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Show Page B4 Thursday, August 27, 1981 The Newspaper "Fantasticks" is full of wonderfrfls . i Friday, Saturday & Nights I 2 1Z L J Specials : gggjg Spaghetti W ; Vjy (Sicilian Sauce) with salad and garlic bread f JVCT Authentic Mexican style with Chili Verde CZi refried beans tortillas Dinner served Friday. Saturday 5:30 - H p in ONLY $2. 7 1 TAX I Pitchers 2 for l dJmn) Friday Saturday (jf lit 4:30-8:30 ty !B 649-8600 Qtfyf Open daily I U Noon -4:30 for all IMW) yoor favorite fiSSJlyiSv, sandwiches iLi ir niiim in, null iiiiiihmmmwpii ii iiiiiii iiHMaaafBaafaaaaM HOLIDAY VILLAGE MALL, PARK CITY, UT - 649-6541 '$Q00 Monday -Ladies Night $OOoN 1 Tuesday - Family Night y FISHER FYffli DON'T GO Sat Sun 12:30 2:45 Mon 730 5:00 7:30 9:45 fir Sal . Run If V W k A STEP BEYOND SCIENCE FICTION. After the show, visit the ELECTRONIC DOGHOUSE, right next to the theatre. We feature Hotdogs and Sandwiches and in our Arcade 15 of the most popular Videogames. w0u .,vl KAS,V St ,68" Starts Friday Aug. 28,1981 A GIANT comedy - don't rul tfrJ&l -m - CARRIE yf(.L TO APTMl ipws OF THE LOST ARK B . Fri HARRISON FORD 9 45 KAREN ALLEN FEATURING SONGS BY BLACK SABBATH BLUE OYSTER CULT CHEAP TRICK DEVO DONALD FAG EM DON FELDER sell it short! 12:452':4S55:00 7:15 9:30 MonFri 7:15 9:30 PG Sat Sun 12:30 2:10 3:50 5:30 7:30 9:30 Mon Fri 7:30 9:30 Hi I By Rick Brough "The Fantasticks,' produced by the Intermoun-tain Intermoun-tain Actors Ensemble, deserves a run through that much-remembered September. Septem-ber. The play, a parable of life, love and experience, has a minimal set, few props, and a small cast required to be constantly brimming with song. But this production never drags indeed, it moves faster than any Ensemble play has in months. It soars on the voices of Steve Stan-czyk Stan-czyk and Barbara Bramble, hovers there securely thanks to the supporting cast, and is nimbly directed through the dialogue and songs. Despite some unevenness in the play, Ron Burnett again claims his place as the premier director in the Ensemble. The Boy (Stanczyk) and the Girl (Bramble) are passionately attracted to each other, and the wall that separates their gardens only strengthens the determination deter-mination of their love. Of course, that's what his father the retired sailor (Chuck Folkerth) and her father the button merchant (Peter Holdorf) were counting coun-ting on. A fake abduction unites the lovers, but desire, satiated, soon turns to restlessness. Illusions are shattered and first the Boy, then the Girl, feel the pull of the outside world. A theif-cum theif-cum philosopher, El Gallo (Curt Graf) is on hand to create illusion and expose reality, aided by two ham actors (Rai French, Clayton KAC sets ceramic course The Kimball Art Center is sponsoring a five-week workshop on ceramics. Instructor In-structor Gary Compagna said he will be giving instruction in-struction in functional pottery, pot-tery, working in porcelain and stoneware. Gary said he is looking for all types for students. Compagna is a resident of Park City and a semi-professional semi-professional ceramicist. He i 4 ' 5 i DON Interior Design, Residential and Commercial, Furniture Packages available starting at $5,000. Park Meadows Plaza Building, Park City, Utah, 84060, P.O. Box 1678, 801-649-4044 Maw) and a Mute (Leslie Luyken). Theatre-goers still talk about the moment in "Camelot" last winter when Steve Stanczyk entered Act II as Mordred and literally transformed the play. In "The Fantasticks," he is by turns enthralled, impetuous, bored, bitterly deflated, but always convincing. In his hands every song becomes an anthem. The role, which puts the boy, Matt, through the crucible of life, is something of an archetype, and it lacks humor. But Stanczyk narrowly escapes the typing, and gives it freshness. It's hard to find fault, but we can say there are moments when Stanczyk is more compelling than others in "Metaphor," his lyric ode to Bramble, and in his return to the garden from the outside world, bowed down and wounded. Barbara Bramble is a little lit-tle off-beat physically for the role, but she makes up for it with a dauntingly beautiful voice. She's a short lady surrounded by taller actors, almost to her hazard. (When Curt Graf swings her arms around and over his head, you're afraid he might pull out her shoulder joints.) As Luisa, she has just realized she's a grown-up and not bad looking. Her coy, cat-in-the-cream satisfaction with this is marvelously funny. When Matt accuses her of being childish, she says, "Childlike "Child-like ! " with chin thrust out. Dramatically and musically, she and Stan- studied at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He also exhibited in the Park City Arts Festival for four consecutive con-secutive years. The course will take place every Tuesday night for five weeks, beginning this September Sep-tember 1st. The hours are 6 to 10 p.m. The cost is $45 for members of the Kimball Art Center, and $50 for non-members. non-members. y c St . N , ; ; i - i' - -Mil t mm ii ww 'l c J -t f . rmmymmtv jWjpWjy 'll0l,t'mm"m' V!1"'" ' BRADY ASSOCIATES czyk feed off each other's energy. But while Steve is a broad jumper, she is more of an acrobat and a stylist. In the song about fading love, "This Plum is Too Ripe," she ends the tune with a falling musical phrase, richly expressive in its sweet, arrogant boredom. Her conceit is delightful and she needs to bring it out more in other parts of the play. (At the beginning of Act I, she is merely bubbly and not so interesting. ) The supporting cast can't hope to live up to the leads. It is the play's only major flaw. Curt Graf's El Gallo made a great first expression. His resonant version of "Try to Remember" bounced off the tent poles in Swede Alley, and complemented by Roxanne Shapiro-Mear's piano accompaniment (one of the best in any recent musical) that stale old Easy-Listening Easy-Listening classic took on new life. But Graf is supposed to be grand, enigmatic, otherworldly other-worldly in the part. Too often, of-ten, he is merely polite. He is good at poking fun at his own persona (El Gallo reveals at one point that he suffers from saddlerash), but we need to see the bandit's gentility, gen-tility, humor, romance, and the marks the world has left upon him. Especially, we need to see the inner hurt he professes to feel after showing the young lovers their world is not all a pretty picture. Graf's voice, fine by itself, suffers by comparison when he sings with the two leads. In the "I Can See It" number, num-ber, he can't conceal the way he has to reach for low notes that Stanczyk easily reaches. The same musical inconsistency incon-sistency crops up with the two fathers. Peter Holdorf is on-key but quiet. Chuck Folkerth is not always in tune, but is loud and enthusiastic. en-thusiastic. Most of the time, the four or five singers are gloriously in harmony. But it is sometimes apparent the slow horses on stage aren't keeping up with the fast horses. hor-ses. Chuck Folkerth has never been so funny. I may have been fooled by the receptive ! t J. . f r , i s i , ' h i H t tit " ' B X T.. v :t initio m tkutltti :HiMiif .ml mim audience on opening night, but I don't think so. He is the perfect middle-aged parent a gardening nut who responds to his son's high-minded high-minded romantic fantasies by saying, "Son, you need pruning!" His feckless manner man-ner gives a cock-eyed twist to even the most innocent lines. Folkerth should play Babbitt Bab-bitt someday. When he refers to the bandit as EL GAL-LOW and is corrected (EL GAY-O) he responds, "Oh. Si! Si!" like a dim tourist. Even Bert Lahr or Paul Ford would have been hard pressed to give the line a funnier reading. Holdorf is also good as the less excitable father. His natural ease in front of an audience speaks of experience, ex-perience, and he almost approaches ap-proaches the Fonda ideal of effortless acting. Rai French, as the vain actor ac-tor Henry, bursts on the scene like an escapee from an asylum forever reaching for a prop or a clipping clip-ping when he can't captivate an audience under the rotunda of his voice. His assistant, Mortimer, is hilariously portrayed by Clayton Maw as a Stan Laurel simpleton. Mortimer has only one stock-in-trade, the Sears & Roebuck Death Scene No. 1-A a series of terminal calisthenics that ends with him sprawled on the floor and dramatically grasping forward for one last handful of air. Leslie Luyken as the Mute supplies the props efficiently, efficient-ly, plays the wall between the two gardens, with stick extended out from her side, and presides over the drama with an imperious neutrality that is so fascinating, I often found myself watching her instead of the actors. (It hasn't been so long since she and Clayton Maw first appeared ap-peared as competent, but not great, lead roles in "Bus Stop." The single most interesting in-teresting thing in recent Ensemble En-semble productions has been watching this pair display their growth and range.) Ron Burnett has directed a lively show with his eight-member eight-member case, a prop box, and nothing but a ladder for stage scenery (it represents f - t ; , . ' t i imim mm m m r s : in Sir :?at lean your jeans on us. the tree bridging the two gajKiens.) Mary Jane Bird's chjfreography is well-done. One of the more interesting examples is the Rape song whtre El Gallo explains his plan for a phony abduction, and the two fathers scuttle around the stage haggling with themselves over the price and style of "rape" they want. Unfortunately, the sophisticated lyrics of the tune were muffled. The cavernous Swede Alley Tent strikes again, abetted by the weather noises outside and nearby beer trucks pulling up for delivery. But the Ensemble is used to turning liabilities into assets. In the surrealistic "Round and Round" number, num-ber, El Gallo entices Luisa while Matt appears, phantom-like, suffering the torments tor-ments of the outside world where he has fled for adventure. adven-ture. Throughout the song, he materializes at a different corner of the stage area, with some new tortures aimed at him burning, beating, or agony on a bed of nails. The number ended, with Matt crying "Help!" one final time from off stage just as a car was revving up its engine in the parking lot. "My God," we thought, "they're going to drag him through Swede Alley!" Director Burnett should work to make the acting quality more uniform. And musical director Linda Martin Mar-tin has the same problem, despite an overall excellent job. In addition, the costumers, Martin and Janice Klein, might consider furnishing Curt Graf with a more lavish costume to help him feel at home as the grandiloquent El Gallo. JSvery play will have its problems. But "The Fantasticks" Fan-tasticks" is a rarity. The wst thing you can say is that parts of it were just "good." "The Fantasticks" is fantastic indeed! The play continues on Aug. 27-29 and Sept. 3-5. Curtain is at 8 p.m. at the City Tent. Tickets are $3.50 for KAC members, students and senior citizens, and $4.50 for adults and non-members. For further information, call 649-8882. |