The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 57

Philadelphia Inquirer D3 Becoming aware of the effect of society's 'social lies' By DARRELL SIFFORD i I first met Stephanie Covington three years ago after publication of her book Leaving the Enchanted Forest, which explored the addictive relationships that can drag down women. She lives and practices psychology in La Jolla, and she is program designer and clinical consultant for women's The want more explicit information but it's also a time when it's more difficult for them to talk about reproduction, birth control, responsibility and certain feelings they have. "On the one hand, I had a head start, as a psychotherapist, in that I had a lot of information some par ents dont have, but But what? "When my son was 16, I was walking past his room and he called out, 'Mom, can you come in for a I turned on the light, but he said 'No, keep the light He said he wanted to ask a question and he wanted me to answer like a professional, not like his mother. Weil, I was glad the light was off. I found myself feeling shy and embarrassed in answering.

But I was delighted that he was open enough to ask the question. On the other hand, I felt awkward, even as a professional." It's something that few of us can escape, feeling awkward when the Thursday, March 5, 1992 They distort "how we feel and how we interact with others." treatment at the Betty Ford Center. Because her new book is dedicated "To my daughter Kimberly, whose journey toward womanhood has been a joy to me," I asked Cov You should not be sexual. "Many women find It difficult to recognize and accept sexism as a continuing thinly disguised fact of our lives. Our schools, television, movies and advertising all reflect a male-valuing society that subtly or not so subtly denigrates the female." One's sex is irrelevant.

"Many of us are overwhelmed when we first confront the reality that women and girls are targets of sexual repression and abuse simply because of their gender. The implications of our socialization as females are tremendous. This socialization deeply affects and distorts how we feel about ourselves, how we see ourselves sexually, and how we interact with others." Women should whisper. "Most women have learned that placing others' needs ahead of our own is a virtue. We are taught to defer to others, especially male others, to not choose what to eat for dinner, to not choose when to have sex.

The unspoken message is, 'I am less important than you It is a message that gets reinforced over time as we live our lives in accommodation to topic is sex, said Covington, and much of this has to do with our background, our upbringing and the messages we got as children. "I saw to it that my kids didn't get a lot of negative messages from me, but they got some from society. "We're told that sex is dirty, that we shouldn't touch ourselves 'down As Americans, we live in a society with a lot of contradictions in the media, in movies, in songs Advertising is geared to sell things through using sex, but we can't talk, to each other about sex. It's a mysterious part of our lives. Powerful and mysterious." Males and females have different problems with sexuality, she said.

"The traditional female socialization is that she's not supposed to know as much as a male, not supposed to have as much desire. Men are always supposed to be sexually ready. If a man doesn't match up to this macho being, he feels inferior. If a woman feels sexual desire and a strong drive, she feels something is wrong with her." What's the answer? As with everything else, the answer is education. ington how she dealt with the social lies about sex as Kim-berly's mother and also as the mother of a son, Richard.

He's now 24 and Kimberly is 21. "I was a single parent for 12 or 13 years, and a lot of the sexual education was my responsibility as it is for many mothers. The key thing for me was to try to listen to their questions and realize what age-appropriate information I could give them. Adolescence is a time when children at war reaches, at times turning his more flamboyant character into caricature. While they both attempt West Indian accents, his is too often thickly incomprehensible.

The Bushfire stage is yawningly large for what should be an intimate two-person play, and director Mustafa Bradpher has added some confusing touches of his own. Morrison stays wrapped in a sheet for much of Act II, for example, although surely his wife has seen him in his under-shorts before. And, at a point when the couple are supposed to be desperately hungry, a bowl of untouched fruit sits in the kitchen, either fake or forgotten. Be your own boss! Explore the possibilities at the FRANCHISE PSVChoIoeist Stpnhnnlo Cnvinofnn who wrote the book Awakening Your Sexuality as a road map for struggling women, was talking about the "social lies" that influence our feelings and actions. Let's listen: "Social lies are the lies that society teaches us.

They are rooted in the soul of the culture. All of us, men and women, are affected by these myths. Social lies even become institutionalized. They are reflected in family systems, schools, religions, legal systems and governmental policy. It is important that, as women, we become aware of the detrimental effects these lies have on our lives.

Some of the social lies: Addiction is Immoral. "Society places a greater stigma on the addicted woman than it does on the addicted man. Drinking or using drugs threatens women's sexual reputations, and addicted women are often stigmatized in sexual terms. Because women experience more stigma, they have greater denial about their drinking or using drugs." Homosexuality is perverted. "We live in a heterosexist society in which boys and girls are conditioned A couple By Julia M.Klein lNlJUIKERSTAKF WRITER The second act of Two Can Play, at the Bushfire Theatre of Performing Arts, begins with a real attention-grabber.

Left alone for a few weeks in Jamaica while his wife, Gloria, visits Miami, the play's only other character, Jim, climbs into bed and starts to masturbate. He is discreetly covered by a sheet, but there's not much question about what he's up to. This sexual suggestiveness, which gets Act II off to a lively start, is not as gratuitous as it at first appears. Masturbation turns out to be a central plot element in the developing power struggle between Jim and Gloria, a Jamaican couple whose stagnant life is disrupted by the death of his father and their subsequent dreams of immigrating to America. Unfortunately, this comedy by leading Jamaican playwright Trevor Rhone competently performed by Bushfire regulars Vaughn Dwight Morrison and Charlotte Staten takes far too long to get where it's going.

Or even to suggest where it's headed. Set in Kingston, Jamaica, in the late 1970s, Two Can Play opens with an overlong scene detailing the nighttime terrors faced by this middle-aged duo, who awaken, as usual, to the sounds of gunfire. They live, we learn, in the midst of politically inspired warfare, a context that is BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES FRANCHISES EXPO DISTRIBUTORSHIPS INVESTMENTS-' HOME BUSINESSES ipf flip 4U and trained to be heterosexual. Parents never suggest that their young teenagers might benefit from dating both boys and girls to see which they prefer. When we're talking about homosexuality, we're talking about a minority that's oppressed solely by its choice of sex partner.

Many lesbians have not had the opportunity to develop a positive self-image. Some women use alcohol or other drugs to deny their erotic feelings for other women." Pleasure is forbidden. "Many women have had to deny their sexual selves in order to conform to the strictures of traditional religions. Many women feel shame and guilt about their sexual lives. Eventually they learn to think of themselves as being bad, even unredeemable." at war in Review: Theater TWO CAN PLAY Written by Trevor Rhone and directed by Mustafa Bradpher, technical direction by Gregory Wade, lighting by Karlo Dudley.

Presented by Bushfire Theatre of Performing Arts, 52d and Locust Streets. Ends March 8. Thecasfc Gloria Charlotte Staten Jim Vaughn Owight Morrison never explored or explained. Their children have all moved to America, where they apparently are thriving. But Jim and Gloria are so trapped in their house, a sort of prison defined by bars on both inside and outside doors, that they are unable even to fetch help for his father when he overdoses on sleeping pills.

Because of the play's slow exposition, it is not until the second act that it becomes clear that the prison metaphor extends to Jim and Gloria's own marriage, which is characterized by his selfish childishness in bed and out of it and her perennial self-sacrifice. The first act unfolds merely as a series of episodes, neither particularly dramatic nor funny, in which the couple talk about their plans to escape to America and freedom, via a phony marriage or two. Gloria's solitary trip abroad, however, transforms her completely. trustworthy than Chinese but then she meets the duplicitous Hong King. To him she asserts that she will be one man's wife but not 100 men's wife.

So stonily does she receive the saloonkeeper's advances that he figures she is better suited to be the saloon slavey. In this one-buggy mining community in the mountains above the River of No Return (as the Salmon River is so colorfully known), Lalu learns the language of the New World: entrepreneurship. But because she believes herself a slave, she does not understand that she has a right to her own labor. It falls to the village smith, who is black, to explain that the Civil War has outlawed slavery. Chao is charming and believable as strapping Lalu, the young woman who must assimilate a new language and culture in a land where every man is, at worst, a potential rapist and racist and, at best, a demon.

How she comes to find angels in a country that in 1882 expelled Chinese immigrants makes for an involving tale. Wilson to appear Company in New York, which plans to present the play on Broadway next season. Wilson is in town to supervise rehearsals of the work, which officially opens on March 11. The playwright won a Pulitzer Prize for his two-character comedy-drama, Talley's Folly, in 1980. His other plays include Burn This, Fifth of July, The Hot I Baltimore and The Mound Builders.

a country She is suddenly a self-confident woman of the world, able to dictate the terms of her relationship with a man heretofore accustomed to treating her as a serf. The resulting battle of the sexes includes some amusing and touching exchanges, as Gloria mulls whether to prod Jim into changes of his own or simply to leave him. But the writing is not good enough to make her frequent mood swings or the inevitable happy ending as credible as they should be. To this uneven material, Morrison and Staten bring energy and conviction. She has a quiet dignity that is attractive; he occasionally over- A 40 on A young Chinese woman enslaved in the Old West By Carrie Rickey INyt'JHKH MOVtETRITir R6VICW! Film From The New Land to An Ameri- can Tail, most immigrant sagas re- 1,000 Pieces Of Cold count the rigors of steerage across Produced by Nancy Kelly and Kenjl the Atlantic arrival in the United IAn States and the arduous trek west to novei by Ruthanne Lum McCunn.

i establish a new home on the fron- photography by Bobby Bukowski, music tier; The fresh adventure 1,000 by Gary Remal Maikin, distributed by Pieces Gold is one of the million or Greycat lms- so previously untold stories about Rosalind Chao American pioneers who came by way Charie Cnris Cooper of the Orient. Jim Dennis Dun The film opens in drought-ridden 1880s China as a subsistence farmer Li Ping Kim Chan sells his pretty daughter, Lalu (Rosa- parent's guide: no MPAA rating (sexual lind Chao), for a bag of gold. In suggestion, sexual candor, violence, chains, she endures a steerage jour- bigotry) ney across the Pacific and lands in Showing at the Roxy Theatre San Francisco's Barbary Coast, where she is auctioned off like live- ty: How alive American history be- stock. (This, two decades after Aboli- comes when described in a different tion!) Her purchaser transports Lalu voice! When Lalu arrives in the to the gold-mining outpost of War- United States, she does not immedi- ren's Diggens, Idaho, where saloon- ately understand that women cannot keeper Hong King (Michael Paul be bought and sold, as they are in Chan) plans to make her the bar her homeland. To her, Americans whore.

are "white demons" inherently less mm and Saturday 'til 6 pm. to 70 Off Original Prices Selected Merchandise for Women and Men Women Sportswear, dresses, petite sportsweardresses, accesories and intimate apparel. Men Fine sportswear, sweaters and knits. Scrappy Lalu resists, and her spirited struggle to win freedom in the so-called land of liberty is irresistible. It's a pity the film's solid performances are so frequently undermined by uncertain continuity and uninspired composition.

Based on the real-life story chronicled by Ruthanne Lum McCunn in her 1981 book, 1,000 Pieces of Gold is the feature debut of director Nancy Kelly, whose previous documentary experience did not entirely prepare her for the challenge. Nearly every sequence is a medium shot of two people against the rugged walls of a saloon or cabin. Hong King leers at Lalu. (She recoils in modesty.) His landlord Charlie leers at Lalu. (She recoils in modesty.) A miner leers at Lalu.

(She recoils in modesty.) This has the narcotic effect of a book in which every sentence has the same structure. But like its heroine, 1,000 Pieces of Gold has beginner's luck. Or do you call it pluck? What the film lacks in cinematic propulsion it makes up for in novel- Playwright Lanford Playwright Lanford Wilson, whose Redwood Curtain will begin performances tomorrow at the Zellerbach Theatre in the Annenberg Center, will autograph copies of his plays on Saturday at 6 p.m. in the Philadelphia Drama Bookshop, 2209 Walnut St. Redwood Curtain is a world-premiere co-production with the Annenberg Center and the Circle Repertory selection of furs from our Revillon Salon 30 to 70 off original prices There may have been intermediate price reductions prior to this clearance sale; limited selection available.

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