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Show i ! ,i The Newspaper Thursday, November 4, 1982 Page B3 i;i;hniiMlllrtrMl!nlllIiil!ll'iMiliiii JffifiWOOB FR SALE: BUNDLED CEDAR KINDLING .A.,, Kb 3)f uzCJ nsnnnn man rnfr I s 'Killing Radius' looks at life's slim safety margin "Killing Radius" is set in Vietnam. But its theme goes beyond geography. The play is about the frailty of human life, said director Dan Bale-strero. Bale-strero. "We all have this illusion of safety," he said. But that secure feeling--that confidence confi-dence in the idea of living-is easily shattered when a relative dies of a disease or a friend is killed in a car wreck. The margin of safety is especially thin in wartime, among the characters of "Killing Radius"-an Army squad maintaining a boat along Qui Nhom Bay. "You see these guys doing things to maintain that sense of normality, but they fail," said the director. "It is comic, but is also breeds tragic consequences." Author Craig Clyde said the play doesn't intend to deliver a moral about Vietnam. Viet-nam. "It is about people and the circumstances they find themselves in." The play's feelings aren't even necessarily about war. Said Balestrero, "That experience ex-perience of fear and terror is something we've all gone through. I knew a man, a veteran, who had a close relative die, and he told me the feeling had a similarity to combat." The play, opening tonight, Nov. 4, will be taped for sale to a cable network. The play utilizes live actors against a surrealistic set by Dudley Byers Wicker, original music, and literally hundreds hun-dreds of slides to create an atmosphere so unique a stage hand commented it was "like looking back into a time tunnel to 1967." The play is mostly comedy, but the dramatic climax is so remarkable that rehearsals have been kept closed. "It's going to be controversial," said the author. Clyde began writing the play in 76, prompted by conversations he had with Vietnam veteran Scott Cur-ran. Cur-ran. Clyde, an actor-TV personality, was hosting an interview show at KUTV and Curran was a salesman there. (Both have gone on to greater notoriety at the UHF station, Channel 20. Clyde hosts the talk show "Midday." "Mid-day." Curran is recognized as a commercial spokesman and, formerly, as 20's kiddie host, Captain Cutlass.) "We'd go on sales calls together," recalled Clyde, "long trips to Ogden or wherever. And over three or four years, Scott would tell me these stories about the war, show me pictures or letters to his mother." Grace Kelly rubs shoulders with Japanese in SLC film This month at the Utah Media Center, you can see the Western world's most beloved real-life princess, and some of the Eastern world's finest cinematic art. The center is sponsoring a Grace Kelly festival, along with Japanese classics for the month of November. The films play on Saturday and Sunday nights--the Kelly films at 7:30 and the Japanese Japan-ese films at 9:30. On Nov. 6-7, the first film is "High Noon" with Kelly as the Quaker bride of marshal Gary Cooper, who must face a gang of killers arriving in town to kill him. The Japanese film is Kurosawa's "Rashomon." You'll recognize recog-nize the plot, which has been used a hundred times. A lone bandit (played by Toshiro Mifune in an early appearance) ap-pearance) rapes a woman and kills her husband in the forest. Afterward, everybody every-body has his own version of the event, and each story favors the pe' o . tells it. Eventually Clyde started writing a story about the G I s around an army boat, and the strange, ridiculous things they do to keep a sense of normalcy. "That's one absurd thing right there," he said. "The Army wasn't known for their boats." Curran said he gave the basic story to Clyde, but isn't a collaborator. "I also supplied sup-plied the names and the details." The story began as a screenplay, which Clyde said was "awful." He added, "The idea of a boat caused horrendous technical problems." prob-lems." In the meantime, the play went through several drafts-the drafts-the last done five weeks ago. And even then, Clyde said, it's been changed and revised re-vised in rehearsal. The result is a wide-ranging wide-ranging ensemble of characters. charac-ters. Don Re Sampson plays Calvin Thomas, the big soldier. "He's a very open guy," said Clyde. Dan Rogers is "the wimp," Garshy. Experienced performer per-former Michael Bailey, is the antagonistic Sergeant Halvorson, and brings out a hard edge in the role that stuns observers. "It's very frightening to see something new like that come out of an actor," said Clyde. Kip Shiutoni plays Huat, the Vietnamese liaison officer. of-ficer. "It was a tough role, with a lot of broken English," said the author. "He gave it a fresh enthusiasm." enthu-siasm." Park City's own Richard Scott plays Lt. . Carlson. "You will be tremendously proud of him," said director Balestrero. "He gave the role a terrific maturity and control." Practically all the characters char-acters are based on real people, except for Gable, played by Charles Nibley. "His character is the audience's au-dience's way of learning things," said Clyde. "He gave the role a smoldering quality that was not in the script." Clyde also plays a role. And Scott Curran plays, in effect, himself. His character charac-ter is called "The Canadian" -his own nickname in recent years. "He is a guy who enlisted because he figured he would be drafted anyway. He's the local libertine," said Clyde. He's a weak cynic, he takes it as it comes." "I adjusted to it (Vietnam)," (Viet-nam)," recalled Curran. "I was infantry--I knew I wasn't going to be real close to the fighting. Out of 365 Kelly won her Oscar for "The Country Girl" (Nov. 13-14). She played the drab, clinging wife of a has-been musical star (Bing Crosby) who is apparently responsible respon-sible for his alcoholic stagnation. stagna-tion. But when Broadway producer (William Holden) tries to dry out the singer for a Broadway show, he finds he has a lot to learn about Crosby-and about his own romantic feelings toward Kelly. To co-hit, "The Island" is about as far from Broadway glamor as you can get. This 1962 film, made with very little dialogue, tells of a family struggling to survive on a rocky island. On Nov. 20-2CKelIy stars in "Dial M for Murder," one of her three films for Alfred Hitchcock. Ray Milland is the ruthless husband who arranges to have his wife (Kelly) killed. But when she manages to kill her attacker, Milland quickly improvises to frame her for first-degree homicide! You don't often see local TV face Craig Clyde in jungle fatigues. Clyde plays a supporting role in "Killing Radius" a Vietnam drama he authored. days there, I had maybe 25-30 days of real life-threatening life-threatening tension. You knew something can happen, but you couldn't do anything about it." The important thing, interjected inter-jected director Balestrero, was that Curran helped open a window to the experiences of every soldier-whether he had 30 or 300 days of bad days in the field. ... The show pulls no punches with the subject or the language. Gosh and darn weren't said very much in Vietnam," said Clyde. The setting in Vietnam itself will probably stir controversy, he The play is mostly comedy, but the dramatic climax is so remarkable that rehearsals have been kept closed. admitted, as the war does to anything it touches. Though based on true events, the play took some dramatic liberties. "The e. Jing isn't exactly the way it happened, thank God," said Curran. The show uses several media, including a large number of slides circa 1967. Several of them are used to enhance the story presented by the actors. But another series of slides The Eastern entry, "Woman of the Dunes," has a bizarre, existential plot. A traveling salesman is lured to a woman's house deep at the bottom of a pit surrounded sur-rounded by massive sand dunes. To keep the sand from engulfing the house, he is forced to help her dig... and dig... and dig... The final Kelly film (Nov. 27-28) is, appropriately, "High Society," with Kelly as an heiress about to marry; Bing Crosby as her ex-husband horning in on the ceremony, and Frank Sinatra as a reporter romantically ro-mantically involved with Kelly. The Japanese co-hit, "The Boy," examines the life of a youngster who makes a living for his crooked family by faking pedestrian collisions with cars. The Media Center is located lo-cated at 20 South West Temple. Admission is $2.25 for separate films ($3 for the double feature) and $1 loi children. For further information, infor-mation, call 328-4201. iV , ' .. x- ' is used between scenes to tell a parallel story. Clyde said they are mounted on a "three-unit clear-light dissolve" dis-solve" machine. The audio track, working through a computerized unit, projects the slides at the stage. "There are 284 slides, and you see 130 of them in the last three minutes of the play," Clyde said. The play also uses music with an original theme song written by Clyde, and stylish lighting by Ed Warner of KUTV. Balestrero's challenge was to mix all these elements together in a believable continuity. And to hear Clyde tell it, the director has succeeded. "He's one of the very best stage directors I've ever worked with," he said. The director was trained in San Francisco and has worked in Utah the last 10 years. He calls himself a "renegade," confined to no one theatre company. This will be his 45th production, he said. After Dan read the script k ins a Last call to get in the phone book! It's almost time for your new telephone directory to go to press. And that: means that time is getting short to change your listing or get working service so your home or business can be included in the new directory- So if you have any changes or additions addi-tions to make in either the "White or Yellow Pages, call our Residence or Business Service Center now. We'll be happy to help and to provide information about any charges which may be involved. The final closing date for the Heber Citv Direc tory White and Yellow Pages y-rv is December 13th. photo by David Hampshire last winter, he and Clyde formed First-Plus Films to mount the production, and both men called upon their professional contacts to get the show going. As producer, they recruited Norm Klein, another Channel 20 commentator com-mentator and a graduate of the Columbia Film School in New York. They also obtained ob-tained an unlikely sponsor-the sponsor-the A-l Engine & Mower Company in Salt Lake. After the taping, First-Plus First-Plus will market the production produc-tion for cable or other TV distribution. The actors will share whatever profits come from the play. "We have no desire to pretend we're perfect," said the director. "But the play has things of tremendous merit to offer." If the play succeeds, it will be the first in an Emerging Playwrights Series to be staged at the Egyptian. "We came here by design," said Clyde. "We are trying to tell the Salt Lake audiences there is something here." The support of Park City is critical, he added. "We appreciate Don Gomes' support and courage." cour-age." he said. "We couldn't ask for more help from a theater." "Killing Radius" will run Nov. 4-6, 11-13, and 18-20. Tickets are $7 general admission ad-mission and $5.50 for members mem-bers of Park City Performances. Per-formances. For further information, in-formation, call 649-9371. 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