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Show 1 Page B6 Wednesday, April 1, 1981 The Newspaper Theater productions go down for third time PARK CITY N O D will square off Sunday, April 5 at the Salt Palace to decide the hockey supremacy of Utah's ski resorts. EACH TEAM has won once this season. Sunday's victor will be awarded the Resort Challenge Cup. GAME TIME is 7 p.m. Admission is $1 at the door. A bus is being chartered through the Corner Store. Inquiries should be made before Thursday evening. The Imitation Acting Ensemble and the Park City Slayers have, within the last few years, brought a welcome wel-come touch of culture to a town whose reputation is based on skiing, getting drunk, and sniffing exotic nose drops. They are to be commended. So it is with considerable regret we have to tell you that their latest productions are almost complete fi-ascoes. fi-ascoes. First, the Acting Ensemble. En-semble. Films often have adapted to the theater, but there are limits as to how far this can be done. Ron Bur-nott's Bur-nott's stage adaptation of "The Poseidon Adventure" is an unmitigated disaster. The 1972 Irwin Allen flick was filled with complicated special effects and many specially built upside-down sets. Burnout's first problem was to fit all this on the stage of the Memorial Building. His solution was to play the drama within the upended ocean liner using only a few props much the way the Thornton Wilder play "Our Town" suggested a New England community by utilizing a few chairs and some ladders.' Burnout has used this same approach with admirable admir-able daring. Also, he has asked his cast to play the entire second and third acts while standing on their heads. The production's special set uses a large rectangular plastic children's pool which is completely dry as Act One begins. Stagehands with large buckets of water douse the cast as the story progresses. This is reminiscent remi-niscent of certain San Francisco Fran-cisco productions of Pirandello's Piran-dello's "Caucasian Chalk Circle," and of ladies' mud wrestling. The rising water level on the pool set helped to increase in-crease the mood of claustrophobic claustro-phobic terror, but made acting extremely difficult for the upside-down cast. At one point David Flasher, playing the old Red Buttons part, took in a little too much water through the nose and had to receive artificial resuscitation from the backstage back-stage crew Anne Burnout, in the role of the Jewish matron originally created by Shelley Winters, wore a special fat suit for the production, but the suit was so buoyant that ' she kept floating when she was supposed to be drowning- . Burnout himself played the role of the "New Wave" minister who struggles to help the Poseidon passengers passen-gers survive their ordeal, and rants against God for His injustice as each character charac-ter dies. He overplayed these moments shamelessly, but in all fairness, this probably was done to distract attention atten-tion from those "drowned" cast members who were trying to climb out of the pool as discreetly as possible. Burnout occasionally forgot his lines, but capably ad-libbed ad-libbed with some of Charlton Heston's dialogue from "The Ten Commandments." The play is a ludicrous spectacle, but one must applaud the Ensemble for their efforts. The grueling seven-week rehearsal schedule left the entire cast with migraines, and the actors were gobbling aspirins as-pirins and other headache remedies backstage during the performance This was painfully evident on opening night, when Chuck Forklift, entering for Act Three, accidentally ac-cidentally dropped an entire package of Alka-Seltzer into the pool, and the plop-plopping, plop-plopping, fizz-fizzing sounds completely drowned out the cast's dialogue and hospi- " , )f Hpcz . ! ! waft I SMS s I '"I, j IS . 1 r ', ' ' , , T " I (ID U talized three members of the audience for bubble inhalation. inhala-tion. At least I could sit through the Ensemble's production. However, I walked out on the Park City Slayers' latest work a musical-comedy version of "Psycho" entitled "Oh, Norman!" The play, adapted by Don Gums, stars Madeline Smirk as a small-town transportation transpor-tation director who suddenly finds herself in hot water because she likes to keep bus revenues at her home. When the city discovers she has spent almost her entire budget for hundreds of little piggy banks, she is forced to flee cross-country, where she ends up at the Bates ' Motel-Condo Comfort Complex. Com-plex. Jere Nervies gives an energetic, but ultimately fiitilp nprformance as the young mother-repressed Norman Bates. In his spare time, Norman makes sandwiches sand-wiches but never eats them, keeping them instead in a large scrapbook. Gums also has rewritten the story to include a reference refer-ence to the nihilistic horror classic "Willard." In the play, Norman has a small army of potguts which he has befriended and trained to perform various tasks-admitting tasks-admitting hotel guests, balancing the books, re- placing the cellophane covers on toilet seats, etc. Despite the expertise of animal trainer Hick Robinson, Robin-son, brought in to handle the animals, the guts were not always convincing. And the actors soon were visibly distressed by the hairs on their pants legs and the small brown piles left around the stage. Water played a big part in this play also. Gums wisely decided to make the shower-attack shower-attack scene the centerpiece of the production. He fails by trying to turn the famous murder scene into a big musical number a la Busby Berkeley. When Norman strikes, he bursts into a song called, "In a Shower Stall, I'm Knifing You-oo-oo-oo!". The girls dance class from the Middle School then leap out under the overhead sprinklers dressed as red and white corpuscles. Although Al-though the dancing was well done (only a few youngsters slipped, falling into the orchestra pit), the number is a huge misfire. Pat Wheatfield, however, was a comic delight as the shower massage. I. A.E. begins production of 'Streetcar' The Intermountain Actor's Ensemble has begun production produc-tion of Tennessee Williams' comic tragedy "A Streetcar Named Desire." The cast, under the direction direc-tion of Ron Burnett, will include Clayton Maw and Cyrus Thielbeault as Stanley Kowalski, the part that bolted Marlon Brando to fame. Anne Burnett will play Blanche Debois, while Leslie Lukyen will enact her sister Stella. I.A.E. veteran Chuck Folkerth will be the gentle lover of Blanche, Harold Mitchell. Heading the supporting sup-porting cast will be Linda Martin, last seen with I.A.E. as the wicked queen in last summer's "Once Upon A Mattress." She wili be the noisy neighbor, Eunice Hub-bel, Hub-bel, her husband will be played by I.A.E. newcomer Steve Lloyd. Anne Hersey will be the Mexican woman Meria, while Craig Sanchez will be Pablo, and John Lehmer will play the doctor who takes Blanche to her final home at the end of the play. The young collector will be played by Carl Winters Win-ters Middle School student Mike Draper. Williams calls this play one about the effects ef-fects of love. The I.A.E. production will play in the Memorial Building Build-ing on the evenings of April 23, 24 and 25. It will play again April 30, May 1, and May 2. Curtain will be at 7 : 30 each evening. Prices are $3 for adults, $2.50 for children, students, and senior citizens. Tickets and information can be had by calling 649-6208. IPark (CittylLiveE Looking for some live action? Something to listen or dance to? Here it is, live from Park City... Try a bit of Bread and Butter at the Carbide Lamp restaurant at the bottom of Main Street for country-western country-western music Friday and Saturday from 7 : 30-11 p.m. Have you ever tried Rhythm Method? You can at the Rusty Nail at the Resort Center Monday through Saturday from 9 p.m. until closing. There's a $2 cover charge, and bull riding on Sunday night. Royce's at the Holiday Inn will present singer Debbie Boyd with a piano and guitar back-up Friday and Saturday Satur-day from 8 p.m. to midnight. Singer-guitarist Tom Dis-tad Dis-tad will be at Adolph's on the Park City Golf Course Wednesday through Sunday from 7:30-10:30 p.m. If you like Neil Diamond's music, you'll like John Hanson, Han-son, playing at the Grub Steak restaurant in Prospec- s ' - . i r" s . 'l II i Tom Distad tor Square Monday through Thursday from 8-10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday until 11 p.m. Justin Alison will play at Sneakers in the Racquet Club in Park Meadows during the Thursday fashion show from 12: 30-1 :30 p.m., and at the Sunday Brunch from 12:30-2 p.m. Kat and Mickey and the Hometown Band will keep things lively at the Cowboy Bar at the top of Main Street seven nights a week from 9 p.m. until closing. by Rick Lanman Utah's first winery During the past 20 years, a considerable number of would-be wineries have applied unsuccessfully for permission to operate within the state of Utah. While it has been rumored that several vineyards do, in fact, operate surreptitiously within the state's boundaries, these covert operations have remained small and apparently unnoticed by local revenue agents. Displaying an unusual aptitude for fair play, the state of Utah licensed its first winery several weeks ago. Although the horticultural aspects of the new vineyard are certainly unusual (they reportedly are planting their vines in vertical rows on the eastern Wasatch benches, rather than across the slopes, as is the more traditional fashion), the winery itself it-self appears to be stealing the show. Officially known as Summum Nectar Publications Winery, plans are to ferment wine beneath a huge pyramid, already constructed con-structed at 707 Genesee Avenue in Salt Lake City. Exactly what is to go on within the confines con-fines of the pyramid remains unclear. The Utah Liquor Control Commission granted the license to the Salt Lake group, which proposes to make wine and an unnamed "religious product" in the pyramid-shaped building that also functions as a center for a varl'.y of religious services. One of the principal partners in the Sum-mum Sum-mum Nectar organization is Claude R. No-well. No-well. He stated in a Salt Lake Tribune interview inter-view that the corporation soon plans to begin fermentation of a product they will call Sum-mum Sum-mum Vin Rose. But, Nowell said, the corporation corpor-ation will not make its "religious product," known as Nectar Publications, until a ruling is received from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Their goal, stated No-well, No-well, is to "classify it as a publication or medium for knowledge instead of a wine." The Utah corporation traveled a lengthy road in their quest to create the state's first winery. A considerable amount of time was spent obtaining the necessary federal approvalapproval ap-provalapproval that was a prerequisite for any formal dealings with the state. The federal government (as they discovered) is quite adept at creating a series of Catch-22s that may make crazed vintnors from even the most dedicated oenologists. One example comes from "reporting regulations," where the Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms insists a winery use metric labeling on their bottles, but requests tax reports in gallons. Any application must include in-clude a description (in triplicate) of all equipment used down to the test tubes. Bonds must be posted for tax on the estimated quantity quan-tity of wine to be produced so that the government govern-ment will have insurance on the uncollected tax. A description of where the wines wm De kept also must be included. One from the files reads, "start at point 2.47 miles south of St. Helena Post Office, turn in a westerly direction direc-tion for 360 feet, then turn in a northerly direction..." direc-tion..." Also required is environmental information in duplicate, water quality information in triplicate, and a personal questionnaire. The questionnaire requires the fingerprints of all stock holders that retain 10 percent or more of the stock. When Bruce Markham of Markham Winery, St. Helena, California filed, his 74-year-old mother, who held exactly 10 percent of the winery, had to go to a Scottsdale, Arizona police station to be fingerprinted. Nonetheless, Summum overcame these difficulties dif-ficulties and eventually satisfied the requirements of the state of Utah. Joe Coc-cimiglio, Coc-cimiglio, an enforcement officer for the state, indicated that the winery had paid $1,000 for a license fee and also posted a $10,000 bond. Coccimiglio noted that while wineries have operated in Utah in the past, Summum Nectar Nec-tar Publications Winery was the first to be licensed by the liquor commission in modern times. Obviously, a number of questions arise with respect to the design of the winery, particularly par-ticularly with all we have been hearing In the past several years about pyramid power. Summum partners, meeting with the liquor commission over the past year, have described their process as "being done under a pyramid to give the wine the attributes it deserves." Those of you who have followed us this far are no doubt waiting for the punch line, after all, this is an April Fool's edition. Well, the copy so far has not been outrageously funny, as we were required to stick with the facts (as they say in the newspaper business). In fact (pardon the pun), everything you have read so far is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The events as described are true with no embellishment on my part. Who saH f i ! stranger than fiction? |