Asbury Park Press from Asbury Park, New Jersey • Page 55

Asbury Park Press Sunday. September 15. 1991 3 Cartoonist steps up to 'Good Times' Area man living out an actor's dream life Backstage ((Mini D. COLLINS Glenn Taranto has come a long way since the days when he walked the boards as a member of the drama club at the old St. Joseph High School in Toms River (now known as Monsignor Donovan High School), performing in his high school's productions of musicals like "South Pacific" and "1776." These days, Taranto, 32, whose parents, Elizabeth and Louis still five in Island Heights, is living a dream performing in one of the 4 through 8.

Performance times are at 7 p.m. Mondays and Tuesdays, 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $10.

nottest oit-Broadway plays to ever hit grade, a woman who pushed her into drawing. "She figured out one activity that would calm us down when we got hyper or in trouble," Barry says. "The punishment wasn't to go stand in the corner. I had to go paint." The 70-page novel that eventually became "The Good Times Are Killing Me" grew out of a series of paintings Barry did of singers and musicians she admired. They were artists such as Ma Rainey and Jimmie Rodgers -4 people who were involved in the roots of homegrown American music.

The more she looked into the music, the more she discovered the influence of black performers on it and how all their stories involved some form of racism. "It's in everything," she says. A publisher who wanted to print reproductions of Barry's work asked for an introduction to the paintings. What Barry produced instead was the story of Edna and her black friend Bonna. "They are the real casualties of rac-: ism," Barry says.

"These girls who need each other badly will lose their friendship." A different version of "Good" Times" was put on stage in Chicago by a group called City Lit. It was seen by Carole Rothman and Robyn Goodman who run Second Stage in New York. They asked Barry here to ex- pand that effort. What she came up with began performances last spring at Second Stage. "During previews, you really feel that the audience is part of your tool- if "PI i iNew York as well as performing in a showcase or workshop production of a play he wrote.

Since last April, Taranto has been star TARANTO ring in "Tony n' Tina's Wed By MICHAEL KUCHWARA THE ASSOCIATED PRESS EW YORK Lynda Barry Li has built a career out of child-I 1 hood memories. Painter, cartoonist, novelist, radio commentator, late-night talk show guest and now playwright, Barry has a knack for recalling what it's like to be young the humor and the hurt. Those remembrances are on display in "The Good Times Are Killing Me," a stage adaptation of her own short novel or "novelini" as she calls it. The play was first done last spring at the tiny, non-profit Second Stage. It proved such a hit that it has transferred to the larger Minetta Lane Theater in Greenwich Village for a commercial run.

"The Good Times Are Killing Me" centers on Edna Arkins, a young girl growing up in a blue-collar world in the turbulent '60s. Not her own life, Barry says emphatically, even though bits and pieces of herself and her family surface in the story. The play concerns the friendship between two young girls, one white, the other black, and how racism pulls them apart. "The play to me is a tragedy," Barry says. "One of the things that, to me, marks the beginning of adolescence is when people stop talking to each other.

The girls have just taken on their problems and will internalize them instead of talking them out." But it's also very funny, a lot like the 35-year-old Barry herself, a friendly, open woman with a pile of unruly red hair and a disarming, ready-made smile. Barry didn't start out to be playwright or even a cartoonist. At Evergreen State College in Olympia, in the late 1970s, she wanted to be a painter. A serious painter, she says, the kind of artist who painted bowls of fruit and who went around being depressed all the time. After she broke up with her boyfriend, she was.

Not only did severe depression hit, so did insomnia. Out of her sleeplessness was born a series of cartoons. "I started making secret cartoons," she says. "The men were cactuses and the women, well, were just women and they were arguing whether they should go to bed with each other," she Lynda Barry is parlaying youthful recollections in her work as a painter, cartoonist, novelist, radio commentator and now playwright. Thank goodness there still are some things in the dance world that are difficult to remain blase about.

Since perestroika, the New York-New Jersey area has seen numerous groups of Russian ballet "all-stars" and guest stars come through the area as well as performances in New York City by the Bolshoi Ballet last summer and the Kirov Ballet in 1989. The news of yet another group of Russian all-stars still creates a stir. That excitement almost makes one forget the often abominable pieces of gasp-and-contort-your-body-filled choreography included in these programs that are passed off as modern ballet, Russian-style. Nevertheless, our interest is peaked when we hear that Ekaterina Maxi-mova and Vladimir Vasiliev of the Bolshoi are heading a touring group of eight dancers four each from the Bolshoi and the Kirov. The group kicks off its three-month-long North American tour with a performance at 8:30 p.m.

Friday at the Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel Township. The announced program will include the pas de deux from "The Sleeping Beauty" Act III; "La Bayadere" Act II, and "Don Quixote" Act III. Tickets are $15 for lawn seats, $25 and $30 for pavilion seats. For more information, call (908) 442-9200. Please send theater and dance items to Karyn Collins, Staff Writer, The Asbury Park Press, 3601 Route 66, Box 1550, Neptune, N.J., 07754-1551.

Backstage appears dox, sne says, aaaing mac sne worked closely with director Mark Brokaw to make changes in the script. Barry lives in Chicago, near Wrigley Field. After living in Seattle, she tried New York and Washington but didn't like them as much. Right now, she's working on a i "THE GOOD TIMES ARE KILLING ME" is being staged at the Minetta Lane Theater, 18 Minetta Lane, Manhattan. Show times are at 8 p.m.

Tuesdays through Fridays, at 2 and 8 p.m. Saturdays, and at 3 and 7 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $35; $30 Saturday matinee and Sunday evening. Call (21 2) 420-8000 for more ding," playing a variety of roles including the wedding photographer, Vinnie the catering service owner, and Dominick, one of the groomsmen.

This weekend, he began performances in his play "Floorless Dancing," at the Ernie Martin Studio Theater, 311 W. 43, 5th Floor in New York. "Fortunately, the producers of 'Tony n' Tina' have given me time off when I need to be doing 'Floorless Dancing' so I'll be splitting my time between the two shows," he said. "It's good for me though. I'm either learning to be a good actor or a good schizophrenic." Taranto said "Floorless Dancing" is about an actor who takes his roles too seriously, losing his own personality in the world outside the theater as he gradually assumes the personality and habits of the cocaine addict he plays onstage.

Performances of "Floorless Dancing," which opened Friday, are at 3 p.m. today, Friday through Sunday, Sept. 27 through 30, Oct. 1, and Oct. screenplay ior tne movie version or "The Good Times Are Killing Norman Jewison will direct the scheduled to being shooting sometime Voice.

"When you are from a working-class family, the way an artistic impulse expresses itself is different than in families that are better off," Barry says. "We were poor, and there was a lot of trouble in the house," says Barrj the oldest of three children. Both her parents worked her father was a meat cutter, her mother a janitor in a hospital. Barry took care of her two younger brothers. Still, her parents found time to be creative.

"Mom was forever embroidering and crocheting," Barry says. "My dad liked to develop photographs and paint by number. They both never sat still on the couch. They were always making something." Barry had a good teacher in the first So far, it hasn't bothered her to move with increasing frequency from ctarro in mmr ctrin fn ranvac says. It was called "Ernie Pook's Comeek" Pook was the name of her brother's turtle and it began a comic strip career that even today is her first priority.

The strip runs in about 50 papers, including The Village DUJgV IV VV1I11V I A 1 IU VUlllUili -r "They are all the same thing," she says. "It's all about how you capture an image and whether the image is a visual image or whether it's one that's luiu uuuugn mac uii a oiat. Peter Sellars' appeal to avant-garde baffling FREDDY DIES IN 3D FREDDYYISION Music notes Albert Nod. But just consider the difference in the super-charged emotional potential of the hijacking of a cruise ship with hundreds on board, the singling out of an invalid Jew CQHtN A 1 SAVDD THE BEST FOR LAST. NEW LINE CINEMA SELLARS IKW1 EAST I for the many choral sections.

But, all too often, it relapsed into the simple, repetitive passages of the minimalist style. Moreover, his writing for solo voice was not musical and rarely as inventive as it was for chorus. Adams has secured, temporarily, a solid place in the repertory. From the maddening repetitions in "Shaker Loops," to the suite taken from "Nixon and known as "The Chairman Dances" he is one of the most frequently performed of American composers. Kurt Masur even chose two of his brief pieces to begin his reign as music director of the New York Philharmonic last week: "Tromba Iontana" and "Short Ride in a Fast Machine." Even if Masur's inclusion of Adams is tokenism to help dispel his reputation as a conductor of 19th century European masters only, it is quite an honor.

My recommendation to Adams is to spend more time trying to develop an instrumental idiom that has some potential for finding a long-term place in the repertory. And if he gets the opera bug again, he should find a librettist who can create words that can be turned into beautiful music. Albert H. Cohen is a music historian, critic and manager of the Music Critics Association. His column appears Sundays.

UtNtHAt cm MA OMtSCMMmNAU TWM HANOVER TOWNSHW 57M6 GRANT ow cm i WOOD8RIDGE 3U-5SS9 owe cm ill EDISON M-64M MVK CfTT TMPLEK TEANECK IM W34 UNi'tC AB'lSTl TM MOW AT UOLfiraH 67V1020 CHEAltvf tN'EK'AINMENT NEW AM CMEMAS ROSELLE PA RH 241-252S ClNtPIFI OPFON Iff WFOflT CENTRE CMEMAS JERSEY CITY 626-3201 NEWTON TWM U3 21 After watching director Peter Sellars mangle Mozart's "Marriage of Figaro" and "Don Giovanni" on TV last year, one wonders why anyone would ever ask him to do another opera. Yet, his appeal to the avant-garde seems as strong as ever. Just 10 days ago, his latest creation, with his own special kind of dramatic havoc, received its American premiere. "The Death of Klinghoffer" was another example of how Sellars seems to love to turn something with the potential for strong theatrical impact into an near-emotionless dream walk. When he combined with librettist Alice Goodman and composer John Adams for "Nixon in China" in 1987, the story line was essentially static.

A meeting of East and West, an exchange of ideas, a display of culture and a look into the assumed emotions of the Nixons; these were the elements with which to work. But even with this non-story libretto, there was more to be presented than Sellars did. The greatest insult to the audiences in this work was the final act, where all the key characters lie on beds, their feet facing the audience, and muse about their lives. The real trick here was to stay awake long enough to see if the characters went to sleep before they put the audience into the land of IHWS MTEmTATE TWM RAMSEY UM1S3 001 Of KENDALL S9VANE CMEMI SOUTH BRUNSWICK 422-2444 THEATRE UANAQEMCRT USEftTT Elizabeth mi-Si PA (WAS LMCILNfrVmfi ARLINGTON M'-U7 HOIN CWATIVI LMOEN QUAD LINDEN 92S-97S7 LMWS LBNS HANOI TWM LONG BRANCH B70-27O0 NATHAN ALL HACHETTSTOWN 52 6054 LKS MEAMWUI SECAUCUS Ml mmblVsei mall CMEMA SO. PLAINFltLO 7S3-22W LKW1 AMI fUl WEST MILFORD 721-UM NATlOHAL MUSf HUTI MINT MUTTIU SAVREVIUE 721 3400 CLEARVIfW CINEMAS KMENFKL0 CINEMA BtfltifcNFIELD MS-1 W0 QENERHi CINEMAS ILK ITU CHUM WATCHUNG 312 QEMFRAi riNFMA WtWSWICK S0WUK EAST BRUNSWICK.

13 2 TRIANOU CASTLE TWM IRViNGTOft LKWt CHHMA CENTER 4 HOWELL 364 4544 CIKEMA SERVICM CWEMAII SUCCASUNNA M4-UU ELOfl'N C1EATW1 CWEM2J CEDAfl GFWVt UftfS CMCLE I CMUS BfltCMOWN 4S4W7 LSfWS MMEFILI PAJIA TEN-flEl 440-0M1 Cmf-OIE OOHTN MOTE 17TVWLH PAAAMUS 843 330 C'NEPLEX ODE ON MTAL TWM BtOOMFIElD 744 3S56 QN1 CNEMA MfTSEAS F1A2A CMEM SU SOMERSET 121 6717 LMWSSEACOWTII TOMS FtikEP MS-3400 Sf AVtEl SOUAME ASBURY PARK 775-8810 LBEWS SWWIOAT QUAD EDGE WATER M1-J660 OENFHAt CtNFMA lONErWUi CIRCLE CMEMA AARITAN SK-Ottfl LMWS AT EKMTPLEl UNITED Aff'IfTl ATNE BUM 804-41 30 EAST WINDSOR 441 12J1 ClNFMA SERVtCEt EKRS0N9HAI EMERSON 261 1000 GENERAL CINEMA ESSEX MEEN WEST ORANGE 71t-T7 THE AT HANAOEMCNT FABIAN PA1ERSON T4J 400 flUNUMTMrtU NUlLEI M7-1777 LMWS FNEEMU CINEMA I FREEHOLD 401-0000 TRIANOtE KAWTHOME HAWTHORNE i7 Uit Cinema st nvtctt NUOSONIAU JERSEY CUV 415-0110 NATHAN MMTEWM FLEMINGTON 7I2-4S1S the centerpiece of a production that appears to us to be anti-Semitic." Goodman's words often were obscure, except when anger was portrayed; then they were vivid and eloquent. Perhaps good poetry should leave some thoughts for the reader to decipher and interpret. But here we were bombarded with rapid-fire delivery of strange sentences from static characters, while the only thing passing for action on stage was a group of dancers milling about in ways that substituted rapid motion for interesting choreography. Adams will bear the brunt, I'm afraid. Composers are considered the masters of the operatic form, even though, in this case, it seems to me Adams was the vehicle for the other two to use.

His roots are in the only new American contribution to classical music in the last 50 years minimalism. This score often showed flashes of a musical style ready and able to explore other paths especially in his writing ish passenger by Palestinian terrorists, then his murder and dispatch to a watery grave wheelchair and all. What an opportunity for Goodman and Sellars to explore the feelings and conflicts of the situation. But what they did was turn the opera into a monochromatic one. Only one emotion was in evidence: anger.

The terrorists were angry, the Achille Lauro's captain was angry, Leon Klinghoffer was angry, and after the horrible deed, his wife, Marilyn, was, too. The opera also generated anger in Lisa and Ilsa Klinghoffer, Leon's daughters, according to the Wednesday edition of The New York Times, but for a different reason. They issued a statement through a representative: "We are outraged at the exploitation of our parents and the coldblooded murder of our father as 'MufP'tf 'f Even More BIG Portraits! Have an idea or problem? Call us! Call NANCY! iit'li f. r. ARTS LEISURE appears every Sunday in the ASBURY PARK PRESS.

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Letters may be mailed to their attention editor at the Asbury Park Press, 3601 Hwy. 66, Box 1550, Neptune, N. J. 07754-1551 ENTERTAINMENT NEWS: Please send information and requests for stories and reviews involving professional and community groups four weeks in advance of the event. ENTERTAINMENT LISTINGS: Please send notices, in writing, of ticket prices and performance schedules for events open to the public three weeks in advance to Ronna Weinberg, ext.

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