The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • Page 18

THE -eiSSfc. SUN FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 1982 SECTION Choral Arts begins new era tomorrow Confederate soldiers in the first Battle of Bull Run in a scene from "The Blue and the Gray." John Hammond as a Civil War correspondent. Civil War epic falters By Bill Carter Sun TV Critic By Stephen Cera Sun Music Critic The Baltimore Choral Arts Society begins a new era this weekend when it sings the first concert under Tom Hall, its new music director. For the past 15 years, the volunteer chorus has been led by Theodore Morrison, a Baltimore-born, largely self-taught musician who now directs choral activities at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. There, Mr.

Morrison devotes more time than he could in Baltimore to his primary musical interestcomposing. Mr. Hall brings a different background to the Choral Arts. For one thing, he is only 27, a relatively tender age for such a post. For another, his educational background includes studies with Robert Shaw, the preeminent American choral conductor, and Thomas Dunn, a Boston-area chorus master, degrees from Ithaca College and Boston University; and extensive experience as a chorus director, professional singer and public school teacher in the Boston and Atlanta areas.

He has been in Baltimore since July 1, and likes whst he S66S. "There's a lot of music going on in this town," he said. "When my friends heard I was moving here, their first reaction was, 'Hey, that's great, it's really a coming I like working in this city. "And not only is the city itself coming up, but music is coming up. There is increasing respect for the Baltimore Symphony, and the arts have been a part of the general renaissance of the town The image (of Baltimore! has changed as well as the reality." Mr.

Hall has clear ambitions for the Choral Arts Society, which he calls "a good group, potentially an excellent group. There's not only room for us, but a strong, unique reason for us." He wants to expand the Choral Arts season from the current level of three major offerings a year to four pairs of concerts. He also wants to change the venue of those concerts, from the Kraushaar Auditorium to the more commodious Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, saying "we merit 2,500 bodies a concert." "For me the fiscal challenge is to build up our subscriber sheet. We want to attract a larger number of people to commit to the entire season. Our concerts tend to sell out, but usually only at 7:45 the night of the concert." The new post means a very different sort of career for Mr.

Hall, who had no fewer than six part-time jobs in Boston. "This is a step up for me," he confirms. "I have an opportunity to ocas my efforts on a specific thing. I'm enjoying very much having one job. "I also prefer the musical environment in Baltimore, it is younger and more energetic.

Boston is a bit parochial and established, whereas in Baltimore See CHORAL, B6, Col. 5 level of the families involved-that's where the real tragedy in this great conflict lay. But the events, the clash of two sides of the same culture, the confrontation of ideas and prejudices and principles-these weightier topics are hardly addressed at all. Instead, the story focuses overwhelmingly on what happens to one particular family, with branches in Virginia and Pennsylvania. It is a fictional concept, though the producers attest that the main character, a war artist and correspondent named John Geyser, truly existed.

In this drama, the families divide over the war, with the sons of Gettysburg fighting for the north against their cousins from Richmond. As could only happen in fiction, the sons meet constantly on the battlefield, from Bull Run to the Peninsula Campaign to Vicksburg to the Wilderness Campaign. The entire action of the plot is transmitted through the experiences of John Geyser, the real correspondent, who here is transformed from a soldier of the Blue (which he apparently was in reality) to a noncombatant from the Virginia branch of the family. John decides he cannot support the issue of slavery and so breaks from his family to serve as journalistic observer of all that transpires. Clearly the character was conceived as a device.

He would substitute for the viewer, standing in at history, so to speak. His involvement is almost completely observational, never participatory, though that finally undergoes change when John is forced to act in Part Three. While it is easy to understand the purpose of this character, he is surely the main reason why "The Blue the Gray" fails to rank as outstanding drama. John Geyser is made too much the blank slate upon which is imprinted the horror and tragedy of this war. See BLUE GRAY, B12, Col.

4 "The Blue and the Gray" is a good television show. It just isn't good enough. The ambition behind this eight-hour mini-series, which begins Sunday night at 8 o'clock on Channel 11, is faultless. There is no story more dramatic in American history than the story of the Civil War. Much of the execution of the series is exemplary.

Included in. these eight hours are many powerful scenes, some strong performances, some excellent moments. But "The Blue and the Gray" cannot be called anything like a television triumph-or even a success. Ultimately the series is a disappointment. Not as measured against other television shows, because this one certainly has more quality elements than whole weeks of standard fare on TV.

"The Blue and the Gray" is a disappointment when measured against what it could have been. It cannot be called a success because it shortchanges the awesome subject it chose to treat. The concerns that motivated this production are obvious. There is a historical record to be served. Adherence to the documentable events is essential.

But this is television, after all. The story must be translated into human terms. A TV audience doesn't really want to watch history for eight hours. It wants to watch people. There is nothing wrong with any of these concerns.

Indeed, large-scale fact-based stories have been brought down into human terms with great success countless times. Consider only Shakespeare's history plays. The problem with "The Blue and the Gray" is that the humanization process comes perilously close on several occasions to a more familiar TV process the trivi-alization process. The war needed to be brought to the Stacy Reach as Jonas Steele. 5- 'Creepshow' succeeds as sleazy comic book 4RBKL M'lmm I doing, and the King-Romero answer is unconvincing.

"Creepshow" offers a few jolts to the respiratory system and a few kicks in the funnybone, but it never begins to build or satisfy in any grown-up way. Btft its most serious and debilitating flaw in the marketplace may be something quite less sophisticated than its inability to create non-stereotypical characters: "Creep-show" simply isn't very scary. It's undone, to begin with, by its very structure. Anthologies have traditionally bombed at the box office, and it's difficult to believe "Creepshow" will escape this fate: the stories are too short, the characters too perfunctory, the devices too for an audience to make any kind of emotional contact with. On the other hand, it never begins to deliver those kinds of crunching, ruthless gooses that the great splatter hits -the "Friday the ISths" and the through their largely teen-aged audiences.

The material itself, besides lacking gore or fear, lacks something far See CREEPSHOW, B4, Col. 1 By Stephen Hunter Sun Film Critic "Creepshow" does exactly what it sets out to do, but the triumph may prove to be too narrow for those with three-digit IQs. It sets out to be a comic book; it is a comic book. An anthology of five lurid horror stories, the movie means to duplicate the sleazy, gross, funny tone of the early-Fifties E.C. comic books that its auteurs, director George of the Living Romero and writer Stephen "Salem's King loved.

And it does. But a more pertinent question might be whether the trick was worth E. G. Marshall tries desperately to rid himself of roaches that are invading his life in "Creepshow." mm sa Robinson Crusoe at the Aquarium The Emerson State Company ot Boston's theatrical production, "Robinson and Friday." a modern children's version of the Defoe classic, will be performed tomorrow, 11 a.m. and 2 p.m., in the Lyn P.

Meyerhoff Auditorium of the National Aquarium, Tickets are $4 for nonrhembers, $3 for members; ticket price does not include admission to aquarium exhibits. Fofcdeta1lsucaH963885. Celebrating waterfowl Eater's digest It's a veritable China-burb in Randallstown with China Town Inn and neighbors. (Page B3) Comics Liz Smith B2 Movies Bl Television B12 Preservation Hall at Meyerhoff The 12th annual Waterfowl Festival begins today in Easton and runs through Sunday. The festival features exhibitions of paintings, woodcarvings and other arts and crafts depicting waterfowl of the Chesapeake Bay region.

Admission to all exhibits and events is $2. For details, call 1-822-4567. or see Events," jageB2, The Preservation Hall Jazz Band (above) from New Orleans will bring the jazz that made Eourbon street famous to the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall SundfiighjjiSdetails, 4.