Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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JIM FARRELL = G J DAVE LUNDGREN AeC ITRI'A-LS aa 7AE .90o.TH MEAN 7HE- SUPREME COWr WIlL NOW RISE! PIP Insight: Stephen 'Hair' ha (Editor's note: This is the second In aseries of three columns written !by Dr. Stephen Coy of the Theater Dept.) Three years later, and "Hair" is old hat. It is disqualified from the avant-garde on moral grounds, having made money, and has been left far .behind - not only by O'Horgan himself (pictures of whose production of "Lennie" show grotesque and giant figures all over the stage) but by the productions and-or troupes (the two tend to mingle: Richard Schechner's "Commune" is a production, a troupe, and for most of the actors a lifestyle) who or which have nearly always been at the very edge of the first wave. These are the people whose every belch is recorded in "The Drama Review" (see the most recent issue, Summer 1971): Schechner's The Performance Group; Julian Beck and Judith Malina's The Living Theatre (by that and other names); Jerzy Grotowski's various troupes; and the work of Peter Brook, director (director, hell: co-creator) of the "Marat Sade," whose latest work is a film of a ritual murder, enacted en tirely in -a language made up for the ritual and called (as is the film) Orghast. Change one letter in that last word and you have a description of Our times Hottest ti By SMITH HEMPSTONE Columnist To hear the environmentalists tell it, the Amchitka test-blast will be the hottest thing to hit Ajaski since "that night on the marge of Lake Lebprge"that his pal cremated Sam McGee. And indeed, Cannikin (the project's code name) will give a goodly pop. The warhead of the Spartan missile, buried in a 50 foot-wide shaft sunk 5,875 feet beneath a remote isiand m the Aleutian chain, will weigh in at 5 megatons, which Is precisely 250 imes more powerful than the bomb which devastated Hiroshima. Assuming that court challenges 'have been disposed of, President Nixon, on the advice of the Atomic Energy Commission anid the Pentagon, will order the device detonated sometime next week. In so doing, he will be brushing aside the objections not only of the en vfronmentalis, but of two foreign gpvernments (Canada and Japan) and of a number of government agencies as disparate as the State Department and the 'Office of Science and Technology. The concern of Cannikin's foes centers on the fact that Amchitka is less than 60 miles from the Great Aleutian Fault, a h"rnia In the earth's ancient crust. The fear Is that the blast will triggea~ a major earthquake, possibly to be followed by a hugh tidal wave, sending California--Ronald Reagan, Charles Manson, go-go dancers and all-sliding gently out to sea. Now the AEC cannot guarantee that this will not happen. The egmmlsslon ca.n. point out that no Coy s become the theatre-goer of the future, if the esthetic of Participation, Celebration and (sorry) Rhythm is carried to its logical extreme. But that hasn't happened yet, even in Gomorrah-on-the-Hudson. (I figure it for later this month. In which case, it will be interesting to see what they do in November.) In the meantime, however, there is a whole world of theatre - plays and people - to which that esthetic, there is a whole world -plays and people- to which that esthetic, while not necessarily repugnant, is simply not relevant.... while not necessarily repugnant;is simply not relevant. For the fact of the matter is, to paraphrase a poem by a namesake of mine, that the people who are doing all the yelling may be farther out than they think, and not waving but drowning (perhaps literally: the newest group Celebrated in the pages of TDR is called the James Joyce Memorial Liquid Theatre). I am serious about this: these people have pulled the American and European theatres in a good 1mg smce these have resulted from the 236 underground atomic explosions detonated by it since above-ground tests were ended in 1963. The commission can point out that a one-megaton device was exploded beneath Amchitka in 1969 as a prelude to Cannikin and that it was concluded that the 5 -megaton test could take place "without im portant detrimental impact." AEC officials maintain that a tidal wave could not be generated unless the ocean floor were thrown up approximately 600 feet by the explosion. The chance of a con currence of all the unfavorable circumstances necessary to produce such an epic disaster, they say, is statistically negligible, perhaps 1-in-5,000. But they cannot guarantee it will not happen. And Senator George McGovern, whose nonpartisan approach to all the works of the Nixon administration is well know, maintains that--even if Cannikin does not vent-they test's legacy will be a pocket of trappe" ' clear residue which will remain radioactive for 240,000 years. Amidst all the furor swirling about Cannikin, one is led ultimately to the conclusion that more than a few of the prophets of environmental doom are the same folks who opposed the deployment of the Safeguard antiballistic missile system, of which, just coincidentally, the Spartan missile is the linchpin. In other words, having failed to defeat the ABM In the Senate (partially on grounds that no one knew If it would work), these same these same critics are seeking to prevent the AEC from seeing If It will work. Those dedicated to short circuiting the $118 million project point out that If the SALT.talks me 'old hat' direction, a direction perhaps started in this country by Walter Kerr some 20 years ago when he was still alive (he is now dead, as you can tell by reading his column any Sunday in the New York Times. He is carrying on in the noble tradition of Brooks Atkinson, Howard Tatibman and his con temporary Vincent -Canby, all of whom have gone on writfng for some time after their deaths (It is rumored that Clive Barnes is just being kept alive by oxygen, greenies and pressed dahlias.) and put the knock on Realism in a good book called "How Not to Write a Play." But the rest of us are so far behind the leaders that, even to the sympathetic, they tend to look more like freaks than influences. (I am afraid they help this im pression along: Julian Beck and Judith Malina are now afoot in Brazil, doing street theatrewhen they are not getting busted.) The rest of us, like it or not, live in world where the theatrical avant garde is something moderately startling like "Iarat-Sade" or "Indians," where Tennessee Williams is the chief purveyor of Racy Language, and where, God save us, a lousy script'like "Hello, Dolly" can become a hot ticket item (I should add, in fairness, that God needs to save us in New York as well as in Columbia). McGee be deployed, or if deployed, may ultimately be disnantled. That is possible, but would Senator McGovern--or any other American--want to risk this country's security on the basis of such a pious hope? Certain it is that the Russians, who continue with the ir own large megaton blasts at their Central Asian test sites, are not banking on any such possibility. Indeed, while the SALT talks go on in Helsinki and Vienna, every report indicates that the Russians are continuing with an unprecedented buildup in their nuclear and conventional forces. To what end? No one can say. But we do know both the awesome military capabilities of the Russians and the callousness with which they have employed force under other circumstances. In a game in which one's first national mistake can be one's last, one is disinclined to gamble. Finally, in our pullout from Southeast Asia, the watering down of our other overseas com mitments and the geperal state of malaise on the domestic front, there is little doubt but that the . Russians perceive a weakening in our national will. And they may be correct in this. But for President Nixon to cancel Cannikin at this late hour, to give way In the face of an emotional tide of defeatism and pacifism when an issue so directly affecting our national security is Involved, would be to invite the men In the Kremlin to fol4 their arms at the SALT talks, relying on our own weakness and division to give them what they cannot expect to win either through disarmament negotiations or through a con tinuation of the arms race. This . Mr. Nixon cannot de.