The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 25, 1980, Page Page 8, Image 8
Evans. Ha
in 'Lov
By Teresa K. Weaver
Gamecock Staff Writer
"If your bones are good, age
Hftfcn'f moHor 1?
vww. V iuunv.1 . I vmi ii rtlWU^S ue
beautiful."
Helen Hayes and Maurice
Evans, proving that in the words
of Somerset Maugham they both
have awfully good bones, performed
spectacularly for an exclusive
audience at USC's
Longstreet Theatre Wednesday
night.
THE TWO LEGENDARY
Theatre stil
for Mauri
By Ter esa I
Gamocock ?
For the past two weeks Mauria
visiting lecturer on campus, advisinj
IN AN INTERVIEW last week,
students here that singing is the basi
scales in the showers and try to g<
position for speaking. So you may he
some of the dorms.''
Evans "made it to the big time
following his first American perform
"From then on it was pretty muc
some hideous gaps in between, but
enlar^P mv sontv ar?H ant tr? tnnui
O- "V 1? O"* """" ?
pretty easy time of it," he remember
ALTHOUGH HIS career has con
movies in recent years, Evans said hi
! "Of course one prefers the theater
is a success you're faced with doing i
to keep on your toes.
"At least with a movie or televis
with. You can forget you ever made t
EVANS HAS NEVER spent time 1
and he said it has been much more e?
"Lecturing is hard work. Professi
at 9 a.m. But I've been very impn
going on here."
1 ?w ???M?
(
'Iguana
evNOOcvVo"??
Gamecock Staff Writer
Any production of a Tennessee
Williams play is always an event.
And if the players can bring an
added sense of intensity to the
drama, it is even more so. The
University Theatre's production of
The Night of the Iguana proved to
be such an event Tuesday night at
Drayton Hall.
Susan Hernandez, as the widow
Maxine Faulk, and Robert Johnson
as the Reverend T. Lawrence
Shannon, delivered just the right
amount of neurosis to their
characters, in this drama based on
human frustration and bondage.
Set on the Mexican west coast at
a run-down hotel resort, the story
begins as the Reverend Shannon
and the tough domineering
manager Maxine are discussing
the tour group of women, which
Shannon is serving as the guide.
Already one can see the feeling of
frustration-the helplessness and
hopelessness of these two people.
MAYINR PERI ? oov.ol
frustration because of her lessthan-satisfying
May-December
marriage. Now that she is
widowed, she vies for Shannon's
affections. Shannon faces troubles
of his own: his moral behavior has
caused a rift between him and his
church. Now he feels torn between
his duty as a minister and the
psychological disturbances inside
of him.At
the hotel Shannon encounters
- - - l^A
iyes oetier
e Sweet ar
performers have more than 135
years of acting between them, and
have spent some fifty years
working together on numerous
occasions.
Hayes, an honarary degree
recipient from USC, won Academy
Awards for her roles in The Sin of
Madelone Claudet in 1931 and
Airport in 1970. She is also known
fnr hor ru>rfnrin innac in c-imVi
""va ^Iiviiliniiwo 111 ouvn
productions as Victoria Regina,
The Merchant of Venice, and The
Glass Menagerie.
Evans has directed, produced
l first love
ce Evans
K. Weaver
>taff WHter
^ U I -1? -a? 1 -t
s ?jv<iiis? iicib utrt'ii a uisunguisnea
I students on the art of acting.
Evans said, 4'I keep telling the
is of good speech. I tell them to sing
;t their voices in the best possible
iar some weird noises coming from
" with surprisingly little trouble,
ance as Romeo in the early 1930s,
h job to job. Of course there were
I kept my eyes open and tried to
s many people as I could. I had a
ed.
centrated more on television and
is first love is still the stage.
, except for the drawback that if it
t eight times a week. It's very hard
ion show, when it's over it's done
he beastly thing," he laughed.
ecturing to college students before,
chausting than he expected.
ional actors aren't used to working
jssed with the work that I've seen
' emerges
a forty-year-old unmarried lady
and her elderly grandfather.
Hannah is a painter while her
grandfather Nonno is a poet. They
have come to Maxine's hotel
because it was the only place they
could afford. Poor but happy,
Hannah tries to help Shannon
through this difficult time.
WHEN THE MEXICAN em
kl-^v^i'-S^^B^x"-' ' ' 'x*
[T..i:-fr'i-^Sm: **'>**' w.-.
a? . ; ':... -
Aubrey Gooding, Susan h
'Night of the Iguana' at Dra\
than ever
id Sour
and starred in such theater and
movie presentations as Richard II,
Hamlet, and Rosemary's Baby,
He is probably best known in this
country for his portrayal of
Samantha's father on the popular
television series Bewitched.
THEIR PERFORMANCE
together at USC, entitled Love:
Sweet and Sour was a unique
collection of vienettes taken from
works of William Shakespeare,
Lawrence Houseman and
Somerset Maugham that
showcased the ageless expressiveness
of Hayes' face and
the suave elocution of Evans.
The famous pair introduced their
act to the audience with several
minutes of hysterically satirical
Shakespearean humor which led
up to their explanation that love
was the theme of the night's entertainment.
Beginning with an excerpt from
The Twelfth Night, the duo showed
how Shakespeare could "take anv
theme in the world and make it,
sing."
Hayes and Evans appeared
together in the same play in 1940
and then renewed the partnership
again in the 1962 performance of ;
Shakespeare Revisited. Both have 1
gotten older and the movement ]
onstage is much more restricted, 1
but the vitality and enthusiasm in ,
the reading was just as impressive ?
as when they were forty years 1
younger. 1
THE MOST ENTERTAINING
piay pertormed by the actors was i
the Taming of the Shi ew, probably
the funniest of Shakespeare's i
works. The story is one of an in- <
domitable wench and the man who ?
finally tamed her. It was the ]
antics of Hayes as the shrew that i
brought magic to the brief role. 1
This excerpt was presented
using boxing ring sound effects, I
with an offstage announcer v
from the
ployees of the hotel capture an
iguana, the story begins to unfold.
The iguana, a large Mexican
lizard, symbolizes the frustration
and lonliness of the characters.
Like the iguana, *hey are strung
up and tantalized to death by the
people surrounding them: Maxine
by the assorted outcasts, including
a German refugee family, at her
P^ IpSIIHI
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is m wm : m 1LI ,
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1emandoz, Molina Herring d/scu,
/ton Hall, Tuesday.
6~ ||| ,, ~\iWL
m ;V/-'l-^2 ' SjL.
Maurice Evans and Helen Ha ye,
performance, 'Love: Sweet and <
tallying the score at the end of q
every round in the battle of wits. c
Showing "the way to kill a wife f;
with kindness," Evans as
Petruchio Drodded Haves' Knthrvn u
? _ ^ " J mm
to tell the audience exactly "what R
a woman owes her lord," which r
she did dutifully with an impish p
wink to the audience at the con- d
elusion. p
A short piece from the more h
modern drama of Lawrence s
Housman, Religious Difficulties, v
featured a discussion between an
aged Queen Victoria and the Dean
of Windsor concerning the queen's a
problem in accepting the Biblical s
notion that Jonah was swallowed V
by a whale. v
THE ENSUING EX- P
SANATION by the dean was met ?
vith unabashed confusion by the
dark at D
hotel, and Shannon by the pious
members of his tour . When
Hannah urges Shannon to go free
the li7_nrH from tho Movicon Ka?c
he too feels a sense of freedom.
Susan Hernandez fell into her
role with ease. She was tough,
brassy, contemptable, and she
showed it with her every move.
She is one actress who is easy to
ss thoir hotel rent during
*')
Ru?t?a Pac* GAMECOCK
?, during their heart warming
Sour' at Longstreet Theatre.
ueen in a role that highlighted the
omic p< ential of Hayes' magic
Rounding out the performance
rith a selection from Somerset
laugham's The Circle, the
enowned thespians examined the
itfalls of marriage in the satirical
[rawing room comedy. Evans
layed a gruff and grumbling
usband to Hayes' flighty wife in a
pot that ended in a heart-rending
ersion of living happily after.
HAYES AND EVANS concluded
brilliant performance with a
hort song, "I Remember It
Veil," asssured that the audience
fould lone remember their an
earance. It seems that talent
md beauty are indeed ageless.
rayton
"read", easy to understand.
Robert Johnson's performance of
the distrubed minister was captivating.
He created a haunting
and brooding atmosphere every
time he entered the stage. Whereas
Hernandez's character was
physical and gut-level, Johnson
clearly showed the psychological
and intellectual disturbances of his
character. This combination of
physical frustration versus
psychological frustration sparked
the whole performance.
MELINA HERRING'S Hannah
was enigmatic; she seemed to be a
shadowy figure, a woodland
nymph who possessed no
physicality nor sexuality at all.
She was just perfect in forming the
third member of the triptych.
Where Maxine was the physical,
and Shannon was the intellectual,
Hannah was the spiritual.
A?U i-Ll- r
uuici uuutuie periormances
were Connie Blacenship's portrayal
of Judith Fellowes, the pious
mother-hen of the tour group, and
Aubrey Gooding's Nonno. The set
design by Susan Gratch made the
tropical coast life-like. Rusell
Green should be commended on his
fine direction and his obvious
knowledge of Williams' drama.
The Night of the Iguana will be
running through the 27th and
concludes this season of the
University Theatre. It is definitely
well worth seeing but the adept
performances can easily speak for
themselves. , ,