The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 8, Ed. 1 Friday, October 3, 1986 Page: 9 of 20
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THRESHER Fine Arts
Rice Players' Crimes illustrates actors', Pavilion's potentional
Crimes of the Heart
Rice Players
Directed by John Thomas
Friday, September 26
The Rice Players opened its
1986-87 season last week with
performances of Mary Beth
Henley's Crimes of the Heart. The
production is the inaugural event
in the Farnsworth Pavilion, part of
the Ley Student center.
The space, which is a theater in
the round, was not available for
rehearsal until one week before the
play's opening. Subsequent limits
in rehearsal time were still causing
problems in the performance on
Friday night. Dialogue was not
easily understood, due in part to an
echo in the pavilion, but also to
uneven regional accents and
volume which was too loud for the
small space. By the evening's end,
however, n^ost of the rough edges
had been smoothed out.
Directed by John Thomas, the
performance featured Laura
Dresser, Ann Marley, and
Bernadette Gillece as three sisters
from a small town in Mississippi.
Frances Egler, Philip A.
Christiansen Jr. and Mark
Anderson played friends and
relatives of the women.
The sisters have been separated
Laura Dresser as Lenny, the eldest sister
—D. Kelly
for a number of years prior to the
action of the play. Babe, the
youngest, has married a prominent
lawyer of their town, and Meg, the
middle sister, has been living in
California in order to pursue a
singing career. The eldest sister,
Lenny, has remained at home to
care for an ailing grandfather.
The three are reunited when
Babe gets into trouble with the law
for shooting her husband in the
stomach. Her primary reason, she
says at first, is that she "didn't like
his looks." She meant to kill him,
but her aim was off.
Although still young, the sisters
have developed a pathetic array of
misplaced emotional attachments.
They are complex characters, the
product of a deep and painful
tragedy as well as sheer
eccentricity. Laura Dresser was the
most sucessful of the three in
giving real depth and nuance to her
role as Lenny. The other sisters,
especially in the first act, did not
fully reconcile the seeming
incongruities of character found in
each female.
As the evening progressed,
however, the roles fit more
comfortably. A powerful scene for
the tough-seeming Meg (Ann
Marley) came when she told Doc,
her former lover, about a mental
breakdown that placed her in the
mental ward of a county hospital.
The account could easily have
lapsed into melodrama, but
Marley played it with a spareness
that was touching.
Egler was appropriately self-
rightous as the girl's social-
climbing first cousin, and her
interactions with the sisters
produced some of the funniest
scenes of the evening. Her lines
epitomized the stifling attitudes of
conformity found in a small town,
and thus were always a hilarious
contrast to the bizarre behavior of
the three sisters.
Philip Christiansen captured the
quiet calm of Doc, and Mark
Anderson made an earnest young
lawyer hired for Babe's defense.
Once the snags are taken care of,
the Farnsworth Pavilion promises
to be a good performing space. The
lighting facilities seem to be
flexible and effective, and the
closeness of the stage area to the
audience adds a vibrant edge to the
performance. The lighting scheme
for Crimes of the Heart was well
designed, especially in view of the
limited rehearsal time. Given the
experience of last week's
performances in the new space, the
performances this weekend should
be more polished.
-Nancy Collier
Rice Prof. Hoiioway to perform sacred organ music tonight
Clyde Hoiioway
Shepherd School
Faculty Artist Series
Preview
The Shepherd School of Music
will present a free concert in the
Faculty Artist Series tonight at 8
p.m. in St. Paul's United
Methodist Church, 5501 S. Main.
Clyde Hoiioway, Professor of
Music and Chairman of the
Keyboard Department of the
Shepherd School and Organist-
Choirmaster of Christ Church
Cathedral, Houston, will perform
Maurice Durufltf's Prelude,
Adagio et Choral varie sur la
theme du " Veni Creator," Opus 4
and Julius Reubke's Sonata on
Psalm Ninety-Four.
Clyde Hoiioway began his organ
study with Ruth Turner Caldwell
and Virginia Denyer Reese. He
attended the University of
Oklahoma under the renowned
Mildred Andrews and received the
Bachelor and Master of Music
degrees.
Mr. Hoiioway was later granted
a Fulbright Scholarship for work
at the Amsterdam Conservatory,
where he studied organ,
harpsichord, and chamber music
with Gustav Leonhardt. He was a
pupil of Robert Baker as a
doctoral candidate at Union
Theological Seminary and held the
full-time position of Assistant
Organist at St. Bartholomew's
Church in New York City.
Among his many honors, Mr.
Hoiioway won the National
Playing Competition of the
Rice Professor Clyde Hoiioway will perform at St. Paul's Church tonight
Refreshing new album
City Down
Casselberry-Dupree
If there are any doubts that New
York is truly a cosmopolitan city,
then the album City Down, by
Casselberry-Dupree, should
quickly dispel them. Both native
Brooklynites, J. Casselberry and
Jacque Dupree perform a unique
style of music that draws on black
music the world over, from Africa
to the Caribbean to the southern
U.S. Added to this is their own
individual approach to music.^
The most immediately striking
feature is their use of harmony.
Dupree's strong contralto-soprano
is beautifully emphasized by the
husky alto of Casselberry. While
this kind of counterpoint is fairly
common among the black
community, it is not often heard in
mainstream American pop and
adds a fresh sparkle to such songs
as their interpretation of The
Eagles' Take It To The Limit.
The diversity of Casselberry-
Dupree extends well past musical
style to encompass a variety of
themes as well. Did Jesus Have A
Baby Sister? reminds us of the
sexism inherent in Christianity,
while the plight of the urban poor
comes into focus in City Down.
War and South Africa examine
the racial tensions in Africa while
Marley's reggae anthem Coming
In From The Cold carries a
message of inspiration.
The common thread running
through this album is that of social
awareness. But they manage to
avoid the inherent pitfalls of the
blind idealism of the '60s as well as
the cynicism and despair of much
of the ^Os music underground.
More importantly, they avoid the
self-imposed ignorance of the
mainstream.
Their approach is one of hope
and determination in the face of
unpleasant realities. Quite
refreshing!
—Bruce Mast
American Guild of Organists and
was elected to Phi Beta Kappa by
the University of Oklahoma for his
professional achievements.
In 1974, he received the Doctor
of Sacred Music degree from
Union Theological Seminary, New
York. His dissertation, The Organ
Works of Olivier Messiaen and
Their Importance in His Total
Oeuvre, involved working with
and playing under the direction of
Messiaen at the organ of the
Church of the Holy Trinity in
Paris.
Born in Louviers, Maurice
Durufte (1902-1986) studied organ
with Eugene Gigout at the Paris
Conservatory and later with Louis
Vierne. In 1930 he was appointed
to the post of organist at St-
Etienne-du Mont in Paris and in
1943 was appointed professor in
harmony at the Conservatory. The
Prelude is based on sections two
and three of the chant "Veni
Creator" and the Adagio on
sections one, three and four.
Julius Reubke (1834-1858), a
student of Franz Liszt, had limited
fame during his short life. His
Sonata on .Psalm Ninety-Four,
very much a product of the
Romantic era, consists of an
introduction and three movements
to be played without pause. It is
based on a program depicting the
moods of portions of Psalm
Ninety-Four and uses one theme
throughout.
Admission is free for everyone.
—Julian Pymm
We mean business.
Columbia University's location in New York City makes it the ideal
place for graduate study in business. A representative from
Columbia Business School will visit your campus to speak with
students from all majors who are interested in the M.B.A. and
Ph.D. programs in Business as well as joint degrees with Law,
International Affairs, Public Health and other disciplines. If a
graduate degree in Business is part of your future, start planning
for it now by talking with our representative. Contact your under-
graduate placement office for further details.
Date Of Visit: October 9, 1986
Columbia Business School
The Rice Thresher, October 3, 1986, page 9
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Gray, Lisa & Greene, Spencer. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 74, No. 8, Ed. 1 Friday, October 3, 1986, newspaper, October 3, 1986; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245644/m1/9/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.