The Vancouver Sun from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 31

he un VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, SATURDAY, SEPT. 27, 1969 31 Beyond the Wall, the Brechtian Spirit Lives On The glut is evident in the theatre, in the building of 30 huge theatre plants since 1950 and the plethora of new plays every season. The West German gets a large number of mediocre to moderately good shows for his season-ticket dollar. By comparison, the East German is churchmouse poor. His shop windows are nearly empty and the small amount of available merchandise is usually beyond his means.

Theatre tickets, however, are plentiful and cheap. He attends the playhouse as if it were a house of worship and because he has so few choices for entertainment. In turn, the management caters to this intensity with fully rehearsed productions. The theatre buildings are mostly old or remodelled prewar relics, but there the mediocrity must end or audiences will growl out loud then leave! This audience involvement must contribute to the reason the Benno Bessons, Fritz Bornemanns and Dieter Manns stay and work in East Berlin when far greater fortunes are theirs in the West. It is doubtful, however, that even these sutble differences between East and West Berlin will last forever.

Surely the two sides can't be too far apart. Perhaps Besson speared the truth at lunch: "Professional soldiers and professional actors," he said, "are much alike. Neither functions well on an empty stomach and judging by their choice of professions both have empty heads." gel's stern autocracy. Two brilliant young producer-directors, Manfred Karge and Mathias Anghoff, are following Besson to the Volksbuhne, where perhaps East Europe's finest work is produced. I was invited by telegram there are no phone connections between the cities to a rehearsal of Gerhard Winterlich's Horizons, a fantasy-parable decrying a world of runaway technology.

Besson's was a virtuoso performance deserving its own audience. He stalked his actors like a hungry, nipping fox, playing every role on the stage, in his seat or at several points between. At 47 he has a boy's body, an astonishing intellect and nearly absolute control over his playhouse and production. Besson's and other East Berlin directors' strong authoritarian position is one of the differences that shapes threatre in the two Berlins. The difference between East and West does not lie in the selection of plays.

Both sides play Shakespeare, Greek tragedies, dusty Victorian classics, tired-and-true comedies, unwieldy talk pieces and some genuinely fine experimental work. Directors on both sides are often very good. They're not all Bessons but that's also true of both sides of the universe. While the divided cities share similarities in themes and dramaturgy, there are recognizable differences. West Germany's prosperity is likely at the bottom of it.

Even to the casual visitor it is obvious that the country is glutted by material goods. By HAL MARIENTHAL Special to The Sun EAST BERLIN On first impact, Helene Weigel bores into the visitor with her eyes. Bertolt Brecht's widow, now 70, spills passion recklessly and with an inner intensity transmitted through those eyes from every cell in her body. The hands are in perpetual nervous motion, underlining attitudes, choking uninvited ideas, poking a forefinger into vulnerable sentiments. She speaks of her late genius husband as "Brecht," a nova that exploded and shone on the world, an idea worth understanding, a talent to be emulated, to be injected into the world's think-stream and certainly to be played in the theatre.

There's no doubt who runs the Berliner Ensemble, founded by Brecht in 1949 with government help. Die Weigel controls the ensemble, dominates its playbill, supervises the programs, fronts the house, perpetuates the theatre's philosophy. The Bertolt Brecht Platz on which the theatre stands is a shabby little square on the east shore of the River Spree. Outwardly the building is forgettably gray; inwardly it is a baroque monstrosity with gilded and overstuffed loges and boxes hardly designed to cast the anti-theatrical spell bruited by Brecht. More significant is the ensemble's loss of talent in the ranks of its artistic directors.

Two of Brecht's most skilful disciples, Manfred Wekwerth and Benno Besson, have left for various reasons, not least perhaps because of Frau Wei- PLAYWRIGHT BRECHT an exploding nova of talent i vr CALLBOARD Getting Blacker, But Not Black Enough "There's one born every minute." It was P. T. Barnum, I believe, who coined the phrase. He was speaking about the suckers, rubes and yahoos who thronged to see his shows. I don't suppose those who now run the Ringling Bros.

Barnum and Bailey Circus hold that view. P. T. Barnum is long dead and only the magic of his fabulous name remains. Those of us who sat in the stands at the Pacific Coliseum the other night to watch and be thrilled by the circus may, in fact, be suckers and rubes, but for one, am perfectly satisfied that the money I left behind me was well spent.

Let me say at once that I didn't pay for my tickets; we journalists are badly spoiled in that regard. But I did spend a great deal of money on things to eat, drink and carry away. It was a pleasure to part with the cash. The circus, after all, is totally devoted to pleasure and the child who comes away from it without even a slight tummy-ache has not taken full advantage of the opportunities available to him. For the circus, of course, can only be half-enjoyed if you don't sample the things that go with it.

Everything costs money, to be sure, hut on circus day money should be thrown away lavishly on balloons, spun sugar, hot dogs, orangeade, peanuts, ire cream, bamboo canes, kewpie dolls, popcorn, Crackerjack, and licorice. Everyone, parents and children alike, should feel pleasantly exhausted and replete when the great show is over. The Barnum and Bailey circus hasn't been to Vancouver since 1939, but hardly a year has gone past without bringing some circus to the city and by now only the dullest and most sour among us can have failed to attend at least once. There will be killjoys who will say that if you've seen one circus you've seen them all, and in a way they will be correct. At almost every circus, including the one now on view, you can expect to see clowns performing the time-honored routines, attractive young girls, standing on the broad white backs of prancing horses, brave men and women flying through the air on swings and puffed-up elephants standing on their hind legs.

Each act as it appears is greeted like an old friend. They were doing these things under the great tent when Jumbo was alive and if there is still a world they will be doing them 100 years from now. In an age that yawns when men whirl around the earth in spaceships, we can still, somehow, hold our breath when a man lets go of his frail swing high in the air and does something only birds are supposed to do. We are less impressed by the space-flyer because he has a whole battery of experts working on the ground to keep him aloft and hundreds of years of scientific progress behind him a's he rides through the spheres. But the man perched high in the air on a slender wire has only his skill and his sense of balance to hold him tip.

On a thin piece of silver wire he can do things no scientist could ever do. Newton's laws are defied and those of us who have trouble keeping our feet on curbstones and railway tracks can only gasp and wonder. 5 After the show was over the other night, my children and I went out to the big tent behind the Coliseum to watch the elephants eat hay and I felt again a long unsatisfied urge to climb up onto the great grey back and ride high above the earth like Hannibal or Xerxes. A brother of mine, now assistant editor of the Montreal Star, was once assistant to Sabu the elephant boy at a circus in England. He can be blase about elephants.

I am still very much in awe. I remain, at circus time at least, one of those born every minute. of 1969. which now reflect employment of Mexican Americans and other minority groups at the 15-17 reporting companies, show an improvement. A total of 246 black performers worked 1,544 man-days in feature films during the period.

In the non-acting category, the number has risen to 626 on AMPTP-affiliated payrolls. Figures for other minority groups push the total to 1,719. Here and there, reality fits necessity and the mood of the times. Gordon Parks, backed to the broadsword by ex Warner Bros. -Seven Arts president Ken Hyman, won an honestly integrated crew for the filming of The Learning Tree.

Cosby has seen to it that the crew working on his series is equally balanced. On his show, the first assistant director (Franklin), a second assistant director, a camera assistant, an electrical gaffer's assistant, a hairstylist, a transportation captain and the assistant to producer Marvin Miller are black. Art and Culture in Traditional Society, a series sponsored by the University of B.C. extension department, begins at 8 p.m. on Monday in Centennial Museum.

For further information, telephone 228-2181. David Watmough will perform his dramatic monologue, Pictures From A Dying Landscape, at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Capilano College, 1750 Mathers, West Vancouver. It will be followed by a panel discussion with members of the college faculty of English, led by William Schermbrucker. The college will also host a series of discussions on labor-management relations Oct.

8, 15, 22 and Nov. 20 at 8 p.m. In the old Park Royal Lanes Building, Marine Drive. For information and brochures on these programs, telephone 926-4367. The Canada Council has announced grants of $414,000 to support The National Theatre School of Canada in Mon treal, the National Ballet School in Toronto, The National Concert Bureau in Toronto, and Toronto's York University for its program of Arts Administration.

The grants are part of the Council's aid to the arts, expected to amount to $9.2 million in the current year. University of B.C.'s extension department will begin an eight-evening series on archeological discoveries in B.C. Oct. 7 at 8 p.m. in Vancouver Public Library.

Prof. Philip Hobler, Simon Fraser University archeologist, will present the first lecture, on excavations at Kwatna Inlet that reveal information on the prehistory of the Bella Coola Indians. Dr. Hobler headed the exploration. Other archeologlsts from both universities as well as University of Calgary and Vancouver Centennial Museum will conduct further lectures.

For further information, or to pre-reg-ister, contact the extension department at 228-2181. grams for blacks are under way in all but the sound and cameramen's unions. "And they," says Franklin, "have at least been talking about it." Nonetheless there are those who are no longer satisfied with timid action and empty talk. "I may be laying my tail on the line," says film and TV actor Robert Hooks, "but I don't care. When you get right down to it, almost nothing has happened outside the acting segment of the industry." How justified are such complaints? Accurate, all-embracing employment figures for the film industry are amost impossible to come by.

Fewer than 1,300 of the 26,700 laborers in Hollywood are Negroes. Roughly, that's almost five per cent, not even half the proportion of Negroes to total U.S. population. But even at that, what sort of jobs do Negroes in the film industry hold, and how does the situation compare with what it was, say, at the beginning of this decade? i No total picture is available, since only 15-17 companies report to AMPTP and the organization's records prior to 1968 are pitifully skeletal. Most of the 17 are major studios, however, and their reports have kept a team of justice department lawyers busy since March.

Between January, 1961, and March, 1964, AMPTP records show only 313 blacks were employed by organization members. Of the 313 blacks, 259 were actors and actresses. Obtensibly, even this number is inflated, since the same players were probably hired more than once during the three-year period. MM. By DAN KNAPP Special to The Sun Everybody wanna know, why I sing the blues.

Yes, I say, Everybody wanna know, why I sing the blues. Well, I've been around a long time, peoples, Yes, I've really paid my dues. HOLLYWOOD Every Negro in America has had painfully brought home to him the meaning of black singer-guitarist B.B. King's standard: Nowhere is the meaning any more frustrating, or paid more lip service, than here. "For the first time," you hear well-meaning secretaries, press agents, actors and studio executives say, "something is really being clone about it." On Oct.

11, at the annual Image Awards ceremonies, the Association Motion Picture and Television Producers and the Hollywood-Beverly Hills branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People plan to release a glowing report of the improved status of Negro and minority group employment in the film industry. "I'm very pleased with the way things have come along," says the AMPTP's executive vice-president, Charles Boren. "I think there's been a great improvement. The producers have taken affirmative action." Up to a point, Wendell Franklin, president of the Hollywood-Beverly Hills NAACP unit (which is 60 per cent white), agrees. "There is movement now," he says.

"It's not just tokenism anymore. Ten, 15 years ago, I was a token." Franklin is the first member of the industry to head the chapter. Now first assistant director on the Bill Cosby TV series (and the first black to hold the title anywhere), Franklin worked his way up from parking lot supervisor at NBC in the mid 50s. Later, with the help of producer-director George Stevens, he rose to second assistant director on The Greatest Story Ever Told, and became the first black man admitted to the directors' guild. Clearly, one of the factors that has impeded minority progress in the industry has been the overprotective, well-nigh nepotistic stance of the unions.

But the studios are also to blame, charges the equal employment opportunities commission. Rather than aggressively recruiting among minorities to right the situation, they have simply relied on the unions' lists of applicants, which rarely, if ever, include anyone but whites. Even among those with their hearts in the right place, there is a tendency to over-estimate the progress that has been made, and to see clearly with one eye but not the other. "The best evidence of improvement," says the AMPTP's Boren, "is up on the screen. The public can see what has been done.

The screen speaks for itself." But the screen is only half the story, if that. And citing it to the exclusion of all else is a little like trying to cheer a hemophilic accident victim with the news that his nose has stopped bleeding. Only 54 Negroes worked behind the cameras at the time, among them 15 composers and lyricists employed intermittently. The records also list 18 clerical workers and eight secretaries. There were no black directors or producers, only one attorney and one assistant director (Wendell Franklin).

AMPTP figures for the second quarter kisses and say: "I've been wanting to do that for 15 years." That Kitty will reply: "I'm sorry to tell you this, Matt, but I've been seeing somebody on the side all along." That Aunt Bee will pack up and leave Mayberry R.F.D., saying: "I've seen some dull towns im my time, but this is ridiculous." That The Flying Nun will be hijacked to Cuba. That Tom Jones' tight: trousers will finally surrender to his wiggling, and television history will be made. That Uncle Bill will bring home a gorgeous dish on Family Affair, lock the two kids in their room and tell them to mind their own business. That a deal any deal will be made to give Let's Make a Deal its fitting time slot: about two in the morning. That Bob Denver and Herb Edelman of The Good Guys will finally be recognized as a couple of fellows who have developed into a delightful slapstick team.

-That someone high up at CBS-TV will take a careful look at Hogan's Heroes and finally ask the obvious question: "What's so funny about a situation comedy about Nazis?" ft To many in the industry, Franklin is known as "the smiling militant." Four times a year he sits down with Boren, the heads of every major studio, state employment officials, delegates from the actors', extras' and directors' guilds, and representatives from every craft union in Hollywood. At the quarterly sessions Franklin hammers away at the barriers. "My militancy is with facts and figures," he says. "I tell them the way it is." Understandably, each crack, each splinter Franklin creates in the wall of prejudice and exclusion assumes proportions slightly larger than reality. There has been movement, much of it due to Franklin's quiet tenacity.

But how much? The U.S. equal employment opportunity commission, for one, doesn't think it has been nearly enough. In March, the commission recommended a U.S. justice department suit against AMPTP, the studios and the unions under the Civil Rights Act. By RICK DU BROW HOLLYWOOD (UPI) Leslie Ug-gams arrives in her own series on CBS-TV Sunday as the regular replacement for the Smothers Brothers, who are suing the network after being cancelled.

And a preview of the opening hour indicates that while the Uggams show has some contemporary material, it will definitely tread more softly than the Brothers' series did. In fact, it will be positively innocuous. Woody Allen's recent CBS-TV special, for instance, was far more racy and biting. Some industryites are thus wondering whether CBS-TV was subtly expressing its personal feelings about the brothers by letting Allen get away with as much as he did. At any rate, Sunday's Uggams variety show is a mixed blessing.

The star herself is a fine performer good singer, dancer and comedienne. And she has a warm and lovely presence. Impressionist David Frye is a guest, and his impersonations of political figures are by now repetitious to video audiences. A musical group called Sly and the Family Stone is no more distinguished than any number of other pop record stars. And young Marc Copage of the Julia series is no particular plus.

Dick Van Dyke is also an Uggams guest. And though an early, allegedly "cute" song he does with her is strictly nowhere, he does contribute the hour's highlight: An impression of how a not-too-brilliant Abe Lincoln might have composed the Gettysburg Address on a train with the accidental aid of pas-sersby. From Doris Day to Leslie Uggams, CBS-TV seems to run its stars through a ringer so they all have a determinedly down-home approach, natural; or not. But one segment of the Uggams series sure to catch attention is called Sugar Hill, a weekly comedy episode about a Negro family. This segment, judging by the opener, is hardly likely to set any new records for realism.

But the idea of a mini-situation comedy each week about such a family has appeal, and the first one had the feel of a tryout for a spinoff of a series of its own. I wonder, though, whether video's overall, determinedly cute self-consciousness of black performers kidding themselves about their blackness in the bourgeois way that network liberals might smilingly approve is getting to be as cloying to you as it is to me. No one can make brotherhood more of a bore than professional liberals can. Soul brothers they ain't. Well, anyway, CBS-TV has also previewed for critics a new situation comedy that debuts Sunday: To Rome, With Love.

Tt stars John Forsythe as an American porfessor in Rome. He is a widower with three daughters. You say that last part sounds familiar? How can you say that? You must be getting cynical. Among my wishes for the new television season: -That Matt Dillon will grab Kitty In Gunsmoke, smother her in passionate although the actual pressing was done in the East. Says Terry: "The tune is such a simple little thing I almost feel guilty about all the success." DOWNTOWN 'N' OUT B.C.

Lions have issued an Invitation to Prince Philip to sit in Empire Stadium's Royal box Oct. 30 "so that the public will have as much opportunity as possible to see him." The theory is that the Lions and Saskatchewan Roughriders will outdraw the Oct. 28 dinner planned for the Show Mart Building, which is expected to attract 2,500 people. Hmmmm. One of the interesting sidelights on NDP leader Dave Barrett's decision to drop the party connection with organized labor is the fact that members of certain unions were automatically delegates to NDP conventions, even though they might not be NDP supporters.

In several instances, including a blatant case involving a member of the Packinghouse Workers, a man who was a voting delegate to the NDP convention was actually a card-carrying member of Social Credit. Police morality squad scrutiny of so-called "stag parties" has had its effect. When the SHOW TIMES THEATRE 8:30 p.m., Stop the World I Want to Get Off, Metro Theatre. 8:30 p.m., Boy Meets Girl, Frederic Wood Theatre. 8:30 p.m., You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running, Arts Club.

MUSIC 8 p.m., CBC Festival, Victoria Trio and Canadian Music, Queen Elizabeth Playhouse. SPECIAL EVENTS 8 p.m., Ringling Bros. Barnum and Bailey Circus, Pacific "dancing girls" appeared on stage at a very big party earlier this week, at least 10 prominent guests immediately excused themselves and left the premises. No moral issues involved. They just didn't care to risk being busted as found-ins.

WEEK END WIND DOWN Communications executive Ron Harries was en route home from work late the other night and quietly minding his own business while waiting for the red light to change at Thurlow and Pacific. He was headed east along Pacific. A car came through the intersection from the opposite direction, glanced off a cab that was making the turn off Thurlow and hit Harries car head-on, pushing his vehicle back into the car stopped behind him. Ron thought he was in pretty good shape when a Vancouver city policeman arrived on the scene. That in itself is unusual because the police seldom attend accidents if no one is injured.

It turned out that the driver of the offending vehicle was a 17-year-old boy from Quebec. He was driving a borrowed auto with Alberta plates. He was unable to produce a registration card for the car, and he had no insurance. Harries almost fainted when he heard the policeman tell the boy that he could go and that he would be summonsed for running an amber light. "But he'll be long gone before I can make any claim against him," Harries insisted.

"Can't you arrest him?" The policeman was apologetic. "I'm sorry, but because he's under 21 and I didn't observe the incident, I can't charge him." Harries is now left to explain the $500 damage claim to his own insurance company. WASSERMANIA Overheard at NDP headquarters: "The man who invented the alarm clock is probably the only one who ever did anything that would arouse the working class around here." UP, UP 'N AWAY THEY GO That record of Which Way You Goin' Billy? by The Poppy Family shapes up as the all-time hit of all singles ever produced in Canada. And the local kids involved in the success are on their way to the financial big time. The record has reached close to the 50,000 mark in sales, and is number one on the charts across Canada this week.

The sale equivalent to about 600,000 in the U.S. market triggered a rush of offers from major labels. London Records, which had the Family under contract for Canada, matched the offers this week and have given the kids a contract calling for worldwide distribution. The record will be released in the U.K. and the U.S.

within about 10 days. The success story has major significance for this area because the record is entirely local; it was written, published, produced, recorded, and manufactured locally. Biggest winners in the transaction are Terry Jacks and his wife, Susan, who are the backbone of the Poppy Family. If the Canadian success is duplicated on an international scale, the two youngsters could become near-millionaires on the strength of the one record. Terry wrote the song and it's Susan's voice that is a big part of the success.

But there's even more. Terry is also manager of the group and owner of Gone Fishin' Music, which published the tune. He is also listed as producer of the record. The tune was recorded in the RND Studio on West Broadway, until now a struggling young operation put together painstakingly by Rollie Newton and Doug Gyscman. The job was done so skilfully that Terry was able to kid local music experts and radio program directors that it had been mixed in L.A.

Once he got their attention, he told them the actual source. The master and the plates were made by International Record Company in Marpole, When you talk with blacks about improvement in the industry, the most common reply is a scornful laugh. The most prominent Negroes in Hollywood state bluntly that too little has been done and it is getting later all the time. Says Gordon Parks, who last year became the first black director (The Learning Tree): "It's rotten in the rest of the industry. They should go out and get more black people.

The fact that I was told I would never find qualified black kids and then went out and got 12 of them proves that they can do it if they want to. And if Warners, which was once one of the most reactionary studios, can do it why can't the more liberal studios?" Franklin is not satisfied. "The great breakthroughs have been in front of the cameras," he says. "The screen image has changed. But behind the cameras, only a few steps have been taken.

Success is still a long way off. There are many areas that have not been opened. Upper level management is just one of them." To some small degree, training pro HOSTESS UGGAMS Woody was mors racy.