Argus-Leader from Sioux Falls, South Dakota • Page 15

OiFcBcBimftcs nnft ThursdayMay 8, 1980 lArgus Leader, Sioux Falls, S.D. Artist mentors: shape proteges Art brings a common bond 'Cruising' isn't worth the uproar mfwn "tin i i nit, it ti jt I I I 0.0 I ft' ft a I i 1 1L tl. JamL I frightening; the suspense simply doesn't build from killing to killing. Nor do we care about the victims or the killer. The ending cops out on all that has come before, muddling an already confused production.

"Cruising" is a movie in search of a reason to exist, which it never finds. A few words about two films about writers, which may or may not ever make it to our fair city: "Where the Buffalo Roam" is a better film than most critics have given it credit for and most critics, at this point, have slagged it mercilessly. Based loosely on the writings of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, this film captures the strangely warped sensibility of the former Rolling Stone magazine writer who has been caricatured as Uncle Duke in the "Doonesbury" comic strip.

(To digress a moment: Many people have expressed concern about Duke's whereabouts; he was last seen facing an Iranian firing squad after parachuting into the country last fall to commandeer a few oil wells. My money is on Duke resurfacing as one of the hostages held by the Ayatullah's goons sometime in the near future.) While this film, directed by Art Linson, is heavily flawed, it is also vastly entertaining. Still, you probably have to be a fan of either Thompson's writing or his reputa Argus Leader photo by JOHN DANICIC JR. Sculptor Steve Thomas ponders his sculpture while teacher Paul John Koehler looks on. Koehler says he sees some of Mar- different.

I would say in Steve's tens' influence, as well as his own, latest stone piece, he sort of tran- in the big ribbon. scended the material. He could "To try to describe parallels be- open it up. It almost has this elastic tween what Steve is doing and what quality. Stone generally is very I was doing we're into this flawed.

You wouldn't think it would closed, continuous transition with- be able to take that particular in the form. We're trying to sort of form." levitate mass. SCULPTOR "The resulting forms are quite Continued on page 2B A chosen student Everyone has someone, as Elizabeth Spicer, Community Playhouse associate director, puts it. Young artists, if they are going to become adult artists, find mentors. But talks with four Sioux Falls mentor-protege pairs reveal there are as many ways of playing out these roles as there are people in them.

Some mentors shower their prize students with praise, some with criticism. Some push a choice for a professional career; some sit back and let the student decide. Sometimes mentors pick proteges and sometimes proteges seek out their mentors. Some mentors and proteges become fast friends, and dine together and listen to music and talk about life, like Louis Lowen-stein and Maureen Getting. Other teachers like dancer Carolyn Westphal confine their outside advice to professionally-related matters; hers concerns keeping one's hair long enough to put up in a knot and keeping one's weight down.

A mentor can prove disappointing, and so can a protege. A mentor can change a young artist's whole life. Stories by Gail Richardson Elizabeth Spicer and Dan lllian Argus You're likely to find Steven Thomas and Paul John Koehler together down at Stockman's Bar on the weekend. Yet, even when they're working, they grin at each other and joke. Koehler, a sculptor on the faculty at Augiistana College, is Thomas' teacher.

But they say the relationship goes way beyond Partly, Koehler says, it's because Thomas is older than most students. He's 28, just nine years younger than his teacher. "He had a different attitude, sort of a commitment to what he was doing. "Partly it's the fact that we're sculptors. There aren't that many around.

We need each other to reinforce what we're doing. You've got to be a little whacko to be a sculptor. "If he needs advice, I try to advise him. If he needs some strokes, I try to give him strokes. I respect his advice the whole spectrum of advice, from interpersonal things to sculpture." Koehler introduced Thomas to stone carving.

Thomas had worked in metal sculpture with former Au-gustana teacher Chris Martens before. Right now, he's working on a huge metalribbon, which loops around into itself, creating the effect of continuous movement, bringing to mind a Mobius strip. The concept was worked out over several years of working in stone. MM 3se 1. it 4W Initially due in Sioux Falls in February, the controversial film "Cruising" finally arrives here Friday, long after the hoopla has died down.

Had not the national gay organizations raised an uproar about the movie while it was being made in New York last summer, it probably wouldn't be the box office success it has been. "Cruising" is a shallow, sensational film that makes too many leaps of credibility to be taken seriously, even as an exploitation film. Working from Gerald Walker's brisk novel about murders in the Big Apple's homosexual community, director William Friedkin has manufactured a muddy, murky film that fails as both a mystery-suspense effort and an examination of the (sadism and masochism) subculture of gay life. Walker's novel was a taut journey through the seamy underside of New York life, centered on a self-hating homosexual who killed gays who resembled him and the New York cop who went undercover to find him by serving as bait. The book spent more time on the killer than on the hunter, explaining his self-destructive tendencies at length while briefly recounting the changes the cop went through pos ing as a homosexual Friedkin Boys in the Band," "The wrote the script from which he directed and turned his attention almost completely to Al Pacino Steve Burns, the young cop who must prowl New York's leather bars in search of the killer.

Despite a herculean effort by Al Pacino to invest this role with meaning, he's just a pawn in Friedkin's tawdry game. There is no attempt at explaining the leather boys' subculture or lifestyle; rather, Friedkin employs graphic depictions of the s-m life as teasers that have little to do with the story. It's interesting to observe but nothing here moves us any closer to comprehension of the gay life. Friedkin might have made a jumpy, scary film but he didn't. The murders are predictable and un- yak her husband's protege.

lllian had made up his mind already that he Wanted to be a professional actor. With "Noah," the first of many productions with the Spicers, the dream began to come true. "Before," he says, "I just acted. It was a thing to do. When I became acquainted with Michael and Elizabeth, it became so much like a profession.

Even though I wasn't getting paid, I felt part of the profession." His technique changed, as well as his approach. "A technique Elizabeth approached me with when I was doing 'Noah' she tried to teach me how-to reach inside myself and believe Noah was a real person. Before, I'd tried to make it look good, but I never tried to make it lifelike, to reach under the subject, play the emotions." Until the Spicers found him, professional acting school was only an idea. "When I decided that was what I wanted to do," remembers the student actor, "no one saidl 'Here, we're going to help It was like a dream that was just a little out of reach. When Michael and Elizabeth ACTOR Continued on page 2B Dan Illian's chose him.

Though he may not have known it, they were what he was looking for. The 17-yearold actor saw Michael and Elizabeth Spicer watching when he appeared in a Washington High School duet acting production. "I knew they were there," remembers the quiet boy, sitting by Ms. Spicer in the Playhouse auditorium. "I knew who they were.

That sent a little nervousness into my system." Ms. Spicer, who co-directs the Community Playhouse with her husband, remembers it too. "In young actors, there are certain things that jump out at you comfort with their own body. Most young actors get on the boards and freeze up. They can't move.

"Dan didn't. I guess I was impressed by how he channeled energy to where it was needed. He had presence. You either have it or you don't. People just like to see you.

"I knew he had been in Young People's Theatre before. I thought, 'This is a boy I'd like to work with. I'd like to have him She asked him to play in "Noah," a production she had played in opposite an actor who reminded her of lllian, who would become her and Leader photo by PAUL HORSTED Playhouse director announces plays Sometimes it takes a little pushing tion to enjoy the movie. The film is badly paced and rambles mercilessly at points, yet it has several strong performances to rec- i these is Bill Bill Murray Murray as Hunter a dead-on characterization that catches the random violence and twisted logic of the character with deadpan charm. Murray speaks in Thompson's clipped mumble, affecting that sense of onslaught that pervades Thompson's writing, as though this man is constantly under siege from a myriad of unseen enemies.

As his attorney Karl Laszlo (based on the real life character of Oscar Zeta Acosta), Peter Boyle CRUISING Continued on page 3B lion to move to Sioux Falls the week of Aug. 15 to a job he keenly anticipates. Directing is his first love: "Directing is what I want to do and this job provides a unique opportunity for someone with my background. "I've wanted to. work in community theater.

Up until now, most of the shows I've directed (in college) have had the disadvantage of having people in the cast who weren't the right age for the parts, who didn't always have the maturity to play them. And that tends to distort the shows. "Here I'll have the opportunity to direct for the living, which is what I want to do. I'm very pleased. The situation is ideal." His wife, Jill, will be working with him and, although details haven't been finalized, she will probably direct the Young People's Theater and do some teaching, as well as helping with costuming.

"For the first year, she'd like to take a rest from acting," Swank said of his wife, who was also an Irene Ryan nominee. "She felt she could use it. She intends to be active in every capacity, except acting for the first year. She wants to work with the community, so it doesn't look like I'm casting my wife in my plays." Working with the community is important to Swank as well: "I want to build involvement on all levels of the community. We want a good solid base and everyone seems supportive.

"There are some problems which the board thinks it has, some ruffled feathers that need to be taken are of. I want to build my reputation by doing good shows and encouraging involvement. "I don't want to leap in and start in some direction and find it's not the direction the community wants to go. This year is going to be a gooc solid season. There's no purpose ir arbitrarily changing things.

I wan) to get the Playhouse on a good foot ing and then find a 2 fir J. is Kristen Tschetter seems a reluctant protege. The 15-year-old has been a solo dancer at two South Dakota School of Ballet workshop performances. To an untrained eye, she looks like a professional. Ballet school director Carolyn Westphal believes now is the time the young dancer must make a decision if she is to pursue a professional career.

The teacher wants to take her to New York at the end of the month, where she can take some lessons and, Ms. Westphal hopes, audition for the School of American Ballet. It is there that the dancers for the New York City Ballet are trained. If Kristen is to hope for a career with that top company, says her teacher, she must study there next summer and should ultimately transfer there for part of her high school training. Argus Leader photo by PAUL HORSTED Kristen Tschetter smiles as her instructor, Carolyn Westphal, helps her execute a port de bras.

discuss a script. But Kristen, it seems, is as good a golfer as she is a dancer. "At this point," the mentor observes, "she is maybe too young to want to decide." Indeed, the reluctant protege dissolves in giggles when the subject of studying in New York is brought up. "I don't want to talk about it. I can't make a choice.

I'm not going to. It's too hard. I love them both. I know my dad would never let me go there and stay. I wouldn't make it." Her relationship with her mentor evolved almost haphazardly.

It started when the young dancer was about six. "She was very talented," the teacher remembers. "Extremely talkative. A hard worker. I guess DANCER Continued on page 2B Argus Leader photo by LUCY LIEN 1 -T By MARSHALL FINE Assistant Managing Editor The change in artistic leadership at the Sioux Falls Community Playhouse next fall will be reflected in a shift in the list of plays the Playhouse will present for the 1980-81 season.

Jan Swank, named this week to succeed Michael Spicer as Playhouse artistic director next season, said the Playhouse will present five shows instead of the six Spicer announced earlier in the year. Of those, the only holdover from Spicer's list will be the Tom Jones-Harvey Schmidt musical, "The Fantasticks." The musical will open the season and will be followed by Ira Levin's comedy-thriller "Deathtrap," which will end its three year run on Broadway this summer; "The Man Who Came to Dinner," the classic American comedy by George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart; William Inge's drama, and Stephen Sondheim's musical, "A Little Night Music," based on the Ingmar Bergman film, "Smiles of a Summer Night." "These were all shows I suggested when I was interviewed," Swank said in a telephone conversation from Rapid City', S.D., where he is directing "The Shadow Box" at the Group Theater. "Many of them were already up for consideration when I discussed them with the selection committee. We worked out a compromise that everyone is pleased with." Swank is coming off a final year of graduate work at the University of South Dakota that included acting in three USD productions and directing a fourth.

For his performances, he was nominated for an Irene Ryan Scholarship in acting. The show he directed, Samuel Beckett's "Endgame," was chosen for the regional competition of the American College Theater Festival. He'll spend the summer as technical director of the Black Hills return to Vermil A teacher, a student, a friend As a friend, too, he receives from his student as well as giving. "I feel that, of all my students, I've had the opportunity to get to be the best friends with Maureen. We've kind of helped each other.

Sometimes I feel myself slipping into a reclusive way of living. It's been a really supportive thing just to be friends." From her mentor, the protege learned not just about cello. "He's like changed my whole world. He's kind of opened my eyes to what's possible. He's introduced me to a lot of people, a lot of albums, a lot of good jazz music, natural foods.

"I think Louis has helped me to realize I have to make a decision on what I want, not just do what's put in front of me. He's helped me realize I shouldn't force myself to do CELLIST Continued on page 2B When Maureen Getting hits a bad note on her cello, she and Louis Lowenstein give each other knowing looks. Lowenstein says the communication between himself and his 17-year-old student is two-way. He likes to quote Pablo Casals on the subject: "I have never drawn an artificial line between teacher and learner. A teacher, of course, should know more than his pupil, but for me, to teach is to learn." Musically, what he has learned from Ms.

Getting is probably subconscious, he figures. "I tend to react to what I see around me. I sort of take in a student's feeling, share their feeling for what is happening. What I come back with is what I would do if I were playing it that way. I come away feeling as though the two of us have tried to reach upwards." i fan mi.

ti Cellist Louis Lowenstein tunes in to his student, Maureen Getting, as she practices a new piece..