Chicago Tribune from Chicago, Illinois • 22

ST" 22 Section 1 Chicago Tribune, Thursday, February 28, 1991 r' OVERSIGHT Collin Weak script dims all possibilities for Miant Tracers' By Sid Smith Entertainment writer -A ft ity-Vv- -TV I There's nothing remotely brilliant about "Brilliant Tracers," Cindy Lou Johnson's two-character drama now at the Griffin Theatre. Still, it's easy to see why the show functioned as a showcase for part-time Chicagoans Joan Cusack and Kevin Anderson in New York. The whole thing turns on their kind of trademark comic unpredictability, a tale of wacky but lovable characters short on plot and feverish with eccentricity. The premise has it that a young woman named Rosannah DeLuce (Jean Elliott Campbell), dressed in a wedding gown and satin slippers, literally blows into an isolated, barren cabin in remote Alaska in the middle of a snowstorm. In a hysterical entry speech, she reveals her )8 UJ Adaptation turns out be an enemy of Ibsen By Richard Christiansen Entertainment editor Northlight Theatre's production of "An Enemy of the People" is certainly new and nontraditional, but just what it is and where it's coming from is hard to figure.

Adapter Russell Vandenbroucke's idea of moving Henrik Ibsen's drama of 1882 from Scandinavia to America is valid enough. The idea of an intelligent idealist who believes in free speech and free thinking being cast out by the solid majority of his fellow citizens of the booboisie because he tells them some truths they don't want to hear is perhaps even more pertinent to the United States now than it was to Norway in the late 19th Century. But having made that move, the' Northlight production, directed by Kyle Donnelly, goes bonkers in so many different ways with strained accents, hammy performances and one anachronism after another tumbling out at a rapid clip that the work becomes totally disoriented and disorienting. Played more like a cartoon than a drama, mouthing slogans instead of dialogue, this "Enemy doesn't have one three-dimensional character in it. Thomas Stockman, its hero, is a clownish egoist who.

is miraculously turned into a fiery and courageous orator. His brother, the city's mayor, lacks only a whip and waxed mustache to become a melodrama villain. The printer and newspapaer editor who prove false friends to Stockman are. played for laughs as Tweedledee and Tweedledum opportunists, with a goofy German accent from David Alan Novak as the printer added for good measure. Stockman's wife and children are practically written out of the play.

Kate Goehring, as Patricia Stockman, listens to Gerry Becker, portraying protagonist Thomas Stockman, in "An Enemy of the People." if land IrM mto ri v'l ni Theater Theater 'Brilliant Tracers' Top Job Circuit Court Judge Ken Gillis will leave the bench to become State's Atty. Jack OTVlalky's first assistant Gillis has been there before, working for Dan Ward, John Stamos and Bemie Carey. His most famous case as a judge: Upholding artist Dread Scott Tyler's rights in the great Art Institute fiag-on-the-floor flap. Big bad Wolff Lock for Rich Daley to keep pushing for Paula Wolff as chancellor at UIG Why? Because he thinks U. of officials care more about Urbaria-Champaign than Chicago.

He's said to be especially irritated by the hassling over the Mile Square Health Center. And who is Wolffs chief backer? Not John Schmidt, law partner of her husband, Wayne Whelan. Try Frank Kreusl, the mayor's chief policy adviser. Tax deal? Word is that Jim Edgar's trying to cut a deal with. Du Page County's Aldo Botti on taxes.

Look for Botti to endorse Edgar's property tax plan and share the credit for tax relief. But win Botti then support Edgar's effort to extend the income tax surcharge? Stay tuned. Unhappy campers Du Page County dairman Pate Philip is said to be irritated at the Edgar courtship of Botti, who is not Philip's favorite poL Jim Thompson is not happy about Edgar closing his Barcelona trade office. But then Edgar is said to be a bit restless about Thompson's role in the University of Illinois goings-on. Daley newt The mayor said this campaign has been the toughest because it's hard to run a good, competitive race when you're so far ahead.

Neither Jane Byrne nor Danny Davis called to congratulate Daley. The mayor's men point to his healthy margin of victory in the 10th Ward as proof that the residents are not all that opposed to a new airport in the area. The Daley campaign diverted money from canceled television ads to send out more than 3 million pieces of direct mail. A baaaaad choice "Silence of the star Jodie Foster, whose character is haunted by the cries of lambs being slaughtered, was honored last week with a retrospective of her film work at Minneapolis' Walker Art Center. At the luncheon i following the program, the main course (which Foster chose not to eat) was lamb chops.

A clean sweep Channel 7 cakewalked through the February sweeps in Nielsen and Arbitron ratings announced Wednesday. Even though Channel claims a slight seven-day 'An Enemy of the People A ploy by Honrik Iboon, newly adapted by Russsb1 Van. donbroucKO end directed by Kyle Donnelly, wftfi oconory by MIchMl MenltL costumes by Geylond Speuidtna, anting by Robwt Christen and music by Stuart Rosenberg, Opened Wednesday at Northlight Theotre, 117 Chr-csgo A Evonston, and plays at p.m. Tuesday through Friday, pjn. and 1:45 pm Saturday, 3 p.m.

and 7 p.m. Sunday and 1 p.m. Wednesday, through March 54. Running time: 2:18. Tickets are S15.50 to with a II senior citizen discount weekdays and Sundays.

Rush tickets aveMoMo a haM-hour before cur-tan. Group rates available. Phone 70S-WB-727S. THE CAST Catherine Stockman Susan Mussbaum Honiubcl OHHng Byron Stewart Patrick 8tockmen Ned Schmidtko Stsnlslew Koetka Christopher Pteciynekl Capt Horstsrkl Wledek Byrdy Thomas Stockman Gerry Becker Martin 8tockmsn Andrew Craighton Pamela Stockmen Kete Goehring Martin KM James Otis Herman Aschenbach David Alan Novak With Felipe Camecho, Arm Heekm, Marty HkwWibothsm, Stuart Rosenberg, Marl Weiss, Dexter ZoNcofler. some life into a play she doesn't trust to have a life of its own.

She really pulls out the stops in the public meeting of the fourth act: The house lights go up and Stockman steps off the stage and starts pacing up and down the aisles while he delivers his angry assault on majority rule (peppering his talk with such non-19th Century phrases as "shelf to the hoots and boos of actors planted in the audience. To his great credit, Gerry Becker, as Stockman, delivers this famous outcry with genuine passion and oratorical skill despite being costumed in a bright green tail coat so that he looks like a refugee from "A Christmas Carol." Credit designer Michael Merritt, too, with very clean, flexible settings for the play's five acts. Would that the whole hysterical production had taken its cue from his simple, inventive work. A drome by Cindy Lou Johnson, dkojctod by Rkhoid A. Bertetta, sal by Becky Rory, liolittng by John A.

Meter and 7 costumes by Down Oewm. Opened Feb. 22 et tie Ortrfln Theatre, 2700 N. Elston Ave, end plays at 7:30 p.m. 1(1 Thursday end Sunday end p-tn.

Fndey and Saturday, VM- -mn-j I-Jftl 'eoi car has broken down and that she's suf- mM fering from exposure and then she faints. Henry Harry (Eric Zudak), the ca- bin's lone occupant, listens mutely to her 'hm speech, watches her collapse, gently picks Jbi her up and puts her in his only bed and ,) i then sits by the fire, weeping as he an A cradles her suppers in his hands. Much of the rest of Johnson's one-act script is a hide-and-seek game revealing, nx after Rosannah comes to, the circum- uhn stances that brought them to this unusual oils meeting. For a while, each revelation vlq only teasingly makes the picture more confusing: Just when we learn that DeLu- urnJ ce turned and ran in a freakout from her wedding church, hence the gown, we learn the supposed wedding was in Arizona quite a nonstop car escape. Both characters turn out to be emo- bni tionaliy isolated as well as physically re- mote: Trauma-induced psychic wounds HuH lurk beneath each of their surface shields, The only surprises in Johnson's script are in the details that delineate all this.

Her script is the dramatic ploy of n-xn 1 tossing two wounded animals into the i io' same cage and letting them find each li.m other through mutual need and anguish. To this already predictable scheme, she in a throws in the additional, inexcusable 10! Donnelly's staging, which includes folky live music from a few musicians, indicates that she's trying to shake 3 black artists tell forum of their pains and gains Amnion victory, La-TV recaptured the key 10 p.m. weekday news slot in both surveys. And with a boost from ABCs powerful "Nightfine," Rick Dees and his smarmy "Into the Night" even managed to beat Arsenio Hull and David Lettermm. CBS will win the Nielsen prime time race on the national level, but neither its coattails nor such EXCLUSIVE! overlay of a father-daughter construct Kosannah, it seems, treaked out in the un; church not because of her fiance, but be- bV Dees if XT.

IK but important gains have been made. Forrest, an award-winning author who chairs die African American Studies Department at Northwestern University in Evanston, noted that in recent years black writers have achieved new levels of recognition. "Today, all of a sudden, there's a real interest in black authors, said Forrest, obviously referring to such writers as Toni Morrison, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for "Beloved," and Charles Johnson, who took the National Book Award last year for "Middle Passage." "But black writing has been going on here for 300 years, and no one cared," Forrest added. Even amid the gains, Forrest said, some important ground has been lost "I had the advantage of going to public schools in Chicago when they were still pretty good," he said. "But the schools- are in such a state now that there's almost no way a student can get the background he or she needs to become a writer." Not all the words were grim.

Hunt, whose large-scale sculptures stand in various public spaces in Chicago and elsewhere across the country, joked that he overcame institutional racism by "starting out making little sculptures and then making bigger and bigger ones until everyone hadto notice them." But the evening's main theme was as powerful as a clenched fist "Historically, blacks have been kept outside the mainstream in America," said Anderson, "so we made our own streams. And that's a fact" By Howard Reich Entertainment writer Expressing hope, pain, despair and inspiration, three distinguished artists Wednesday evening took on an issue that affects us all: the black experience in America. As blacks in the arts, each of these speakers who drew a large crowd to the School of the Art Institute auditorium knew firsthand the sting of racism. "Being black in America means that the New York Philharmonic will not be calling me, the Metropolitan Opera will not be calling, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will not be calling," said TJ. Anderson, a first-rate composer who chairs the music department at Tufts University, Medford, Mass.

''That lias nothing to do with the quality of my work, and it has everything to do with being black." Yet, wisely, Anderson hastened to add that "anyone who goes against the mainstream is in a way a black artist In other words, anyone who goes their own way, instead of whatever way the majori-. ty decides is is facing a similar struggle." Thus Anderson and two longtime collaborators, author Leon Forrest and sculptor Richard Hunt, explored the universal tragedy of discrimination in the arts and in society. The occasion was a public forum in honor of Black History Month, with the evening's discussion. titled "Forms, Sounds and Words: Three African-American Artists Make Their Way." The session acknowledged that small cause her senile father arrived in the vestibule andcould not recognize her his unintentional abandonment, in her eyes, 4uo because of physical aging; is beyond her J0('n tolerance and acceptance. ,7 Henry, meanwhile, is hiding out (he's a ivl cook for a nearby oil rig) because he thinks his daughters death in a kitchen mishap is his fault he should have caught her as she accidentally plunged from the counter.

Henry is wild and woolly like Anderson, and Rosannah is frenetic, quirky and abrupt like Cusack, but otherwise Johnson's script is a toss- away, nauseating in its contrived efforts at pathos and sentiment nil0 The whole thing might have been worth it if Griffin offered young actors irtut with unusual talents, but Campbell and Zudak are instead likable, pleasantly real and fatally normal. Their abilities don't r.jt lie in the idiosyncratic, exaggerated realm, and they subsequently seem out of ni place, forced and uncomfortable, no more likely to take off and wildly head -j0 for Alaska than anyone in the winter- weary Chicago audience. nu ilT ivib Tribune photo by John Barney' T.J. Anderson shakes hands with the audience after Wednesday's program while Leon Forrest (background) talks with a guest. gems as "Mean Street Diary" and "Doors of Death" kept WBBM-Ch.

2 out of a distant third place at 10 p.m. Theatrical things Lynda Barry told David Letterman Tuesday night that the stage version of her novel, "The Good Times Are Killing Me," would be opening Off-Broadway this spring. The show premiered at Chicago's City Lit theatre and was adapted for the stage by Chicago's Amie Aprill, but she forgot to mention that Warnings, "90s style: A sign in the lobby at Halsted Theatre Centre, where the featured production is i "Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love," warns patrons that "A gunshot is fired during the performance" and latecomers are warned that they will not be seated. But there's no warning that the play includes mucho nudity and simulated sex acts of both the straight and gay variety. After all that, who cares about a gun shot? Potpourri Aid.

Luis Gutierrez, who won big in his 26th Ward, is cranking up to run for Congress if and when a new district is drawn that would favor an Hispanic candidate. Of the senators up for re-election in 1992, Sen. Alan Dixon has the fourth biggest pile of money on hand. The Pal has $1,223,260, the most of any Democrat Former Democratic congressman Tim Hall, who served one term after Watergate, may run for the 15 th District seat Emmy, the Edgar family's golden retriever puppy, has been sent to training school after several unfortunate incidents in the Executive Mansion. INCJings Thursday birthdays: Caroline Kanaszyc, 102; Bernadette Peters, 47; Bob Collins, 49; Mario Andretti, 51; Stephanie Beacham, 44; Tommy Tune, 52; Roland Harper, 38; Bubba Smith, 46.

Isaiah Robinson will be away from his pals at Chicago's William H. Ray School for a few months. The 7-year-old just landed a role as one of the Lost Boys in "Hook," Steven Spielberg's movie version of "Peter Pan," and he just started rehearsals. A costume designer for Hard Copy" chose a blue polyester leisure suit for an actor playing John Gacy, not because the murderer hated polyester, as we reported, but "as an ode to GacVs bad taste." He actually wore a blue polyester leisure suit on several occasions. NEWSMAKERS Looks sharp, sounds flat IT nA 'w( jilr.

1Mb i'jM (ll i jiai ii.di "i ll jU (ilo'V tl 'ill Ithl. ASH Any music teacher who knows the difference between a treble clef and a cleft palate will tell you that the best way to keep young students interested is to make parents instrumental. So JohnWarren, high school band director in Mandan, N.D., had his 6th graders teach their parents how to play. After several weeks of practice, the mom and pop band performed "Hot Cross Buns" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" at a school assembly. How'd they do? Oboist Kim Quinn said she enjoyed "listening to her father screw up." Linus Pauling turns 90 Linus Pauling, winner of Nobel Prizes in chemistry and peace, turned 90 Thursday.

Pauling works daily, either at his home in Big Sur, or at the Linus Pauling institute of Science and Medicine in Palo Alto. Lately, he has been busy denouncing the Bush administration for "this barbarous method of handling world Granny Smith, you worm! It's merely dishonorable not criminalto be an apple-polisher. But extra care soon may be required in Colorado when using such terms as "plum crazy" or "out of their, gourd." The state Senate's Agriculture Committee on Tuesday approved the Disparagement of Perishable Food Products bill, which would make it illegal to bruise the reputation of a basket full of fruits and veggies. Backers of the bill, which the House has passed, say the legislation is a serious response to the millions of dollars in losses that apple farmers suffered after the national scare over the growth chemical Alar. A general and a baritone New York magazine overheard this give-and-take in the classical music section of a record store in Manhattan: Woman's voice: "Oh, look, they've got the Schwarzkopf Strauss-lieder album on sale!" Man's voice: "He sings?" They've got it all backward Since December, about 500 people have forwarded their applications to Nad HERMAN 7 A riirl i bnu problems" in the Middle East.

For grins, Pauling does crosswords, recalculates Findings in physics journals and watches Doris Day movies. "tun In cold blood: There will be no more dining on ducklings or sunbathing on docks for this 6V4-foot water monitor lizard. Trapper Todd Hardwick (left) caught the abandoned pet Tuesday In Pembroke Pines, Fla. Her-petologist Joe Wasilewskl will try to breed the endangered reptile. lefsll, Dog day on high court? Moolb's (Dan Bloom's) National Registry of Backward Names in Alaska.

The roster reads like a "Who's Who" held against a mirror. Some card-carryin members: Ear Mit. Derf Semloh and 2 Noitutitsni in Washington. stuck to familiar lyrics after being granted a a. in a surprise non-move, tne U.S.

au-preme Court declined to hand downj decisions Wednesday. Asked why, court spokeswoman Toni House 19V0 1 members of the De Toofvalc family, in CL i canV parow wcanesoay on an assault CO gOOd, SO good, SO gOOa and weapons conviction. "I feeeed good!" the godfather of soul screamed outside a With a new lease on life, James Brown prison camp in South Carolina. wuuiu say oniy; 1 nc uug aic u. eluding pet pooch Leber.

Moolb says he plans to turn the list over to the popular culture division of the Nainoshtims mo Jon Ililkevitch "Have you ever been to Ralph's Body Shop?" invi).