pretty soon. They can spot a trend. They’ve sold the old building, will move to modern space, and have loaded the faculty with black professors in anticipation that Obama will raise Hyde Park to new heights so the “liberals” will reign. They’ve kind of given up asking me for money.

All my other alma maters (almas familias?) are far more plebian and service-oriented. Anyway, they’re state universities. In fact, all the Montana universities are now merged into one big administrative blob, so what does that mean in terms of alumni allegiance? Mostly I think it means that people in Montana are Montana-centric and that’s all they think you need to know. Which campus is irrelevant. What matters is whether you went to school in-state or outta-state, because that will break handily between the Old Montanans and the New Montanans, separating them out without any more enlightenment about what it means than the fact that one sociological side has an Australian shepherd in the back of the pickup and the other side has a golden retriever. Well, maybe the New Montanans have pricier pickups. Which means they get better gas mileage and probably pledge to their alma mater.

The newspaper and radio (That’s the Great Falls Tribune and Billings NPR/PRI) are saying that the national college entrance exam test results show that only about a fourth of the people taking the test are ready for college. What will happen to the other three-fourths? NU and the U of Chicago will say, “Go away.” The state colleges will organize remedial classes. Meadville/Lombard will say, “What important UU’s do you know?”

Does this mean that the people who scored in the low 75% can’t get a decent education? Heck, no. In the Sunday paper was a story about a kid who hated high school and refused to attend. His dad, who was a film reviewer, made the kid go to movies with him and write about them alongside him, after much discussion. (Remember how Norman Maclean's dad taught him here in Montana?) At the end of three years the kid passed his GED and college entrance exams. This is the way people used to learn: alongside their parents at work. They called it “apprenticing.” So this kid had an alma pater, I guess.

The State Superintendent of Public Instruction is touring to get people braced to hear the news about the results of the No Child Left Behind tests this year, which come out at the end of the week. They will look ghastly, but authorities are quick to explain that it’s not the fault of the kids -- the people who administer the tests are “raising the bar.” Therefore the kids are actually doing just as well so not to worry. (Marriage is just a piece of paper, kid -- like your diploma.)

Another of these surveys says that college has now devolved into what a lot of people thought high school was, a sort of respite before the real world, except college is for rich people’s kids so they can enjoy it even longer. The idea is that youth is precious, admirable, bursting with joy and beer and sex and oh-how-can-you-deny-it-to-them? And that’s just the girls! These kids can do homework later alongside their own kids.

Why was I so serious! I shoulda lightened up! The survey asked me, "What was the worst part of your NU experience?" I answered honestly: Trying to learn to swim. I nearly drowned. If I'd lightened up, I might have floated!