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Show "Balance" Explores Hum Editor's Note: This review of "A Prf!rste Balance," by Ccrey Gbs!sa-sen, Gbs!sa-sen, Chronicle Staff Wrsr, fa reprinted here frca t!r? Monday, January 23 ksss cf The Dafly Utah CtaesSds. Edward Albee's A DsScsfc Balance, performed fast week in the Lab Theatre, is a brilliantly conceived ciaraina-tion ciaraina-tion of the tensions which lace ' men and women in later file. It ' is scathing in its diagnosis of our society's tendency to stifle vitality beneath conformity and let relationships atrophy rather than risk the excitement excite-ment of being fully ahve and fully responsible. AH of the play's action takes place in the living room of Agnes and Tobias, a . couple who, in their later years, begin to recognize the unsavory and unsatisfactory aspects of their life together. Agnes is a woman with a noble air about her... aristocratic in carriage, formal and precise in diction . and ever-conscious of word choice. At one point in the play she is referred to as "a combination pope." Yet she is a woman who would like to settle back into the pseudo-comfort pseudo-comfort of her old age and not face the unknowns of reality. Dian Woodhouse, as Agnes, gives a very polished performance. perform-ance. She seemed at ease with her character; her movements smooth and measured. Tobias is very different. He is passive and gentle in nature, reserved and not easily roused to action. He only asserts himself with great difficulty. His personality makes hime ineffectual in dealing with the play's developing deve-loping conflicts. In his eld age, Tobias worries that he has never really loved and that his relationships with other people have been essentially hollow. Michael McGtoae is truly masterful as Tobias. He carefully captures the isSosyn-: cracies of age. Tobias" pssaf- Viry:ih difficult and delicate role, but McGlone gave a controlled performance. He reflected Tobias .. passivity in nearly every motion, from ; his gait and his stance to the way he clasped his hands or folded his fingers. Agnes' alcoholic sister Claire also lives in the house. She is a source of constant , embarrassment and disgrace .to Agnes . and offends her sister's cultured social sensibility. sensib-ility. Claire is a crass woman and, because of her alcoholism, alcoho-lism, uses little tact or judgment. In her drunken states, she adds a bit of humor to a sad story, but we are reminded of the pathos behind it. Brenda Bensch as Claire showed some glimmers of insight in her handling of a couple of scenes, but overall, her characterization was somewhat contrived. Her style was overly dramatic and she seemed to be play-acting. ' The ' conflict of the play ; beginlwhen Harry and Edna, friends of some 40 years to Agnes and Tobias, appear. They say they ; were sitting home alone, when all of a sudden, they became frightened... fright-ened... mysteriously frightened frighten-ed of absolutely nothing. Tobias and Agnes insist that they stay the night, but they beomce dismayed when Harry and Edna announce their intentions to move in. ..after all,: aren't they friends? The matter is complicated by the untimely arrival of Julia, the couple's middle-aged daughter. daugh-ter. Julia, returning home after her fourth marriage, is amazed and becomes hysterical hysteri-cal at the intrusion of Harry and Edna. She sees their presence there as unwanted and unwelcome and sees them as audacious for imposing on her parents and occupying her "roomV- These people are all crammed cram-med into the same house for a weekend. The tension Albee more review this play and the University should feel proud that its theatre department has students stud-ents of his caliber and ability. A Delicate Balance is a difficult show, but this production produc-tion was most effective in conveying its themes. CC5 creates by such a situation is incredible. The confrontations are interesting and cause each character to reconsider care- . fully his relationship to every other character. Agnes, Tobias, Tob-ias, Harry and Edna are forced . to examine exactly what is .. implied by the concept of friendship and where love fits . into it all. The focus is clearly on the realizations Tobias and Agnes come to, but all the characters, acting as catalysts, do come to viewyfte truth in new ways. Albee implies that under normal circumstances we settle set-tle for much less than the full potential of being alive because be-cause it's frightening always to face the unknown and perhaps unknowable. Tobias and Agnes are forced, by the intrusion of Harry and Edna, to face up to their unsatisfact-ory unsatisfact-ory relationships. For this one weekend, they cannot evade the terror of the unknown... the delicate balance of their lives is imperilled. Susan Jarman's Julia captures cap-tures excellently the acid 1 bitterness her character feels I toward her parents and the fiery hysteria she feels in response to the presence of Harry and Edna. Marc Thomson Thom-son was convincing as Harry, but Gail Thomson as Edna was very mediocre, conveying the impression that she was merely repeating memorized ? lines.,;'.":-.;:,;" -' A Delicate Balance was a student production directed by Don Gomes. Gomes did a most commendable job directing |