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Show I Erratic one-act at Kimball Art Center challenges what you're told The Newspaper Thursday, April 15, 1982 Pae B5 The Intermountain Actors Ensemble premiered a one-act one-act last week which had equal doses of tour-de-force and self-indulgence. Mike Hamill's restless, erratic one-act, "Is Anything Ever What it Seems", was co-billed co-billed with the much shorter work, "Early Frost", which featured an interesting Hitchcockian story and a good lead performance. Hamill must be something of a massochist. He wrote a long, rambling play for one character that lasts about 45 minutes at the least, then took on the role himself. (The actor originally cast, Richard Scott, was going to play the role one week, but now will apparently be tied-up tied-up doing "Little Foxes". However, he directed Hamill in the role.) The setting is a sixth-floor room, strewn with the remnants rem-nants of a wandering man's life traveling bags, a tape cassette, guitar, and a dummy. dum-my. As the play opens, Hamill as the man is strangely infuriated with the dummy. "Why can't you see?", he bellows. And it becomes apparent he is really asking why we don't see. He addresses the audience directly about his pet obsessionpeople's obses-sionpeople's failure to see, their gullibility. In an eager, crazed, apprehensive manner, man-ner, he starts with simple things like your birth date-how date-how do you know you were born on the day they told you? goes on to curse out restaurant patrons who ask stupid questions. His worst gripe is with his brother, who refused to see when his wife drifted into a homosexual love affair. When the truth finally hit him, the brother slaughtered wife and lover in a rage. But the real problem is the man's inability to realize truth. Hamill's desperate, angry speeches at us are really pleas with himself to face the awful revelations that gradually emerge in the play. This powerful, tragic paradox makes up for the elements in his play that are limp or derivative. Hamill hits a kaleidoscope of emotions, but the strongest strong-est is his anger. And even when it's not entirely right, his anger is just not empty shouting. It's frightening. He has a very strong physical presence. He reminds re-minds me of an actor like Anthony Quinn. When he is Hamill likes to bring up a concept ( "Love! You want to know about love?...") and gnaw at it like a dog on raw meat. A lot of the script seems shallow. His restaurant story flows, flowing out Hamill's experiences at a local eatery, eat-ery, has detail and a funnyangry feeling that infects the audience. But I wish he could have worked in more detail and color to his other reminiscences. Hamill uses his acting presence to overcome these weaknesses most of the time. But he can't save his worst sequence a speech calling on the audience to ignore Hamill hits a kaleidoscope of emotions, but the strongest is his anger. And even when it's not entirely right, his anger is not just empty shouting. properly controlled by a director, he can give us some raw, powerful acting moments. mo-ments. When he's out of control, he can annihilate himself, the script, the set, the audience, and the Kimball Kim-ball Art Center. He's been aided by the direction of Richard Scott. Hamill not only evokes the anger well, but he's effective at showing the quiet, scared moments also. His One major weakness is that, in talking about his brother, he sounds like a guy telling a spooky campfire story. The script could use some work. The man's moods tend to be angry-calm, angry-calm, angry-calm, like a roller coaster. religious authority, and look in the bible for signs of the last days. As Hamill rants and raves, holding up a "Time Magazine" cover on nuclear war, he looks like one of the pulpit-beaters that he is condemning. There is evidence to suggest sug-gest that Hamill has been influenced by other one-acts staged by IAE. Shortly after the Ensemble staged "Hello, Out There" a jailhouse drama about two solitary souls finding each other too late, Hamill wrote "Mr. Bojangles", which had a similar setting and denouement. denoue-ment. Hamill's hero a crazed, apprehensive rambling rambl-ing monologuist anxious to let us in on his secret is a reminiscent of the tragic hero in "Zoo Story", which IAE staged last January. Both characters are named Jerry, and Jamill's acting is similar to that of Tony Leger, who starred in the Albee play. But Hamill can evoke fresh, frightening moods in his play that aren't copied form anyone. (Note the chilling climax, where he scorns us for being gullible enough to believe what he's said.) At this point, he may be getting his basic ideas from other sources, like any beginner. But he shows promise of evoking dramatic drama-tic feelings that are all his own. The second production, "Early Frost", is a thumbnail thumb-nail sketch with Rod Sering overtones about a spinster who hasn't been quite right in the head since her friend disappeared years ago when they were both little girls. The woman's visiting niece discovers the friend's ghost flitting about in the , attic, directing her attention to a mysterious locked trunk. Ah ha! You can guess the twist ending. But the story could work with some evocative spooky staging of certain moments. (The ghost appears. The niece is psychically psychi-cally directed to find the Wfiimpire by Rick Lanman Mysteries of the German wine label "' 'This week's issue of Winepress is written by Richard Lanman, Sr. Nowhere else in the world is the ecology as sympathetic to the optimal imitation at harvest of the Riesling grape as it is along the two river valleys of Germany, the Rhine and the Mosel. The combination of the particular soils, the right amount of sunshine and relative severity of the climate, produce, in good years, an incomparable grape for making the delightful, fruity German wines. Yet many people miss the best experience of German wine drinking because of confusion over the labeling of these wines as opposed to what they are used to buying. A California wine grower for example, may simply label his white wine a Chablis. The constituent grape or the production methods used may have very little similarity to a real French Chablis, or even other California produced Chablis wine. However, by nature, people find simple labels comforting and the choice to buy is made easier. As we have discussed in previous issues of Winepress, German labels are not really that complicated once you know what you are looking for. Regardless of whether the wine is a Mosel (green bottle) or a Rhine (brown bottle) the rules for labeling are the same under German law. To begin with, there are three basic quality levels of German wine. These are: 1. Table Wine (Tafelwein, pronounced Ta-Full-Wine). These are light, locally-consumed locally-consumed wines which will follow the letter of the law as far as sanitation and other controls are concerned. Yet this wine is not made from the best of grapes and little else is specifically designated on the label except the broad region of origin. Very little of this wine is exported and you will probably not find much of it on the shelf in the U.S. 2. Qualitatswein (pronounced Qual-i-tots-wine). To obtain this designation, the wine must have passed a more rigid set of tests as far as the quality of the grapes and where production and bottling methods are concerned.' These wines will bear a government control number and must have a minimum alcoholic strength derived from natural grape sugars. Usually a region and sometimes a vineyard will be designated. Exception to the above area designations that still qualify as a qualitatswein are the various shipper labels such as Blue Nun, Schwartzkatz, Liebraumilch, Moselblum-chen, Moselblum-chen, etc. These names are not important for you to remember, however. If the wine is a qualitatswein, that word will clearly appear on the label. All qualitatswein will also have the grape name on the label, usually Riesling. Ries-ling. Generally, these are good, drinkable, but undistinguished wines. 3. Qualitatswein mit Pradikat. To obtain this designation the wine must have passed the basic tests of a qualitatswein, but in addition must have come from a much better growth of grapes and have been handled in such a way as to yield a more distinguished wine. In English this designation means a quality wine with special attributes. Within this third classification of these finer wines there are several further designations that basically relate to the particular vintage. The general quality of the harvest and the sequence and timing of the pickings are the - principal considerations. The least pretentious preten-tious of these high quality designations is Kabinett (pronounced Cab-e-net). This simply means that the wine comes from a good year and harvest. Further, the grapes were fully matured and yield a minimum alcohol content from natural sugars. Also, the potential of the grape has been fully realized and that care has been taken in production and bottling. With a Kabinett, harvesting is done on a normal basis. The word Kabinett will actually appear on the label. The second level up this highest group of wines is called Spatlese or late picking. Here the harvesting of the grapes is held off as long as possible prior to the first freeze to permit the buildup of flavor and sugar content in the grape. The resultant wines should be a little bigger and perhaps sweeter than a Kabinett and certainly more so than a plain qualitatswein. The next designation up the ladder, presumably in both quality and price is the Auslese, or special picking. In this harvesting process the pickers choose particularly good bunches of grapes out of a good harvest and treat them separately in the wine making process and consequently, they yield a higher concentration of sugar and flavor. There are a couple of other variations in the picking process that yield rich, highly-flavored highly-flavored and expensive wines. One is Beer-enauslese, Beer-enauslese, which is a special picking of particularly par-ticularly choice individual grapes. The last is labeled Trokenbeeranauslese, a picking composed of dried up, single grapes. All the above Qualitatswein Mit Pradikat wines will carry on the label a vintage year, a regional name, a village name and a vineyard name along with the number of the bottler and the government control number. Although these numbers will not signify a particular vineyard to you, their existence is another indicator of quality. Now let us run through a label you might encounter in the store and are interested in evaluating. First there will be a vintage date, say 1978. The next item you will see should be a village name, say Wiltengen. Next you find a vineyard name perhaps Kup. Thus you have Wiltengen Kup, 1978, a good vineyard in a good area. Next you seek special attributes. If the label says only Qualitatswein. Qualitats-wein. then you have finished. Yet, if it states Qaulitatswein Mit Pradikat. then look for any special catagories such as Kabinett or Auslese. This is about all you really need to know about German wine labels. You will have to learn which villages produce the better wines. Wiltengen, Okfen and Ayler being three examples. You can also check which vintages are more desirable at the vintage chart in your local wine store, although 1971, 1975 and 1976 were all good years for the German wines. Finally, you will notice village names all end in "er", such as Okfenner Bockstein. This is the German term for possession, so we read it as the vineyard of Bockstein belonging to the town of Okfen. With this basic knowledge, you will be able to make a sophisticated selection of German wines. trunk key.) First-time director direc-tor Linda Martin should work on improving the pacing pac-ing of these bits. The best thing in this sketch is the aunt, played by Anne Burnett, currently the most overworked actress in Park City. (Does she have a sponsor donating money to the March of Dimes for every hour she's on stage?) She ably evokes her character charac-ter with fragile movements, a voice like a rusty hinge, and an old-fashioned costume. cos-tume. (Perceptively, only the characters who cling to the past or evoke it are dressed this way.) Heidi Burnett plays the niece with daffy inflections, and this approach makes her more interesting than the character deserves. Denna Wright hits the same solicitous solici-tous tone too often in playing Burnett's more sensible sister. sis-ter. Ruth Ann Fitzgerald, as the social worker is relaxed at first, but seems to tense up with her heavy dialogue scene. (A Deli sandwich to the first director who can get Fitzgerald to relax and bloom in her acting.) Kelly Purdom's cheeriness as the dead Lydia offsets her ghostly ghost-ly nature nicely. The one-act program will continue April 15-17, beginning begin-ning at 8 p.m. at the Kimball Arl Center. 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