Page 79 - Demo

'Aladdin%u2019 Ahoy!The Penny Bridge Players performance of %u201c Aladdin,%u201d directed by Jane Stanton and produced by Sally Forbes, is a wholesome, enjoyable theatrical treat for children. The Penny Bridge Players theater, located at the Undercroft of the Assumption Church at 59 Cranberry Street in Brooklyn Heights, offers a cheery atmosphere to the charming if unstimulating musical, performed by this talented, professional acting troupe.THe best feature of this production is the exuberant, lighthearted performance of the actors. They involve the audience directly by asking questions, and using the members in the audience as the peasants in the play%u2019s village. The viewer finds himself both rooting for the poor %u201c coolie%u201d boy Aladdin when he refuses to accept his destiny as a poor nobody, dreaming of adventure, and cautioning him as the wicked magician, Sleezar, lures him into danger.The children in the audience squealed with delight when Aladdin rubbed the magic lamp and the genii appeared in a puff of smoke. Joette Waters played a perfect Aladdin; she sounded convincingly like a 16-year old boy, singingJoette W aters as Aladdin with Sleezar, the evilmagician played by Jim West.and speaking in a loud, resonant voice. Virginia Armons turned in a fine performance as Princess Cassimir, the girl that Aladdin falls in love with, but her voice could not always be heard. Deborah Aquila was excellent as Aladdin%u2019s mother as was Thomas Doughtery as the princess%u2019s dottering old father. It is, however, Sleezzar the magician, played by Jim West, who steals the show. As the villainous, corruptable magician, slinking about the stage with an evil laugh that would send shivers down Bela Lugosi%u2019s spine, West puts in a first-rate performance. The set design by Judy Stanton and the costumes by Nomi Fredrick are colorful and imaginatively done, enhancing the performance. The music and lyrics written by David Levine show promise and talent. The lyrics were a bit bland but they are well-suited to the bouncy, lighthearted production. The performance ran for approximately two hours, and a little tightening would have helped the performance as well as holding the audience%u2019s attention more effectively. Starting July 31, the Penny Bridge Players will begin %u201cTinker Tom and the Magic Garden.%u201d For futher information call 855-6346 or 625-4139%u2014Joan BesterA t the GalleriesSocial Satire with ZingSocial satire, as we have come to know it, is a political cartoon with a big balloon coming from an elephant%u2019s mouth. Few satirists have been able to graduate into humor while maintaining the sharp and subtle aptness that was once the niche of the cartoonist. One exception is Hank Virgona, whose work is currently on display at the Summa Gallery, 152 Montague Street through August 15. Virgona is unique among today%u2019s artists in his techniques as well as his messages. His work is largely composed of etchings, with some watercolor and mixed-media. The sketchy pen & ink style compounded with the sepia and%u201c Equal Justice For A ll,%u201d a Hank Virgona etching.brown tones he uses gives Virgona%u2019s pieces an aged look. His work is so insightful that it is almost %u201c hindsight%u201d -ful and gives the viewer the eerie feeling of looking back onthe present as if it were the past.Virgona treats his subjects with the tender cynicism of an aged father who knows his growing son is doing wrong, or more, perhaps, like a sociology scholar looking back to the days when the politics were naively innocent. With few exceptions, most of which were commissioned, Virgona doesn%u2019t seek to stab any individual. Few faces are identifyable and almost none of the work can be considered cruel. Instead the artist jests at various systems, mainly military, political, social and religious. Rangling from grinnably satiracle to devastatingly powerful, Virgona takes most of his settings from actual situations and a good number of his %u201ccaptions%u201d from political quotes or sayings. Many of these social satires are developments from realistic works. Virgona looks at the world he sees as a mockery of itself. He began as a photographer, but traded in his lens in the 40%u2019s when he found how much more welcomed his pad and pencil were. Virgona spends much of his time in courts and on the streets, sketching %u201cinspirations.%u201dVirgona is likened to a 20th century Daumier, in that he treats his subjects with the similar sensitivity. The parallel fails in that Virgona adds a new dimension to his era, while Daumier reflected his own. In an introduction to a collection of Virgona%u2019s works %u201cThe System Works,%u201d Pete Hamill writes, %u201c In these etchings he reveals that world of antihistory that is populated by the rulers of the time.%u201d Personally signed copies of the book are available at Summa, where there is also a display showing the six steps of etching, as practiced by the artist-satirist.%u2014J.E.W.Two From Boerum Hill%u201c Boerum Hill Artists,%u201d an exhibition of the paintings, sculptures and graphics, will be on display in the Community Gallery of the Brooklyn Museum from July 30 through September 10. It will include 50 pieces.According to Ed Moran, the exhibition%u2019s organizer, it is Boerum Hill%u2019s small, compact nature that makes it popular with artists. The neighborhood has a long history of art work; in the mid-19th century the neighborhood was inhabited mainly by artists and' artisans, and the neighborhood still does contain many artists, some of whom have helped their community by works and designs donated to be put in public places.On display with %u201c Boerum Hill Artists%u201d will be an exhibition of the work of youngsters in Public Library Animation by Youth (P.L.A.Y.). In P.L.A.Y.%u2019s media workshops, held in Brooklyn Libraries, youngsters are taught to create and produce their own animated cartoons. The exhibition will contain drawings, and photos of work in progress by participants in P.L.A.Y. This Sunday, July 30, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., an Artists Reception will be held at the Museum. The public is invited to attend.Philharmonia In the PlazaThe Brooklyn Philharmonia, David Amram conducting, will perform at Cadman Plaza Park on August 2 at 7 p.m. The program will include Mozart%u2019s Overture to %u201c Marriage of Figaro%u201d ; Mendelssohn%u2019s Italian Symphony; and some %u201c Rags%u201d by Scott Joplin, as well as other works.Book Beat By L. J. DavisThe Inside Scoop On The Writers' ConferenceShould I ever settle down to keeping bees in Sussex, the first volume of my memoirs will not concern itself with the remarkable events that inspired my adventures in the Ruritanian kingdom of Zenda. Nor will it describe how I drove myself across the tablelands beyond Tabora with only a single native bearer to whip for casual entertainment, my eyes alight with the mystery of the Reunzori. No, it will probably begin something like this:Do I know about writers%u2019 conferences? Me? Know about writers%u2019 conferences? Buddy, if you want to hear about writers%u2019 conferences, pull up a pew and lend an ear, because you%u2019ve finally found the horse%u2019s mouth and B%u2019rer Rabbit%u2019s laughing place rolled into one.In the course of the last eight years, I have been to a number of places and done a number of things, but a writers%u2019 conference is the one thing, the only thing, that never comes out the same way twice. I am, for example, probably the only living man to have directed a writers%u2019 conference in a department store. This took place behind a big screen in back of the toy store. I didn%u2019t know a whole lot about writers%u2019 conferences in those days, and I assumed that they consisted of a bunch of writers getting together on a little dais, conferring while a live audience looked on, dumbstruck. While it more or less worked out that way (and went on, coff, coff, to win a prize or two, perhaps nobody had ever heard of a writers%u2019 conference in a toy department and so felt constrained to encourage me in hopes that I would put my next one on in a swimming pool) it wasn%u2019t exactly the audience who ended up dumbstruck.I vividly recall the expression of frozenhorror that crept across the features of one of America%u2019s greatest living newspaper columnists when, marching up the podium with firm, manly strides, he beheld before him the entire English class from Our Lady of Perpetual Pain Girls%u2019 High School. And their nuns. Faces fresh as flowers, expectant waiting. Faces sucking lemons, waiting, expectant.Or how a well-known political speechwriter, a man normally of great verve and eloquence, was reduced to a froth of blather by the presence of his old political science teacher in the front row.Writers%u2019 conferences are, occasionally, the places where writers find out whatSatchel Page meant when he said there might be something behind you, catching up.There is also a lot of drinking. And other stuff.One conspicuous exception was a place in Vermont where, if liquor had been served, half the student body would have keeled over dead from the fumes. (I can%u2019t answer for the other half, the young pups in their 60%u2019s and 70%u2019s, but presumably some of them would have fled and the rest gotten a glow on.) It was a auiet. somnolent plact, quite beautiful actually, with a view of 11 mountain ranges falling away toward New. Hampshire. My class was held at ten in the morning, soft breezes blew, the langorous sun shone down, and insects droned, joined shortly by my pupils; the big event of the week was when the bee flew into the receiver of Mr. Foraker%u2019s hearing aide.Up here, I am a sort of combinationcruise director, last-minute troubleshooter (did you ever hear of any really big trouble that didn%u2019t have to be shot at the last minute, like a lion in a drain?), and nut catcher. Every conference has its nut%u2014 usually there are several of them%u2014and, sad to say, these persons are often female. Frequently they give some hint of their nature in advance of their arrival, as in the case of the young radical who wanted to know the exact elevation of the city of Rochester because she couldn%u2019t endure it 400 feet above sea level; thus forewarned, the Dean and I began laying plans to secure a hot air balloon and ended up by sending her home on the train.A few years ago there was a man, outwardly sane, hale and ruddy of face, firm and confident of demeanor, who walked up on the first night and told me that his room was too warm. Mind you, this is a grown-up that I am talking about. Thinking the matter over, I suggested he open a window, then drove out to the airport to pick up the rest of the faculty. No sooner had I returned than I was collared by the same bozo%u2014I%u2019d like to stress again that this man was a grownup%u2014who informed me that he%u2019d taken mv advice and now his room was too cold. Furthermore, he didn%u2019t approve of the architecture of the building we were in. I was compelled to reveal that I am not one of the Cyclops. He took the news badly. They always do.Those who enjoy writers%u2019 conferences most are those who approach them in the spirit of running away with the circus for a week or so. (In fact, one year I not only had a kid who attended the conference for aweek or so, but who actually did run off with the circus afterwards. Mad? You never saw a mother so mad.) The ones who enjoy writers%u2019 conferences least are either those who keep running around the country looking for one that will give them something (like talent) that all the other conferences have failed to come up with, and those who have never been to a conference before and thus expect the faculty to come equipped with magic wands, infinite resources of time, and Spanish fly. In this last category was the lady who came up after Nelson Algren%u2019s brilliantly funny, low-keyed talk on the Writer%u2019s Life and informed me that he was the most bo%u2019in%u2019 man she had ever heard. She%u2019d never been so bo%u2019ed in her life before. Why, did I realize that the man had categorically re-fused to say a single word about his affair with Simone de Beauvoir? Wouldn%u2019t even answer her questions about it. Cut her right off.Mr. Algren later made a typically pointed comment on this, but I don%u2019t think I%u2019d better repeat it.I%u2019ll lay it on the line. At a typical writers%u2019 conference, you%u2019re going to get five two-hour seminars, one individual conference of up to an hour if you%u2019re a genius and twenty minutes if you aren%u2019t, guest speakers of stature, faculty readings, daily cocktails, and a banquet. So pardon me if I was a little short with the chap who came up on the second day and said, with the sort of lingering artistic sigh that I have come to dread, that he just didn%u2019t know what he was going to do with his mornings.%u201c Why don%u2019t you try writing?%u2019%u2019He looked as though I%u2019d slapped him in the face.July 27,1978, TH E PHOENIX, Page 19'Do I know about writers* conferences? Me?*