The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 43

The Boston Globe Thursday, September 20, 1979 43 8 3. i ill, ii I. II TONIGHT 8:30 P.M. SEPT. NOV.

3 8 WEEKS ONLY "RIP-ROARING!" DOSUM Kevin Kelly, Globe HANS CONRIED 300 Mass A across Irom Symphony Shakespeare (xrapany A New Musical "So full of exuberance, it's simply irresistable." Comedy Kevin Kelly, The Boston Globe mmsm J-L 3 vuy My mum by Andy Gaus Happy Boston's Hilarious Musical-Comedy Variety Show (With Full Cabaret Bar!) CHARLES PLAYHOUSE CABARET 74 IhAHRENTOH ST I0ST01 Pint Hn! 42M225 TbMln) Ctorp 4264111 REVIEW STAGE Can JSJ-K 267-5600 JOE MASIELL TELE-TRON: (617) 426-8383 THEATRE PARTIES: 426-8920 FatgnMMlaM2-e44 TOONM Wed. -Sat 8:00 7:30 Phone Reservations 536-0600 TONIGHT AT 8 P.M. GLOBE ADS PAY BEST TRY ONE AMD SEE jtThe Shubert Theatre 265 Tremont 426-4520 i THEATERCHARGE 426-8181 BOSTON TICKET CHANGE 542-3200 THE MODERN THEATER 523 WASHIItGTfHI I0STM ftitwMt itriu Manfc ni Tlx Ojm Hum 426-8445 4 The Next Move Theatre 955 Boylston Street MBTA Grmn Lin Auditorium Slop GLOBE ADS PAY BEST TRY ONE AND SEE 1 Bargain Matinees Today-lsl Show Only at Starred Features tv CIHEMAy 200 Stuart SlrMlMli Pitli Sq She's Hotter than (vert THE EiiMiKadle Bantfk-ok FRENCH WOMAN 1 00-2 45-4 30 6 15-8 00-10 00 1 00-2 45-4 30-6 15-1 00-10 00 -j PI AILCT i'l 237 St NMrGw CM 227-W78 THE I SEOUCTIOIMM 5 45-joo 1 1 1 1 1 i o-3 iw OFJOETYIVAX ooo 9 wjsww) 7 451000 1 5 I. 50 Dattoo SI lOpp Stmalon Boslwil 536-2870 -t FROM BREAKING AWAY po 1 003 15-5 30-7 45-10 00 ENDS TODAY 1O0-3 15-5 30 7 45-10 1 00-3 15-5 30 prv 7 45-10 00 R. Patrick Nugent, left, David Penhale and Brian Smiar in "American 'Buffalo' is a classic CHA2LE1 1-2-3 195CamlKlgSt iNurGov Ctrl 227-1330 1' 70MM HUNTERr 00-5 15-8 30 V004 45-4 30 5 15-1 00-10 00 ENDS TODAY 1 00-3 1 5-5 30-7 45-10 00 rA SAIOM 542-4600 PA2II 267-8181 841 8oyls1on Slrwl opp Pru Clr 219 TrwiKdl SlrMt IW BtfflltOrl No psssss accaplwl I ENDSTODAV 1 00-3 00-5 00-7 00-8 45-10 15 "THE ENTIRE SHOW IS OUTRAGEOUSLY FUNNY.

THERE IS SCARCELY A DULL MOMENT, AND THE SWIFT EVENING IS HIP, FLIP, AND FRESH. I DOUBT WHETHER I COULD LIKE ANYONE WHO DIDN'T LOVE HER, AND I AM CERTAIN COULDN'T LOVE ANYONE WHO DIDN'T LIKE HER." "MISS RADNER IS A GOOD-LOOKING YOUNG WOMAN WHO APPEARS UNAFFECTEDLY DELIGHTED TO BE WHO SHE IS AND WHERE SHE IS, AND JUST UNDER THE SURFACE OF THIS DEUGHT SHE LETS US GLIMPSE A BEWILDERMENT THAT SHE SHARES WITH ALL THE REST OF US, OF ALL AGES." Brendtn GIH, Now Yorirer MigazJn Extra Late Shows Friday Saturday Nights 1 1 AHVCat tmiicotlSt Rl 777-2555593-2100 -t Sylvester Siauone mv BREAKING AMITWll.l.K HORROR ROCKY pg .1 35-4 00 30 AWAY po 1 10-3: 10-5 10-7 20-9 40 1 00-3 10-5 20 7 THE ALAN ALDA -fHE seouctiomY of joe tyivaim 1 05-3 05-5 10 EmanmllG In Bangkok 1 25-3 25-5 25 7 40-9 50 FRENCH -WOMAN 1 7 25-9 30 MaN.Rl 128-M24 777-1818599-3122 AHVCatl- litenyTrw Cfx.slocnei Reeve JSTAR i MMnx 4ltrMtioK tot "Ih Impwr Sintir kci' SUPERMAN po ENDS TODAY 7 15-9 45 WARS HAUCt 4 Rl 9 Opp SftoptwrtWorW 653-5005237-5840 EiRaniuelle the FRENCH WOMAN ends TODAY 00 in Bangkok .1 20-3 15-5 10 7 25-9 25 45 BREAKING AWAY 1 15-3 ZO-5 25 740-950 ROCKY pg 1 20-3 30-5 40 7 50-10 00 ENDS 110-3 TODAY 735-9 30 taOCHOH l-t-l 6il18-B(Bt 27Wallotl8t 24 588-4850963-1010 they overlap. In "American Buffalo" his characters take on the limited size of their criminal dreams almost entirely in what they say. And there is a savage poetry in their chaotic street talk. Mamet's ear for how people talk is uncanny; so is his eye for the small but meaningful revelations behind their blistered words.

Beneath the thick layer of disconnected sentences, aborted phrases, paralyzed words, there is the unmistakable pattern of his themes: the corruption implicit in a system of Free Enterprise, the thievery necessary for everyday life. At this stage in his creative development Mamet may be piecemeal playwright. But don't mistake him. He's the genuine article. Tom Bloom has a fix on "Buffalo" that seems to make the play his directorial property.

Impressed as I was by his direction at the short-lived Off-Broadway Theater, now there is an even more forceful control of mood. He almost lets the play pace itself. As the dialogue turns in on its words, we get only a momentary glimpse, of what is meant to be happening. Specific details are hard to come by or, rather, hard to elicit from the repetitions. But they cluster, and they surface.

There is one taut moment in the two-hour span (and the two hours, by the way, are sometimes manically funny): Bobby is clubbed with a lamp base by Teach, who then erupts into a rage that threatens to destroy the junk shop and all the junk in it. The moment is galvanizing theater and it's played for its precise worth. The performances are exceptional and, again, unforced. Brian Smiar is calm, collected, almost professional as Donny, the would-be mastermind. David Penhale, jiggy on his feet jiggy in his soul! is an easily marked candidate for a strait-jacket as Teach.

R. Patrick Nugent, as vulnerable as his beat -up baby face is the perfect patsy as Bobby. "American Buffalo" works well within the Modern Theater which, of course, used to be a moviehouse. But the stage seems limited if not hard against a back wall. The cluttered junk shop set by Joan A.

Ferenchak is claustrophobic, which is a visual equivalent of the play, but the claustrophobia looks determined by the narrowness of the available space. The theater itself has a steeply raked orchestra. It's comfortable. And it comes equipped with a rancid, old closed-up closet odor that, to me at least, is the olfactory measure of most Off Broadway-type theaters. Anyway, "American Buffalo" is the first hard-hitting new drama of the season.

Its rage fairly surges up the Modern's aisles and out to Washington street, there to mingle with the midway madness of the Combat Zone. AMERICAN BUFFALO Play in two acts by David Mamet, directed by Tom Bloom, set and costumes by Joan A. Ferenchak, lighting by Pamela S. Chestek, presented by the Boston Theater Collaborative at the Modern Theater, 523 Washington limited engagement. By Kevin Kelly Globe Staff Slowly but steadily "American Buffalo" is revealing itself as a small but significant classic.

David Mamet's bruising play first opened on Broadway in 1977. Although highly praised, it didn't attract many theatergoers and it closed after only 135 performances. I saw it then and it failed to register, maybe because of the hosannas in the aisles. Later, in Cambridge, under the direction of Tom Bloom, it covered me like a landslide. And now, again under Tom Bloom's direction, in its downtown debut by the Boston Theater Collaborative at the newly reopened Modern Theater on Washington street, it has the same kind of nearly suffocating power.

There is something determinedly off-center about the play, as though off-centeredness, in itself, were an approximation of one of Mamet's themes. Nothing much happens during the two acts. Three characters meet in a Chicago junk shop owned by one of them and they talk. They talk. And they talk, endlessly cyclical non sequitur talk that is made to pass for communication.

Donny Dubrow, the middle-aged shop-owner, is planning a robbery. Bobby, a wandering sidekick with a drug problem, is in on it. So is a paranoiac-shifter named Walter Cole, called Teach for short. A dread rivalry more or less develops between Teach and Bobby, although Bobby is too dense to fully realize it. As the heist is planned and, in the nature of Mamet's off-centeredness, the robbery never happens we get a few only a few glimpses into Mamet's characters.

Again, this is not a conventional drama where a focus is held until personalities are pared away until the truth behind them is revealed as, in a sudden confrontation or a tag-end denouement. Mamet's people are pretty much defined within a few seconds of their desperate conversation when their words and thoughts infrequently connect. It is David Mamet's extraordinary ability with language, realistic, repetitive, expletory language that holds the play together. He's a shv man with structure, yet there is a kind of taciturn progression in his plot. Mamet's plays Perversity in Chicago," "The Water Engine," "The don't develop, BREAKING AWAY PC 7 30-9 30 AlANALDAfffW SEDUCTIOU 7 20-920 OF JOE TYIMAIV Li .1 JkVfd! d-2H SEPTEMBER 27, 28, 29 ONLY SEPT.

27 28 (8:00 PM) SEPT. 29 (7:00 10:00 PM) TICKETS $17.50, 14.50, 12.00 AVAILABLE AT THE COLONIAL THEATRE BOX OFFICE, ALL TICKETRON OUTLETS AND CHARGE TICKETS INSTANTLY WITH TELETRON (617) 426-8383. NO MAIL ORDERS BREAKIIIG AUAY 1ST TWENTIETH CENTURT-FOX SACK CINEMA NATICK 337-SU40 ROUTE 9 OW SHOWIRS Wl.0 HACK CHERI 1-2-3 OAITON OH SHII AION BOSTON J36-1170 pel SHOWCASE DEDHAM 326-4955 OUT 1 a' 134 SHOWCASE W0BURN 933-5330 12B NIAB 93 COLONIAL THEATRE 106 BOYLSTON STREET (617) 426-9366 DANVERS I MIT 34 Off tT 171 Thursday, Sepl. 20 Zaitchek Brothers BigM41b. Band Rock concert Paradise, 967 Com live lobster, boiled up steaming and delicious with monwealth Boston 8:30 p.m.

$4.50. A full week's listing of cert, Club Casino, 1600 Ocean Hampton Beach. N.H. 9 and 11 p.m. $5.50 and $6.50.

"A Foreign Affair" -1948 film written and directed by Billy Wilder and starring Marlene Dietrich, Institute of Contemporary Art, 955 Boylston Boston. 5:30, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. ICA members $1.50, non-members $2. hot drawn butter or broiled and served with v' activities, events and suggestions for leisure appears in today's Calen "Timbuktu!" Broadway musical based on "Kismet" and starring Eartha Kitt, Shubert Theater, Tremont street, Boston. 8 p.m.

Betty Carter Jazz vocalist and ensemble, Lulu White's, 3 Appleton st. Boston. 9 p.m. $6. "The All Night Strut" Musical revue of the '30s and '40s, Boston Repertory Theater, One Boylston place, Boston.

8 p.m. The Orleans Pop con dar plenty of our famous Red Coach Ml 1 I I irf.il Kelly. Glol Kelly. Globe 'SENSATIONAL" A Ciasv Sassy Musical Celebration otttw 1930s 40 s' stuffing. Two heaping Baked Stuffed Clams Golden buttery com on the cob Fantastic Red Coach Salad Bar or our famous Caesar Salad at no extra charge Breads and butter A genuine bargain.

A Down East feast. THE COMEDY CONNECTION Catch up and coming comedians WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY NITES SpnngtwKI St Saloon 13 Sprmgfieid Ionian Sq Camondge Admission $3-9 PM For into call 426-6735 I lie Limited Time Only. ran STEP UP TO THE rj I IT Ml liJ-l KSTRICTED nwa amomK-Sk9itm Join us for the best of all seasons. The cranberry harvest. Fall fairs and festivals.

Fine year-round shops and restaurants. Historic attractions are open thru November. Fall for Plymouth. For free Harvest Time calendar, call (61 7) 746-3377 Plymouth Area Chamber ot Commerce in cooperation with Plymouth County Development Council STARTS TOMORROW IHi ATKt HAKGf 42bHIHl INFO. RES: 423-6580 GROUP SALES: 426-8920 at the air conditioned Boston Rep 1 Bpylston Place.

Boston SACK CINEMA DANVERS 1-2 Bratntret, Framingkam, Red Coach (On the Charles) Cambridge, Hingham, Hyannh. Middle-boro, Newton. Norwood, Saugus and H'ayland PARIS 1 NAT-crll cinemI SW)8URH I 4i iOTiilON IT 737-440 OUTI? SO SHOttt P1AZA NIWTONCINTM owuCTB 267-ini oy sxqwis wio 848-1070 331-1524 trmmABw tlWfftTV Ttll MMl.