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Show ARTS&ENTERTAINMEN Thursday, October 26,2006 Page 4 Perfecting the 'Pinter Pause' ARTS Thursday, Oct. 26 Festival Ninth Annual Great Salt Lake Book Festival Free All day I Sale Lake City Library (210 E. 400 South) Social event Bennion Center Brown Bag: Campus and Community: The Dating Game Free 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. Union Panorama East Play "Harold Pinter One-Act Plays": "The Dumb Waiter,*? "The Lover," "Sketches" $9 public $7 faculty staff $5 students '•> 12 p.m. to I p.m. Union Room 293, Women's Resource Center LENNIE MAHLER/ The Dusty Vt-ih Chronicle Catherine McMillan and Gwen de Veer play two old ladles in Pinter's "The Black and White," one of three sketches directed by Cory Huff. U theater students direct Nobel-winning playwright's early work Concert < Utah Philharmonia Annual Halloween Concert: Music from Beyond the Grave $7 adults $3 students 7:30 p.m. Libby Gardner Concert Hall Alexandra Gregory LENNIE MAHLER/ The Daily Utah ChronlcL- Gwen de Veer and Aaron Buckner rehearse Pinter's "The Lover," directed by Ltnsday Thompson, about a couple that takes role-playing to a new level. artistic direction of U theater facThe Daily Utah Chronicle ulty member Barbara Smith, each of the Pinter pieces are separately The U theater department con- directed by three different stutinues its diverse season with the dents chosen by the department "Harold Pinter One-Act Plays," a based on submission of interest selection of short plays written letters. by absurdist playwright Harold Cory Huff, a senior in the AcPinter, the 2005 Nobel Prize re- tor Training Program and student cipient for literature. director for "Sketches," said he The works chosen originate accepted the offer to direct a onefrom Pinter's early career: "The act play because "Pinter is a fanDumb Waiter," "The Lover" and tastic writer who seems to catch "Sketches," a grouping of three the human condition on paper in sketches known as ''Request a very unique way." Stop/' "Last to Go" and "Black Rather than assume an invenand White." tive approach, Huff made the Although conscious decision to let the play under itself guide his directing process. the "I don't know that you can really impose much of a concept on Pinter's work," he said. "Mostly, the idea is to stay as true to the text as possible and allow the writer's brilliance to carry the show." Huff was particularly intrigued by one of the signature characteristics of Pinter's writing. "For me, the most interesting See P I N T E R Page 5 John Dykstra: the man, the myth, the legend The special-effects pioneer reflects on the highs and lows of his filmmaking experience Matt Gardner The Daily Utah Chronicle John Dykstra, a special effects pioneer, visited the U film department last Tuesday to discuss his experiences in Hollywood. The two-time Academy Awardwinning special-effects supervisor explained the joys and pains he faced on his first film, "Star Wars." "I was hired by George (Lucas) because of the work I did at Berkeley University developing the first computer-controlled camera. The camera was able to move through exposure. With that, we were able to slow time down, which made everything look more realistic," he said. Dykstra recalls "Star Wars" as the highlight of his film career. "It was a great time. What drove us was our enthusiasm. We were all in our early 20s—some of us in our teens," he said. "(On 'Star Wars/) we worked 20 hours a day. Sometimes, while waiting around at night, it would get cold. So, we would get into the hot tub and relax. That was always the time the executives would show up and see us 'busy at work.' The executives gave the studio the title 'The Country Club' because of our work ethic." After filming wrapped on "Star Wars," Dykstra won an Academy Award for his contribution to the film; however, Dykstra and Lucas had a falling out before the film's SecDYKSTRA Page 5 'Catch a Fire5 gets some embers going, but fails to build to the raging blaze it could have Aaron Allen The Daily Utah Chronicle The more interesting role in Phillip Noyce's incendiary "Catch a Fire" lies not with Derek Luke as the Apartheid-era rebel warrior Patrick Chamusso, but with his nemesis—an anti-terrorist cop played by Tim Robbins. His name is Nic Vos and he's stationed in 1980s South Africa with the responsibility of hunting down militant members of the African National Congress who fight against the racial boundaries imposed upon them. Nic's methods are cold and calculated. He orders his men "Catch a Fire" Focus Features Directed by Phillip Noyce Written by Shawn Slovo Starring; Derek Luke,Tim Robbins, Bonnie Henna and Mncedisi Shabangu Rated PG-1 3/100 minutes Opens Oct 27, 2006 Three out of four stars • •• to torture any suspected ANC members they capture. Once the prisoner's physical will is shaken, Nic descends, offering a piece of gum or a drink of water. He lulls the captive into a false sense of security and then tenaciously interrogates them for a truth that may or may not be real, depending on how long the prisoner can withstand the pressure. At home, Nic is a family man, living in lush, American-style suburbs that clash with the arid, ramshackle towns to which the native South Africans have been relegated, similar to Indian reservations. Nic talks to his wife about the inevitable fall of apartheid—not so much with disappointment, but with tired acceptance. Robbins plays Nic not as a racist man, but as someone who loves order and loathes insubordination. It's a compellingly gray performance. Patrick is complicated, too, but in more typical ways—he's also a family man, father of two young children with his wife, Precious (Bonnie Henna), and one child with a woman from his past. He's arrested upon suspicion of belonging to the ANC (he doesn't), tortured, berated by Nic and then horrified when his wife is also arrested and beaten. To save Precious, Patrick confesses to a crime he didn't commit (blowing up a power plant), but Nic sees through this—he lets both of them go. Dance Concert Narcissism, Intimacy and Loss: Performing Dance Company Fall Concert $7 for students, seniors, faculty/staff ' :< 7:30 p.m. Marriott Center for Dance, Hayes Christensen Theatre Hass party Renowned poet to read at the Art Barn Eryn Green Chronicle Asst. A&E Editor Every so often, an individual of such singular talent graces the U with his or her presence and the world stops its ceaseless spinning to bear witness—or, at least, it ought to. These events are inspiring, audacious, ambitious and—really—universally agreed to be "freaking awesome." As far as the literary world (and its respective stars) and the U are concerned, these wonderful events oh-so-often come to pass as a result of the tireless efforts of the Guest Writers Series—a literary series unrivalled in the state for the variety of talent it draws and the benchmark standard of quality it sets. ; Don't believe me? Check out tlje stats: ho: Robert Hass, author of four books of poems . {Field Guide, for which he won the Yale Younger Poets Award; Praise, which earned him a Williams Carlos Williams Award; Human Wishes and Sun Under Wood, for which he received the 1996 National Book Critics Circle Award). Hass received a second National Book Critics Circle Award for his book of criticism, Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry. Other honors include two VEN/ BABRA awards for translation. Hass served as the poet laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997 and teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. hat: A reading of Hass' work, by the author, as part of the departmerlt of English's Guest Writers Series. The Guest Writers Series is an ongoing feature of the U's English department and creative writing W W SeeYLASS SeeFTRJL Page 5 Page5 |