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Spotlight: To Be Young, Gifted, And Black”
bj Dawn Tonjes
To Be Young, Gifted, and
Black, a play filled with
ideology and universality will be
presented tonight at the Grand
Opera House at 8:00 p.m. In»
many ways this play has been
more challenging to the actors,
the director! Paul Oppy, and the
producer, Joyce Curry, than any
other previous play. However,
tonight the play will be
presented in a flowing process,
a delight to the audience.
One of the unique challenges
in To Be Young, Gifted, and
Black is that the play has an
ensemble cast; no one person
has the leading role. Each actor
will portray at least three
different characters with some
actors playing up to six. Each
actor, at least once in the play,
will portray Lorraine Hansberry.
Similarly, the many charac
ters provide a challenge to the
technical side of production.
Lighting is essential to this play
and West Baker and Jon Taylor
assume this responsibility.
Make-up is by Mark Wood,
sound by Courtney Wilson,
costumes by Amy Hutto, and
stage managing by Matt Lip-
shultz.
Besides being presented to
night at the Grand Opera House
the play was presented at
Macon Jr. College on Wednes
day and will be presented
tomorrow night at Ft. Valley
State. A road show furnishes
many challenges to the actors
and technicians as each show
finds different facilities to
reckon with.
Mercer theater has been
working with the Macon Act in
producing this play. Working
with community people has
Punk Rock
Makes
aves
By the Raven of Rock
Daryl Toor
What is Punk Rock? How can
you participate? Where did it
get its start? Is John Belushi
one? All of these questions I
hope to answef without gros
sing all of my readers out.
Punk Rock probably can be
traced'-back to the late 60’s
while still underground and not
named at that time. Drug-happy
recluses ignored acid rock and
remained rebellious within
themselves. Iggy Pop and Lou
Reed probably started it. Did
you ever wonder why Reed
keeps his eyes covered? I can
spell it in three letters...LSD!
Reed has always had a passion
for telling his audience off and it
just made them more "Lou .
Reed Crazy". He developed a
cult following of fans who
attended his concerts just to be
cut down and insulted while
listening to Reed's rude protest
songs about everyday life.
Well. Reed had a hit with
Walk On The WUd Side” and
while Lou's wallet was finally
content, his fans weren't. Lou’s
music went pop and their
unique music was no longer
their own.^Oh well...back to
needles and other deadly drugs.
So Punk's early fans died of
overdoses and so did the Punk
type rikovement. But Iggy Pop
and the Stooges lived on in
England. Their influence to
other Englishmen was slight
but effective.
In late 1975. certain British
groups got tired of the so-called
1 ’Pop music scene’ ’. The reason
many did was that most were
not good enough to make it
themselves. Don't assume on
the other hand, that some
musicians of this type*were not
talented. They were. But many
made it more difficult for
everyone to get together for
rehearsals. Also, the winter
snow flurry made rehearsing on
Sunday an impossibility. Ano
ther offsetting challenge was
that a wrong soundtrack was
repeatedly sent, but reports are
that everything is now under
control.
To Be Young, Gifted and
Black is challenging in that it is
a controversial play. The group
was scheduled to give a 9:00
showing today for groups of
high school students. However,
at the last minute the Macon
and surrounding school boards
"cancelled”. The board rea
soned that “the play was too
inflammatory.”
Tonight Mercer students will
be able to view the play. A lot of
work has been put into the
play's production, so. assuredly,
it will be worth one’s time to see
this production. Remember. To
Be Young. Giftedjmd Black will
be presented TONIGHT at 8:00
p.m. at the Grand Opera House.
6i Julia”-A True Story
Chi 0*s (Jmt place winking float.
Julia. Friday, Feb. 23. 7 and 9
p.m., Rm. 314 CSC, Admission:
50 cents.
Julia is one of the few films
made in recent times that
portrays women as able, intelli
gent and caring about things
other than men. By using two of
Hollywood’s more talented lead
ing ladies, it does all of this and
also makes some fine comments
on friendship and political
ideals. The story is based on a
true happening that was re
counted in Lillian Heilman's
1973 memoir, Pentimento.
Jane Fonda stars as play
wright Lillian Hillman who in
1937 decides to help her friend
talented musicians were over
looked and mismatched with the
wrong groups. These groups
wanted a revolutionary type of
music that had, rather than a
musical hook, a gimmick, that
would make it well. Revolution
ary it was. a gimmick it was (at
first)...but selling it wasn't.
(Well 2 out of 3 ain't bad. .says
MeaUoai!)
Punk Rock was and still is
groups of so-called Punks
whose gimmicks include using
everything from drugs and sex
(kind of a retarded backwards
AKMF motto) to vomiting on
the crowd. The antics are so
wild that the crowd usually
doesn't give a damn about the
music. The music consists of
fast paced, heavily bassed riffs
of jamming sessions with each
group competing for the ludest
lyrics! ^
The Sex Pistols, before
breaking up were notorious for
rudeness and put false hopes in
the minds of punks with their
American recording contract
with Warner Brothers being the
first signed here. The debut
album^failed miserably and
punks went back to their
already familiar drugs and
needles.
What was wrong? I’ll tell you.
There was a lot of hype and
promotion in England over this
would-be "new” music - form
from 1975 to 1977. Any other
type of music would have made
^it.
Most punk groups lacked
originality and inventiveness in
their music. The lead singer
was often weak. And you may
ask why 1 am speaking in the
past L^nse Well few "punk”
gropps still exist: "Generation
Julia (Vanessa Redgrave), an
antifascist in Berlin, by smug
gling her and her comrr.des
$50,000. The two have been
friends for twenty years and the
money would help the cause out
immensely. The problem is
getting in past the Nazis.
Julia won 1977 academy
award for Vanessa Redgrave for
best supporting actress and
Jason Robards, as Dashiell
Hammett (author of The Mal
tese Falcon and The Thin Man),
for best supporting a«tor. It also
won an award for Best
& .eenplay (from another medi-
Jaaon Robards stars as Dashiell
Hammett.
um).
Jane Fonda stars as Lillian Heilman and Vanessa Redgrave
portrays the title role in "Julia”. .
X”, "The Clash", "Iggy Pop
and the Stooges”, are but a few
left today. Others changed
styles or broke up. The
rest...well, you know, they went
back to drugs and needles.
Enter New. Wave; i.e. The
Patti Smith Group, The Talking
Heaps, Dire Straits, The Strang
lers, U.K. Squeexe and The
Police as well as Elvis Costello
. and his armed forces of
attractions. Most of these
started in Punk before they saw
themselves fit to survive. They
cleaned up their acts to an
extent and concentrated on
serious music writing. In the
beginning, New Wave was
taken as a joke until Bruce
Springsteen proclaimed "Cos
tello's a gas! He really make.*
me high!” Soon CBS, Warner
Bros, and A&M Records check
ed into it and found enough
considerably good talent to
spare some recording contracts.
The Police are spotlighted this
week with their new LP in all of
the major trades, Talking Heads
are on the charts, and Dire
* Straita^yk receiving star treat
ment in record sales. Linda
Ronstadt has recorded some of
Costello's tunes on her latest LP
and New Wave looks strong in
the sense of fad. New Wave
groups put on moderately
raunchy concerts and with
naughty intent have created
dirty songs.minus dirty lyrics.
New Wave still can't b<* taken
seriously, based on the often
weak musicianship of its mem
bers and will continue to be a
trend just like acid rock once
was The strong groups such as
The Police still survive and
disco will live on. (Sorry Jimmy,
but yea, yes Disco) In the
meantime, one may ask two
questions:
Q: Is John Belushi a punk?
Q: What happened to Lou
Reed?
A No. he's a slob and a damn
good one!
A: Reed is still wearing his
glasses and when his audiences,
cheer he tells them to shut up or
he won't sing. Treat yourself to
his latest LP. on Artists "Take
no Prisoners" It s live and
Reed is at his be<jt. Until next
week, you punks
Nuff said,
the Raven