Tucson Daily Citizen du lieu suivant : Tucson, Arizona • Page 40

Miller Play Gets Professional Polish By Miclieline Keating CITIZEN STAFF WRITER White chairs rose like tiers of mute ghosts in the half- darkened theater auditorium. Backstage an electric saw split the silence with nerve- tingling rasps. Suddenly a door opened and a youngish man bound to the stage front where he stood gazing critically at two boards angled in the corner. He was wearing heavy longshoreman's boots, Levis, a navy T-shirt and a necklace of colored corn kernels. Long blond hair tickled the nape of his neck.

"That's it," he exclaimed, a smile of satisfaction curling across his full-featured, slightly petulant face. "It looks much better. I was right about it, wasn't The other way threw the whole stage off The sawing stopped. A face appeared around the edge of a flat. "It will look better," the face said, "If I can get it to fit.

Right now. nothing is going together." "II will, it will. See how niceiy it lines up with the otn- er end." The blond turned, jumped down from the thrust stage with extended hand "I'm Richard Davalos," he said. Richard Davalos is the professional import who is directing Arthur Miller's "A View From the Bridge" for the Arizona Civic Theater. The production opens Tuesday night and will continue through Saturday in the theater in the Santa Rita Hotel.

Tickets are on sale at the Council of Arts Building, 2720 E. Broadway. He sat down on one of the white chairs, lifted his big boots onto another. He nodded to the shoes. "We're wearing them to get them broken in," he said.

"I'm acting in the play as well as directing. I'm playing Rodolpho, the same part I had in the original Broadway production. I had intended only to direct. But when it came down to the line, 1 couldn't bring myself to give Rodolpho to someone else. "It's always that way with me.

When I'm directing, 1 want to act. When I'm acting, 1 want to direct. I suppose it sums up to loving everything about the theater. I've always loved it, ever since I was six and played both the talking mirror and the prince in a school performance of 'Cinderella." 1 Members of Ihe cast started to straggle in and walk aimlessly' about. A waiter brought in a tray with cups and a thermos of coffee and placed i.t on a chair.

The auditorium slowly came to life and gave o-ff a feeling of a play in rehearsal, another world faking shape. "I become a professional until 1 was 15," Davalos said casually, shafting his eyes to see if his remark startled. "I played Hans Brinker in a Chapel Theater Players production. We toured the East Coast. My family was furious with me.

They couldn't understand my wanting to be an actor. They still feel there is something off color in having an actor in the family." Davalos was born and reared in New York. After high school he did a hitch with the Navy, then entered Martha Graham's modern ballet school. It was there he met his wife, a Eurasian girl. "Ellen is lovely," he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a well thumbed wallet.

"That's Elien and these are our daughters. Elyssa is 10 and Dominique is 2. The older one has her mother's features and my coloring. Dominique has my features and her mother's coloring. "Marriage is a warm, wonderful relation.

There is nothing else like it. I've got to get them over here. Perhaps over the Easter weekend when Elyssa will be out of school. Last night on the telephone, Dominique said, 'I miss you, daddy, come That sort of thing gets to you. "I think what 1 would like most in life is to withdraw into a kind of isolation with only my family.

It sounds crazy, but my family is what is most real to me." He leaned forward suddenly and pointed toward the stage. "That flat is too wide," he said. "And the door is too narrow. Cathy won't be able to bring her tray through it. Narrow the Hat about six inches." He slumped back into the chair.

"It has taken a lot of finagling to get the five needed areas of the play onto a single set. There won't be Continued On Page 25 CLOCKWISE FROM UPPER LEFT: Guest director Richard Davalos, who also plays Catherine's lover, Rudolpho, pauses in a scene with Barbara DuVal as Cathernie during reharsals of the Miller play. With Bonnie Scott ACT's technical director, Davalos suggests changes in a set design. Next he emotes, he rests he returns to the stage, and is knocked down by Antony Carbone, the play's star in the role of Eddie Carbone. Catherine's uncle.

CENTER: In another rehearsal scene the triangle between Rudolfo Carbone and Catherine unfolds before Marco, Carbone older brother (John Bagalini) and Bea (Esther Rosen). Citizen Photos By Dave Acton PAGE 15 PAGE.