The Province from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada • 47

THE PROVINCE, Thursday, June 8, 1971 47 World chess match Best for decade Fischer Irr Ft By PAUL RAtOl ST Bobby Fischer sat inconspicuously in the hotel kibby, waiting for the official ceremonies to start. He was early; everyone else was late. With Fischer it's usually the other way around. Mark Taimanov of the Soviet Union had conceded the sixth and match decidins game to the U.S. grandmaster earlier in the day, and the ceremonies were the final act in this world chess championship quarter final.

It was an easy victory, Fischer agreed, but he had not seriously thought it possible to win in six straight games. "If 1 get to meet Spassky (world champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union) I'll take him easily, too," he said. "I feel I've been the best player for 10 years and I should have been world champion years ago." The Russians, he said, have deliberately set up roadblocks in the past to keep him nut of title competitions. "They're afraid of nit; know it. difficulties he met by playing in Vancouver.

The 10 hour time difference was particularly difficult to adjust to. Fischer complained of crowd noise here, where there were seldom more than 200 spectators at a game. In Moscow there would be least 2,000 spectators at each round. The world title match will be a 24 game event and at least 12 will be played in Moscow. U.S.

Chess Federation vice-president Ed Edmundson said if Fischer reaches the final his organization will press for a venue outside the Soviet Union. Of the last 14 championships, nine have been held in Moscow. The Fischer-Taimanov match was the first world title elimination series played in North America. For this reason the calibre of play in the Vancouver match comes as a double Itidown. As Aleksander Kotov, of the Soviet federation told Fischer: "The games will he in all the books for beginners." the world title will be blocked by Soviet grandmaster Viktor Korchnui.

The 4b year old Taimanov said he will continue his chess career despite his severe setback in Vancouver. "Anyone who knows chess will know the circumstances under which I played here." He usually plays two international tournaments a year and anuther two in the Soviet Union. That, however, is only half his professional life. He is also a concert pianist of international repute. A graduate of (he Leningrad Conservatory of Music, Taimanov became a chess grandmaster at 27.

He was Soviet champion in 1956, but until this year had never been in the running for the world title. Although he will "have a bad memory of Vancouver forever," he will take good reports of the city home to Spassky who is to play in the Canadian open championship here in August. If Fischer meets Spassky in the final, he said the American will have to play in Moscow and experience some of the "The present system is a farce. Draws shouldn't be allowed. The player who wins the first game in this kind of match has a tremendous advantage.

But this time it backfired on them." Fischer won rne opening round, but he said if Taimanov had won that game he could have played for draws. "if I become world champion I'm going to insist that draws be disregard-' ed or that only clear victories count as points." Fischer, who became a grandmaster at the age of IS, said the world title would be worth to him at least $100,000 a year and he would retain the title for at least 10 years. Taimanov, in an interview, paid tribute to Fischer's ability but predicted the American would lose to Spassky. Of the five games Fischer and Spassky have played, he said, Spassky has won three and two were drawn. He expects Fischer to defeat Bent Larsen of Denmark, but said the road to lip jgVk I Tommy KOLTiII YEA It FOR BLACK STUNTMEN Jobs as Hollywood ktunt-; 111e.11 are scarce this year.

Television is downplaying violence and tlie studios are depressed. Ernest Hohinson (above), president of the Black Stuntnien's Association, says even the busiest members probably haven't; earned $2,500 since Jan. 1. When working they get $13a a day for their- fights and falls. Centennial Drama Festival Promising actress star of play by Williams Student rock opera effective stylization By DON HUNTER VICTORIA First niuht of Centennial Showcase (B.C.

Drama Festival). Three one-acts: A loser called Losers, a Tennessee Williams play that nearly made it and showed an actress from Campbell River with Kreat potential and a piece of buffoonery that has to be acknowledged if only for the gall of Victoria Theatre Guild for presenting il. The Victoria did The Grandmother, a short melodrama by local writer Joan Mason Hurley. What they did to il was, I'm sure, in accord with the author's in-tenl in writing il. It's a blatant put-on, with the sole intent of having and giving fun.

That it turned out to be entertaining, too, speaks well of the actors involved. The cast romped through it right In Ihe non-ending. Susan Bclford had nice style as Jennie Ihe Innocent and Ron Way and Alan Wyatt were acceptably dissolute as the twin villains. Way remained contained even when the descending curtain hit his head. The Campbell River players gave us Williams' Long Stay Cut Short, a sleazy, depressive vignette of the rejection of an old woman.

The play can have a quietly savage impact when thoroughly explored. The Campbell River trio had moments when they achieved this and Anne Enns (Baby Doll) was outstanding in these moments; powerfully sluttish and handling the Southern drawl with ease. Losers, Part Two of Brian Fricl's Lovers, provided excellent material for Ihe workshops that are running all week. The Yellow Point Drama Group from Nanaimo demolished a beautiful play. It's Irish, and never was the Irish lilt given a more devastating tongue whipping, Director Audrey Scnfield appears lo have completely missed the author's in-lent.

Fricl's grim acknowledgement of people who are losers, was lost in a tangle of burlesque. Harry Jepson as Andy Tracey pantomimed to the audience lo an embarrassing extent, saying in effect: "Look, this is really funny." Adjudicator Gordon Peacock said Losers came the closest of the three plays to achieving its purpose. Apart from disagreeing with his assessment I believe he is being benevolent and, consequently, unfair to the players. Tonight one three-act play. The Prince George group with James Saunders' Next lime I'll Sing To You.

0, A ill ISSr i However, with Tommy's first performance on Wednesday, Churchill shattered my complacent disdain. It was one of the first times I have felt students really enjoying what they were doing and it was one of the first times I have ever really enjoyed watching what they were doing. The themes and subtleties for this adaptation were picked over and selected by Marek Norman, a Vancouver City College student who conceived and masterminded the project, arranged the music and took the vocal part. The production was shouldered entirely by Norman and the Churchill students, with no aid from the faculty. It was an interesting, lively performance, not without flaws or technical difficulties.

One problem was that, for some reason, the performance was limited to about 40 minutes, which reduced its impact. Nonetheless, the shorthanded version was respectable. Tommy, functionally deaf, dumb and blind, goes through almost all the changes and abuses originally called for in the lyrics. On the whole, Tommy works well, a nice combination of choreography and instrumentation. There are no actors, as such.

The figures on stage mime the actions described by vocalists singing the Who's exuberant music. The result is an effective stylization. Slides flash on walls, freaky people dance and sing, Tommy suffers, is martyred and rejected, parents are repen-. tent. Tommy is performed again at Churchill auditorium at.

7 o'clock By JEANI READ One of the delights of the rock opera Tommy is that it is open to so very many interpretations. Even though it has a pretty definite starting point for thematic material (Tommy, the hero, is repressed by guilt stricken parents), there is no way Tommy, the production, can be tied into a neat little conceptual knapsack and carted off into people's heads intact. I have even come across, in other productions, other versions of what actually happens to Tommy and his parental societal oppression. There is no dialogue except in the songs, in true operatic tradition. There are no stage directions other than can be elicited from the music.

So what holes are left are ready to be filled with an endless variety of themes and theatrics. The director can choose any number or combination of ideas and develop litem. Even so, the audience is still free to decide for themselves what the whole thing is about. As I see and hear more of (Tommy, I am becoming convinced that The Who's Peter Townshend just sat down and wrote some brilliant music one day and let the subtleties of plot fall where they may. So with all the possibilities inherent in the work, 1 was more than pleased to see that Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School was going lo take a crack al it.

High school productions have almost invariably depressed and bored me. So much creative energy is ritually wasted nn dreadful irrelevancies like Hello Dolly and Annie Get Your Gun. Bass ihe outstanding singer at VAG lunch-hour concert WHAT'S HAPPENING IN OUR SCHOOLS? cruel cousin Kevin (John Moffat) takes time to play with Tommy (David Winlielil) at Winston (Jhurchili Secondary School. JAMES SPEARS Briton could use Irish lessons By LAWRENC CI UDERAY Robert Schumann's wide literary interests and his intuitive understanding of poetry led him inevitably to set lo music translations of Spanish, Scottish, English and Greek poems as well as those of his own country. The most ambitious of his Spanish efforts is undoubtedly the set of Spanische Licbcslieder, Op.

138, hut the earlier Spanische Lied-erspiel, Op. 74, is also worth an occasional airing. It was this set of pieces consisting of five ducts, two quartets and three solos, plus three Bach chorales which comprised the program by soprano Edith Mcl.cllan, alto Anne James, tenor Mel Erickson and bass Tom Graff at Wednesday's Vancouver Art Gallery lunch hour concert, surmise that Ihe three chorales were included in order to spin nut the program. Alas, they also served to emphasise the fact that, whatever Ihe individual merits of the four singers, their combined efforts were poorly balanced, deficient in blend, and sometimes tentative in attack. In addition, Harold Brown's Val Doonican is brought to you by the makers of Civilisation, The Forsyte Saga and The Six Wives of Henry VIII, not to mention Tom Jones and Engle- tempo in Ihe extended chorale from Bach's Church Cantata No.

147 (Jesu. Joy of Man's Desiring) was so slow that the music seemed in danger of coming to a slop long before it actually did so. As for tne singing in the Schumann cycle: while Graff may he a little short on inches, his singing of Der Contraban-distc (Smuggler's Song) stamped him as a young man head and shoulders above his colleagues in matters of voice, sense of characterization and general musical sensibility. By contrast, in their solos McLcllan anil Erickson each produced one or two desperate high notes and were generally less 1 impressive Hi, in I had expected, Iheir vocal limitations being revealed at moments when limitations inexorably spelled failure. As for the concerted numbers, Ihey suffered from the same-deficiencies as the Bach chorales.

Technicalities aside, however, my general impression was that, apart from Graff, the singers had not really got inside Ihe music which needs more interpretative insight, and polished advocacy if il is lo arrest and hold the attention. bcrt Humperdinck. British television is strange that way. The drama we import from England is very, lish soil too long doesn't irritate, which is more than can be said for the tight-pants acts of Jones and Humperdinck. The CTV debut of the show illustrates how difficult it is to get away from U.S.

cultural domination. Direct from London (via Ireland) Val introduced viewers to country singer Jerry Reed, who proceeded to lay on such thick Georgia accent, that. Doonican himself started to whistle Dixie. By more than coincidence, the very same show will be seen Saturday on ABC. Which probably means that Val was being nice to an overwhelming number of new U.S.

viewers by attempting to speak their language. Had CTV decided to import the show solo, perhaps Doonican's entertainment might be more ethnically pure. It's nice to get Johnny Cash from Nashville and it would be nice to gel a look al what the British Isles have to offer, too. Pelula Clark, the first week's guest, filled in some of the gaps with a good interpretation of Jesus Christ Superstar; comedians Bernard Crihhins and Boh Tod took part in one of the worst 15 minutes of Laurel Hardy style slapstick I've seen. What's worse, rumor has il they'll be hack from time to time.

When the Irish Rovers fly across the Atlantic this summer, perhaps they'll be so kind as to instruct Doonican how to run an Irish show. Canadian style. very good and the variety is awful. Val Doonican is in hetween. His easy going Imitation of a folksy Irishman who has been working on Eng- Parole problem for prison play producer Canadian Press TORONTO Harold Turner, director of Ihe Stony Mountain Players, says he ran into problems in preparing a play In be presented here June 15.

"Three of my leads in Ihe play My Three Angels received parole in the middle of preparation for our new play, and we had to make last-minute changes," he said in a telephone interview this week. All members of Ihe theatrical company are prisoners in the Stony Mountain penitentiary near Winnipeg. Turner said the troupe has made frequent performances in Winnipeg, hut a June tour with slops in Ottawa and Toronto will be it its farthest venture from prison. A drama instructor at Ihe University of Manitoba, Turner organized the players eight years ago to give prisoners contact with the community and a chance to express themselves. Two years ago, they won the Western Dominion Drama Festival award.

Warden Fred Harris said the troupe benefits prisoners by giving them sell confidence from the discovery Ihey can do a job well and be recognized for il, David Frost cancels show in Vancouver Festival Singers' London premiere I Critics gasp with delight at Canadian choral group 4 I vlf JUST THIS SIDE of the Atlantic, Anne Murray's final special of the year is probably a relief to everyone concerned. She's a talented performer in limited amounts, and usually brightens any sort of variety show when she appears for 10 minutes as a guest performer. As the hostess of a 60 minute show, however, her cbulance produces about the same effect as Lawrence Welk's very first Champagne Lady. Attempts to liven her Tuesday special with film clips helped, and it's too had thai more entertainers appearing on the CBC aren't given Ihe same treatment. Television variety would improve tremendously.

1 11 i I (' 'k "The unanimity of attack was astonishing, the intonation flawless and the tonal balance well nigh perfect in a program with a wide- range of styles," he wrote. The Financial Times writer was equally enthusiastic. "Al first sight a jumble of schools and styles, it took shape as a many-sided introduction lo the singers' talents virtuoso technique, brilliant attack, discipline which docs not stultify hut encourages a degree of giving we too rarely meet even in our crack choirs, marvellous control, a kind of gusto I can only describe, quite inadequately, as hreeziness," be wrote. Crichlon especially liked the Festival Singers' rendering of Dolman's Make We Joy brilliant, opener sung with a precision that made Hie ears 'Hie Agnus Dei from Joasquin's Missa dn Beala Virgine movement of ineffable loveliness, with long, sinuously expressive lines immaculately unfolded by the The 40 member chorus will be doing performances Ibis week at Norwich Cathedral and In Cardiff, before travelling lo Paris for the final slop on Iheir lour. By GORDON PAPE Province London Bureau LONDON Canada's Festival Singers put on a performance in an old London church Tuesday night Unit left two of Britain's most knowledgable music critics gasping with delight.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph, David Money called the group "astonishing; and said the Toronto-based chorus "easily belongs to the best international teams in existence." in Hie Financial Times, Ronald Crich-lon called the performance "dazzling' and "brilliant." "Humor had murmured of their excel lence, hut nothing prepared one for the electrifying effect of their London appearance," he said. The Festival Singers, founded in VM by their present enwluclur Elmer Isel-ern are mi their first ever European tour, a five-week trip that is taking them lo Yugoslavia, Austria, Germany, Britain, and France. Tuesday night'a performance in SI, John's Church in Smith Square, only 'recently restored after being badly damaged during the blitz, was their only London appearance. The Daily Telegraph critic called the nnenlghl stand "stunning." LOCAL film maker Byron Black is showing his works at the Vancouver Art Gallery al noon loday, and from what I've seen of his stuff, it a good example of what can be done with almost no money plus a camera. Chuck Davis al Ncwshour has been running some Black shorts, and a recent showing at the Colonial Magic Theatre proved entertaining.

Black narrates as he goes along, sometimes will) the help of a cheap tape recorder for sound effects. Having worked in Japan, he brings with him some of Ihe ultra-fast editing technique seen in that country's TV commercials and animations. Television personality David Frost has cancelled his scheduled appearance in Vancouver next week. Frosl, who earlier in the week cancelled a Toronto engagement, lold promoter David I. ui on Wednesday lhal he is unable to come here bccaiMe of work on a new U.S.

television show. Work on the new David Frost Review show also was given as Ihe reason for ihe Toronto cancellation. Lui said that Frost, who wa lo appear next Thursday and Friday in the Ojuen Klizabeih Theatre with singer Delia Reese, "has promised thai, whrn I he now aerie is launched, he will try lo make Vancouver one of Ins first destinations. MAN AMI HIS UOHi Ihe City of Montreal's municipally subsidised seiiicl lo Expo 07, has signed five well known entertainers for performances this summer, guaranteeing each of them a day. Included are Jerry l-cwis (above, left) Aiiii-Maignl (centre) and Caul Anka (right), 'lino Kossi and Annie Coidy.

Twn instrumental groups, Mountain and Ifii hie Havens, will receive Ihe same amount. The Ityrds, Taj Mahal, I'aul Kutlerfield Itlucg Hand, I'rocul IL1111111 and Koger Williauut have also been signed for appearances. 4 4.