The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • 41

A I EGO 0U I I 0 CALENDAR Coo Angeles (Times Monday, June 27, 1988 Part VI TV Indecency Fine Raises New Fears in Broadcasters This Jungle for Hire Political Unrest Hasn't Stopped Some From Filming in Philippines By MARK FINEMAN, Times Staff Writer MANILA When veteran producer Kurt Unger was about to leave Los Angeles to spend millions of dollars filming his World War II epic "Return From the River Kwai" here, friends and colleagues looked at him a bit strangely. "Everyone said, 'The Philippines? Are you crazy? They're throwing bombs over there. You can't make movies recalled Unger, whose 47 years of film making have taken him to some of the most obscure corners of the world. Indeed, just weeks before Unger and his team of more than 60 actors and production technicians arrived in Manila, an ambitious $12-million Home Box Office miniseries production on the 1986 revolt that overthrew President Ferdinand E. Marcos had been effectively booted out for political reasons.

Even before that, Los Angeles-based Cannon Films had soured the image of foreign film makers when a $5-million armed forces helicopter gunship crashed while on loan for a production of Chuck Norris' "Missing in Action III." A half-dozen key Philippine Air Force men were killed in the crash, which triggered a series of lawsuits. And, as Unger prepared to board his plane to Manila, the bloody Communist insurgency that has tormented the Philippine government for nearly two decades continued to claim victims. But Unger did not heed the warnings. And this day, he couldn't be happier. "There's no guarantee anywhere when By DENNIS McDOUGAL, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON-The first fine levied against a television station since the Federal Communications Commission began cracking down on indecency a year ago has renewed fears among some broadcasters that the regulatory agency will continue to act against indecency without ever defining what indecent programming is.

"To get slapped with a fine for walking through a mine field when you don't know where the mines are just isn't fair," said Wallace Jorgenson, chairman of the National Assn. of Broadcasters. "It's not the fine. It's the principle." On Thursday, a Kansas City TV station was fined $2,000 for broadcasting frontal nudity during prime time last year, but the FCC voted 2-1 not to revoke the station's license from its owner, Tennessee-based Media Central Inc. (The FCC is currently two members short of its full complement of five commissioners.) Still, the station's troubles are probably not over.

"What they did was give me a fine that was outrageous," Media Central chairman Morton Kent told The Times. "Any fine is outrageous. I don't believe any agency of government has the right to fine when they won't define. We're not going to pay the fine." An FCC spokeswoman said she did not know what action the commission might take if the fine is not paid. Kent said his company has already spent nearly $10,000 in legal expenses since January, when the FCC first charged Media Central's KZKC-TV with airing an allegedly indecent movie.

In May, 1987, Treva Burk, a Kansas City junior high school teacher, videotaped a prime-time KZKC presentation of the 1982 R-rated theatrical film "Private Lessons." She sent the tape and a complaining letter to the FCC. Burk, a member of the Kansas City chapter of the Tupelo, American Family said she objected to the profanity, adult situations (the film's plot revolves around a teen-age boy learning about sex from an adult instructor) and frontal nudity. Commissioner James Quello and FCC Chairman Dennis Patrick sided with Burk, voting Thursday to fine KZKC. Commissioner Patricia Diaz Dennis agreed that KZKC probably shouldn't have aired "Private Lessons" in prime time, but voted against a fine. While concurring with her fellow commissioners that decency standards ought to be maintained during times when children are likely to be watching TV, she warned that the FCC should not replace parents as the final arbiters of taste and ethics in the home.

"I believe as a starting point that government must not supplant or Please see INDECENCY, Page 4 Scene from "Return From the River Kwai," which broke jinx on Philippines filming. that many feared would mark the end of foreign film making here a move that would co3t this already impoverished nation millions of dollars a year in foreign exchange and lost jobs. When asked if he, too, had fallen victim to bad luck here, Unger concluded: "Hardly. From Day 1, it has been a smooth-running production." And, he added, "I don't think we could have been able to make this picture in any other Far Eastern country and gotten the kind of infrastructure we did here." Such praise is hardly idle. The successful filming of "Return From the River Kwai," under the direction of Hollywood veteran Please see' Page 8 you're shooting on location," said a smiling Unger, in his production suite at a five -star hotel in Manila's business district.

"And it's true that some people are very concerned about coming to the Philippines. I guess I was a bit apprehensive myself at first." Unger now ranks among the Philippines' biggest boosters. "I think it's more dangerous to cross Wilshire Boulevard on a Sunday afternoon than it is to make a movie here," he said. Perhaps none could be more pleased with Unger's success than the thousands of Filipinos whose livelihoods depend on the country's large motion picture industry. As Unger and his cast and crew wrapped up their $15-million production, they broke a jinx SHAUNA NORFLEET Loc.AngelM Timet STAGE REVIEW LATC Offers a Precise, Bloodless Pinter By DAN SULLIVAN, Times Theater Critic 'hat's the game?" asks one of the brothers in 'w; Harold Pinter's "The if ii If --4 after which the intruder will be ruthlessly discarded.

Certainly Gammell gets a very strong signal, the first time that he sees the brothers together, that he is dealing with an entity here. We get the signal too, without a word or a gesture from Vickery or Piddock one of those mysterious effects which actors in tune with Pinter know how to manage. Such shocks are part of the payoff in his plays: moments where we realize that the situation may not be what it appears to be at all. There weren't enough of them at Friday night's opening. Mandell and his actors were so fastidious about avoiding cheap melodrama andor bogus symbolism that they Please see LATC, Page 8 brothers; the junky old room (better swept than usual, in set designer John Iacovelli's rendition); and, scrupulously, Pinter's language.

After that, it's up to us. Up to a point, we appreciate the confidence. Especially if we remember Pinter productions where the director knew exactly what the play was about and reduced everything else in the play to support his thesis. A big mistake with this playwright, a duke of dark corners. This "Caretaker" does well not to impose a meaning on the play, but to let the spectator see it as he will as a demonstration, for example, of the fact that a third party (the old man) can actually be employed to revive the bond between two people (the brothers), Caretaker," suspicious-like.

It's a question that many people have asked about the play since it was first performed in 1960. What's going on here? Are the two "brothers" (John Vickery and Jim Piddock at LATC) really brothers, and which is the crazy one? What's their game with the old vagrant (Robin Gammell) do they plan to knock him off for his identity card? Is the junky old room at the top of the empty house a symbol of something? Alan Mandell's revival at the Los Angeles Theatre Center is careful not to answer these questions. It gives us the old man and the John Vickery, Robin Gammell, Jim Piddock. from left, in Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker" at LATC. THEATER REVIEWS STAGE REVIEW Show at Lamb's Players Is a Fantasy That Works Grove Shakespeare Fest Faces Politics With Its 'Richard II' a r.

0 trxi Mike Buckley, Kerry Cederberg and Veronica Murphy Smith in a scene from "The Book of the Dun Cow" at Lamb's Players Theatre. By NANCY CHURNIN NATIONAL CITY-Once upon a time, before there were movies, people looked to the theater for magic. Today, in the wonderful world of Disney and special effects, theater has been increasingly relegated to the de-wmmmmmmm piction of the realistic. AN Even in such big-niFTO budget exceptions as COUNTY "Cals" and "Starlight Express," expensive pyrotechnics, more than imagination, seem to be what bring the canines and trains to life. What a special joy.

then, to catch the magically inventive adaptation of "The Book of the Dun Cow," premiering at the Lamb's Players Theatre through July 24. In portraying Walter Wangerin's allegorical fantasy about Chaunte-cleer the Rooster's battle to save an animal world from evil, the Lamb's repertory company has done nothing less than reclaim the world of the imagination for the theater. Wearing brightly colored bits of fabric arranged like feathers around a leotard neck and ankles, veteran Lamb's player David Cochran Heath conveys the proud rooster with a slightly akimbo walk and a most chicken-like twitch of the neck. A swift journey on the back of a dog (Ken Wagner) is accompanied by the barefooted, gaily festooned leotard-clad players swaying as they wave blue scarfs on sticks to suggest the rushing wind. The story itself is simple to the point of being simplistic, with good and evil as easily distinguishable as the good witch from the wicked one in "The Wizard of Oz." In a world that predates humankind, Chauntecleer rules over a variety of animals, including a coop of chickens, John Wesley Weasel and Wee Widow Mouse.

A neighboring, aging rooster who does not get the respect he desires from his subjects makes a deal with the Worm (think Devil) for power. The rooster then sires Cockatrice, a half devil, with whom Chauntecleer must ultimately fight to save his world. Under the deft direction of Robert Smyth, who co-wrote the adaptation with Kerry Cederberg, the Lamb's Players' "Cow" shows how well an ensemble of actors who understand each other can work. Heath is at once all-rooster and all-human as Chauntecleer. Deborah Gilmour Smyth, so fresh and winning in the Lamb's recent production of Saint Joan, slithers easily from sainthood to Satanhood as Cockatrice.

By DON SHIRLEY Shakespeare's primer on political power, "Richard II," opened the 10th Grove Shakespeare Festival on Saturday amid a demonstration of the importance of political power. In the wake of decisions by the Garden Grove City Council last week to grant only $20,000 of the Grove Theatre Company's request for a $53,000 advance on its 1988-89 city appropriation, artistic director Thomas F. Bradac and board member Robert Dunek appealed to the audience for contributions before the play began. According to Dunek, $30,000 must be raised in the next two weeks or the festival's remaining full-scale productions, "The Comedy of Errors" and "King Lear," are "in jeopardy." Bradac and other staff members, as well as scattered members of the audience, wore plastic hard hats as a symbol of solidarity with the fund-raising effort. The hats were a reference to the comment by Councilman Raymond T.

Littrell, the leading opponent of the Grove's request, that "this community is a hard-hat community, and very few hard-hats take in Shakespeare." Actually, "Richard II" can be read as the triumph of a hard-hat. Bolingbroke (Gregory Mortensen) is a man of action, popular with the masses, always thinking.of what's practical instead of what's poetic. His opponent, King Richard (Gregory Itzin), is absorbed in his thoughts, his fantasies, his reflection. His moods vacillate wildly, and he loses his kingdom because he can't quite manage to be in the right place at the right time. Itzin is terrific at painting a picture of Richard as a dreamy incompetent, sometimes charming but sometimes imperious.

During the first part of the play, he wears a goatee and hair style that are reminiscent of Zonker in "Doones-bury." When we see him putting on his crown for the first time, his eyes are closed and his face is unsmiling; he doesn't relish the responsibility. But then he looks in a mirror and smiles; he does like the way he looks in that crown. When the crown slips out of his grasp, after intermission, Richard, shaves off his beard. And, by the last scene, he's wearing nothing but his pants. We can see how young and slight he looks; today he would be accused of not appearing "presidential." Please see GROVE, Page 8 Tom Stephenson plays an exhausting variety of parts, from the narrator, to Lord Russell Fox to the aging rooster, all with cool panache; the sweat hardly shows.

Wagner goes right to the true-blue heart of Chauntecleer's faithful Mundo Cani Dog. Cederberg, a gifted comic actress, looks lovely but not quite comfortable in the role of Pertelote, Chauntecleer's true love; she seems always about to crack a joke that never comes. In contrast, Cynthia Peters has the drama of Wee Widow Mouse down to poignant nose-twitching perfection. Mike Buckley, who designed the marvelous, Mardi Gras-like costumes along with Veronica Murphy Smith, is endearingly spunky as John Wesley Weasel. But Smith's portrayal of Beryl the Hen, while it has much spirit to recommend it, treads a fine line of servility in a world where male chauvinism reigns in the form of male roosters lording it over housebound hens and female mice.

Pamela Turner, who did the elegant choreography, dances in eloquent silence as the Dun Cow, the comforting messenger of God, who is invisible to all but Chauntecleer. Please see FANTASY, Page 5 Inside Calendar RPTSJPSSS stage jazz 'M A Sharpening the "Yankee Dawg" John Pisano, Oscar TrnTMPHT Pa8e2, fWit; focusin actors can relate to Castro-Neves and Scott san mwiSe GumE: 1 theirroles. Hamilton. TV: Tonight on TV and cable. Page 9 "El Lute" to open Spanish film retrospective.

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