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Entertainment 88 txTrac VI gill P' * 1_ . ? ^ ^ Meryl Streep ^ ^ ^ flessons Has Spec By CHRIS HANDAL LITTLE ,0<* CnUc __ throughout First novels are often rough works and amusing th< frequently turn out to be boring. Lee another sp |Zacharias' first novel, Lessons, does not memories a * "belong in that category. not have pre Lessons, as the title implies, is about The chan lessons. In the narrow sense, it is about scenes ares Jane's dedication to the clarinet and her experien dream of being a symphony player, and in a Zacharias' \ broader sense it deals with the lessons is authentic, learned growing up in the'60s and trying to week has an discover oneself. goestochur The book begins with Jane in sixth grade do it again u j and proceeds into her thirties. Zacharias Jane's arm; does not follow a linear path in the telling of however, d< hw storv instead she makes liberal use of way. He res jAflashbacks and flash forwards. This butthedesii disregard for the time stream is at times ^er Lesson j disconcerting and requires a little more like this. effort on the reader's part but it is well While thii j worth it short stone people as < ZACHARIAS' book exudes a warmth and displayed ii humor on almost every page and the book to ^er nove should be read not only because of its strong publishers plot and characters but because of the gems tainly hera that Zacharias hides in her prose. successful < "You're right. I just didn't want to admit us hope so. tit, because the thing is, I ought to love him." THIS BO< ) "You ought to love your family. Anyone a grant fro else you get to pick." the Arts. ] Or, "That business was for other ladies. I talked of rc took the intellectual approach to birth an exampl control: I thought about it." funding oft . ..J! a irainary n e Comple By DOUG BELL Mm Critic If you feel distressed by recent movies' lack of novelty, new approaches, new insights into . r ?nature of cinema, then The French Lieutenant's Woman is a movie you should see. The film is an adaptation of John Fowles' highly complex novel about a "fallen woman" in Victorian England. In his novel, Fowles experiments with structure and time by intruding into the action of the plot, stopping it to make personal, twentieth-century observations concerning his ninteenth-century story. A reading of the novel would be enough to discourage the ordinary filmmaker from ever thinking ol adapting the work for the screen. But Harold Pinter is no ordinarv screenwriter : he had the imagination to fashion an extraordinary screenplay from a seemingly unadaptable work. Neither is Karel Eeisz an ordinary director; he had the nerve and the talent to put the script on the screen. PINTER manages to transfer the experiment of the novel to the screen in a provocative way. He substitutes Fowles authorial intrusions with cinematic/dramatic ones: he has the leading actress and actor of the movie break out of theit Victorian ruffles and step into the present tense with theii own story. fViie nrnUnklir cnunrlc nnnfncind Tho cimnloct urou tn IrtnL J. X liO pi VI/CIM1J OV/UIIVAO VV1UUO111^. A IIV Ulill^lVOV TTUJ l-V Ivvli at it is as a movie about the making of a movie. Actress Anna (Meryl Streep) and actor Mike (Jeremy Irons) are th< leading players in a film about Victorian lovers. Anna plays Sarah Woodruff, a mysterious woman whose unusual tem perament and shady reputation cause her to fall in disfavoi with Victorian society. Mike plays Charles Smithson, ai ardent scientist who, upon catching a glimpse of Sarah by tin sea, falls madly in love with her. But in order to marry her he must overcome the pressure of stiff Victorian mores, an( so on. Though vigorously played, this "interior" movie is nt more than the average Victorian melodrama. At any moment during this costume movie, the action maj cut to Anna and Mike rehearsing their scenes in a moderi hotel or lunching with the crew. Their own relationshii see French, page 8 SmI Osmiifv Ooera C INI Jj - pine what .Iiini? exmriences. xwrtrayal of one of Jane's lovers |l|l|fl He is a Catholic, who during the y//, JH i affair with Jane and on Sunday WfHKfiJfT- | v ^Hj ch. confesses, promises never to j \ v fl intil married, and then is back in JHSr/ j | JM, s later in die week. Zacharias, I | n )es not present this in a cynical jf illy believes he will not see Jane f M|H re is too strong so he goes back to ffi jfj I s draws its power from scenes 1/? i s is Zacharias' first novel, her P IIL 'jjL %mk V>n?>A Konn nrolco/) K\; citnh <f I 9 fM i wt.ttC A.&Vk r-o uart iwu j.** uiovv* wj umvi> >. r bm \ >m George Garret. The talent she i her short stories has extended 1. She is a gifted writer and her ^jBTi M comment that this book "cer- \??Ji ffl Ids the beginning of a long and ^ jgg B career for Ms. Zacharias." Let IB ^hHB F$m [)K was completed with the aid of B >m the National Endowment for Earlier this year the president educing the funds for the NEA. If Maddalena, played c e is needed for the continued young rogue played he NEA this book is it. from the opera 'Rigol< LI 11919 HI <v . *<?' *&' T - Jj^i * S . V M Jeremy Irons loming To Drayton B j The lives of a beautiful 1 , woman, a lecherous duke ^ ^ ? and a hunchbacked jester H cross disastrous results ] in the classic opera iljlS South Carolina's Drayton Produced bv the Columbia ^ernatlonai stature and the Ak BRUCE Shoonmaker, an MWCS nccictant nrnfAccnr nf rniicio K-: m fHijK pi vivtjuvi v/j iiiiatjiv ^ arK* director of the Opera Theatre at Furman .-'.- r- '-.--JM Universitv will sine the nart I of the Rigoletto in the ~~ I Columbia production. Performances of "Rigoletto" begin at 8 p.m. y Mary Deyerle, flirts with a in Drayton Hall on Nov. 4 >y Benjamin Keith, in a scene an(* 6 a 3 P m- matinee ,Mo * ; , M on Nov. 8.