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KEEPING UP/Arts and Entertainment

By D Magazine |

Top of the Month

Six months ago Dallas architect James Pratt constructed a scenario in the pages of this magazine for modernizing and revitalizing Fair Park. While Mr. Pratt’s suggestions for “how to make Fair Park into a fair park” focused primarily on the park itself, he did make a number of pointed suggestions for injecting more freshness and excitement into the park’s yearly ritual.

Pratt’s major point about the fair was a good one: the State Fair has become something of a bore, an annual rite visited more out of loyalty to tradition (or maybe just habit) than anything else. “The public must be lured back to the Fair year after year with the expectation of experiencing something radically new and different. Forty years of the same offerings must now change,” Pratt said.

With the Fair just around the corner, we are happy to report progress has been made in the direction Pratt suggested. Like all progress, the modernization of the State Fair seems frustratingly slow, piecemeal, hit-or-miss. But Fair director Wayne Gal-lager and crew are definitely on the right track.

Perhaps the most vivid improvement in this year’s Fair will be the Cotton Bowl Plaza, an attempt by the Fair management to replace at least some of the sterile concrete of the Fairgrounds with greenery and life. What once was dull asphalt in front of the stadium will now be a garden plaza, laced with 15 to 20 brand new food concessions. Unfortunately, only shrubbery and other small greenery will be in for this year’s Fair; the trees will have to wait until 1976. (“It’s kind of hard to plant trees and expect them to hold up in August,” says Gallager.) But the new food concessions, ranging from Arabian delicacies to good old Texas chili, will be there.

The Fair will also for the first time offer live, name entertainment in the Cotton Bowl. Charley Pride and Seals & Crofts will appear on the Sunday afternoons of the Fair, and Gallager says he expects to use even more of this kind of diversion in the future, if audience response this fall is good.

There will not be much change in the organization or display of the exhibits, which is an area Gallager and his team need to apply their creative talents to in the future. Pratt suggested, for example, that the large exhibits, such as the Auto Show, should change settings from year to year, perhaps even follow specific themes for each Fair.

Nor will the Midway be much different, except for a few cosmetics. Pratt recommended in his scenario a re-thinking of the Midway’s market and function. He suggested, for example, that the Fair employ artists from around the world to devise totally new rides and other amusement devices, and that adult entertainment be mingled with the kiddie rides and show.

Well, maybe next year. A lumbering old coot like the State Fair can’t be dislodged from its set ways overnight. But the Fair management has begun to ponder change and to experiment. That, in itself, makes the Fair worth visiting this year.



Music



Priceless Pearl; Dull Dolly

Hello, Dolly! at the Dallas Summer Musicals.

Pearl Bailey is a major black artist whose charm and presence and personality can win over the coldest of audiences. She is, of course, smack in the middle of the tradition of black vaudeville and the minstrel show, where happy-go-lucky singers and dancers display their talents before appreciative gatherings of whites.

The tradition is a complex one and includes black vaudeville for black audiences, the best example being the magnificent Bessie Smith who, while an authentic and pure singer of the blues, was also a stylized entertainer. By the time Louis Armstrong came along, barriers began breaking down and blacks found non-black fans screaming for more. Threatening music, threatening dancing, threatening jokes were not permitted. And when be-bop exploded on the scene, Louis hated it, instantly realizing that it would alienate white audiences with its strangeness and blatant ethnicity.

Pearl’s ancestry is rich. It includes men like Armstrong, women like Ethel Waters, musicians like Cab Calloway and Lionel Hampton and even Duke Ellington. These were black artists who played major roles in white culture. They were loved for being exactly who they were – open and ingratiating human beings. If they pandered – and they did – there was usually more musical merit than not. But one thing they all needed and needed badly was decent material. When the material was lacking, all that remained was the soft underbelly of lighthearted and frivolous entertainment.

Hello, Dolly! is poor material. It’s a third-rate musical. There are no memorable songs save the title number which is music of the order of “Happy Birthday to You” and “Three Blind Mice.” The plot is thin and silly and the production put together here was, for the most part, uninteresting and flat.

There’s just Pearl. And while a bit of her musical humanity shines through, there’s not enough to save the evening. The occasional streaks of light – a smile here, a phrase there – do not change the overall climate which is dark and dreary.

Like Sammy Davis, Jr., another black Broadway figure, Pearl has taken the easy way out, the proven path, the show everyone loves. Like cotton candy, it’s sticky and corny – but it sells. Artists of the caliber of Pearl Bailey constantly require fresh challenges. (Think of that fine record on which Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald sing Porgy and Bess.) Pearl singing the blues for a night; Pearl devoting an evening to Noel Coward material; Pearl doing medleys of little known show tunes from the Thirties and Forties. There are dozens of wonderful ways to bring out the best in Pearl. Hello, Dolly! is the worst way imaginable.

David Ritz

Waxing Critical

Piano Rags by Scott Joplin, Volumes I, II, III (Nonesuch).

Scott Joplin is a mystery. Why the boom in ragtime? Obviously The Sting helped, but it has mushroomed beyond that. The phenomenon can be viewed cynically: ragtime is the easiest “jazz” to listen to. In some sense, it was the product of a black man’s desire for white acceptability; it was diluted from the start, and now, 50 years later, it remains diluted.

Some serious music critics, all of whom were white, could live with ragtime in early 20th Century America. It was notated; if you could read music, you could play it. It rang of the classics – the European classics. It was civilized.

Today ragtime comes to us down the Hollywood Freeway with Marvin Hamlisch at the wheel of his Cadillac Seville. It’s inoffensive, tinkly, easy to digest and that’s why it’s so popular. Even the more serious Joplin efforts – Joshua Rifkin’s three records on Nonesuch – are among the least challenging music around these days. One rag becomes another. (Only Roland Kirk has a provocative version of “The Entertainer,” but that’s because he destroys the rag feeling and transforms the song into a hard-nosed, no-nonsense blues.) There’s a high fence around each song and there’s no getting out. Merry-go-round melodies to keep the kids from getting scared.



The Basement Tapes, Bob Dylan and the Band (Columbia).

The liner notes for this record were written by Greil Marcus, whose book, Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock V Roll Music (Dutton), explains blues singer Robert Johnson, Little Richard, the Band, Sly, Randy Newman and Elvis, all in terms of Jungian archetypes. Drawing on the sociological mythopoeic critics of our culture – Jung, D. H. Lawrence, Leslie Fiedler – Marcus tries to show how pop, soul, and country music explore and explain American myths. But unlike his teachers, Marcus isn’t an original, and even when his insights are strong he works himself into a frenzy, competes with his subjects, and drowns them in his prose.

As for his comments on the record jacket, it’s true that the Band – which always seemed, at least in the late Sixties, the most intelligent and satisfying rock group – touches on national themes like the Civil War, the West, Huck Finn childhoods. But their treatment of those subjects was more like strange antique postcards with ironic messages than profound insights.

Basement Tapes has been around since 1967 in pirated editions and now is available above the counter. The Band is strong but Dylan is not. He remains sour as a singer, sophomoric as a lyricist, tired as a musician. The Band is the only interesting element here and sometimes they play alarmingly well.



Red Headed Stranger, Willie Nelson (Columbia).

If you keep up with Rolling Stone, you’ve probably noticed the same sort of Marcus criticism – the flowering of supercharged cultural analysis as applied to records. Paul Nelson, who must have just put down Marcus’ book, sounds like he’s writing a graduate school paper in American Studies in describing Willie’s new record: “It is a small wonder that most Americans worship no god except their own lost innocence, have had, in fact, to rely on popular literature, films and music to provide a plausible and workable archetypal ’religion,’ more Jungian than Freudian.” Whew.

Red Headed Stranger is pleasant, but no brave new world. In fact, Nelson sounds like Burl Ives. If anything, the record is too ambitious in its narrative plan. (It’s the story of a Montana cowboy.) Willie is right to mix up his material a bit; his latest repertoire, as wonderful as it is, is growing old. But this bit of Americana is terribly self-conscious. It’s a nice story, yet never successfully builds to or reaches the right climax.



Tonight’s the Night, Neil Young (Reprise).

Young’s is a strong record in spite of its messiness and contortions. The music is born out of enormous pain which feels entirely personal. The singing, like Dylan’s, is almost intentionally bad and malformed. But unlike Dylan, Young is open, immedi-ate, straightforward about his hurt. “Tonight’s the Night” and “Tired Eyes” are haunting and especially beautiful songs.



Phoebe Snow (Shelter).

There’s a nice development among hip young white singers – the use of older jazz players. Maria Muldaur hooked up with master altoist Benny Carter. Now Phoebe Snow is following the lead by combining forces with Zoot Sims, one of the great smoothies of the tenor sax. What the older men give the younger ladies, of course, is substance, a quality they sorely lack. And Phoebe, who already has comforting traces of Lightning Hopkins in her fragile voice, takes full advantage of Zoot’s wisdom and confidence. “Let the Good Times Roll,” “Poetry Man” and “Harpo’s Blues” are charming. Let’s hope Phoebe keeps giving work to Zoot and Zoot’s cronies. She needs them.



The Texas Twister, Buddy Tate (Master Jazz Recordings).

This is a remarkably happy record. Tate’s in top form, playing lovingly with Paul Quinichette. Cliff Smalls, on piano, is a treat. And the highlights are Buddy getting down on “Talk of the Town” and singing two sweet versions of “Take Me Back Baby.”



Native Dancer, Wayne Shorter (Columbia).

If Weather Report gives you trouble, this is another way into Wayne Shorter’s complicated head. We’re back to bossa nova, to Brazil and that happy marriage of jazz and Rio. It works like magic, particularly Milton Nascimento’s astounding vocals on “Ponta de Areia” and “Tarde.” This surpasses even the best of Getz/Gilberto.

David Ritz

D RECOMMENDS Lily Tomlin may be the funniest comedienne around. She’s more sophis-ticated than Lucille Ball, gentler than Elaine May, more versatile than Joan Rivers or Mary Tyler Moore or Valerie Harper. She’ll be at the Venetian Room from September 22 through October 4. And that’s the truth.

Duly Noted



Arkady Fomin, violin, accompanied by Simon Sargon on panio, in the first American recital of the Russian artist, Admission free. Sept 28 at 7:30 p.m., Temple Emanu-El / 8500 Hill-crest / 368-3613.

Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Festival ’75 opens the Symphony’s 1975-1976 season. Featured with the Symphony, conducted by Louis Lane, are pianist Van Cliburn on September 18 at 8:15 p.m., 19 at 11 a.m., and 21 at 2:30 p.m.; and soprano Beverly Sills on September 26 at 8:15 p.m. and 27 at 7:30 p.m. Singer Peggy Lee will be featured in a Pops Concert at 2:30 p.m., Sept 28. Tickets available at Titche’s/ 748-9841. A Gala Pops Concert benefitting Theatre Three will feature conductor Arthur Fiedler on September 23, at 8:15 p.m. Tickets available from Theatre Three, 748-5191, and Titche’s. Music Hall, Fair Park / 826-7000.

George Thalben-Ball, organist for the BBC, will give a recital at the Church of the Incarnation, 3966 McKinney, on September 17 at 8 p.m. He will perform on the church’s Aeolian-Skinner organ, and conduct a master class for organists at 9 a.m. on September 18. Free to the public.

Dallas Civic Opera. The 1975 season opens with Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann on October 31, a gala opening night benefit performance. The opera, which will be repeated November 2 and 4, will feature tenor Alfredo Kraus, baritone Sesto Bruscantini, sopranos Mady Mesplé and Carol Neblett, and mezzo-soprano Joy Davidson. Tickets available from the DCO box office, 742-1008, and Titche’s, 748-9841. Music Hall, Fair Park.

Dallas Civic Music Series. Vladimir Viardo, pianist, opens the 1975-76 season on October 13 at 8:15 p.m. in McFarlin Auditorium. For ticket information call 369-2210.

Organ Concert Series, sponsored by the Dallas chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Simon Preston, organist-choirmaster of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, England, will be featured in a gala concert on October 6. Season tickets for the four-concert series available from Melanie Mosely, 8806 Clearwater, Dallas 75231/394-1084. Highland Park United Methodist Church/Hillcrest and Mockingbird.

A Festival of 200 Years of American Music. The SMU Division of Music presents a series of concerts featuring music by American composers. Oct 20: music for symphonic band and wind chamber group, conducted by William Lively and Boss Powell, with Alfred Mouledos, pianist. Oct 22: vocal music, with Catherine Akos and Barbara Moore, mezzo-sopranos, and Bruce Foote, baritone. Oct 24: keyboard music, with Larry Palmer, harpsichord; Robert Anderson, organ; and Ronald Neal, violin. Oct 26: jazz, with the Dallas Jazz Orchestra, directed by Thorn Mason, and Barbara Moore, mezzo-soprano. Oct 27: music by Hanson, Ives, and Barber, with the Dallas Civic Symphony and the SMU Choir, and guest conductor Howard Hanson. All concerts in Caruth Auditorium, Owen Arts Center, at 8:15 p.m. For ticket information call 692-2573.

Copenhagen Boys Radio Choir will present a concert at St. Mark’s School, Oct 19 at 7:30 p.m. For ticket information call 363-6491. St. Mark’s School, 10600 Preston Rd.

University of Texas at Dallas. A flute and harpsichord recital by J. W. Downs and Clar-ece Candemio will be presented Sept 28 at 8 p.m. Free. Founders North Auditorium/2606 N Floyd.

North Texas State University, Denton. Concerts to be presented on the campus include; The U.S. Army Studio Band, Sept 22 at 8 p.m. in the Main Auditorium; Steven Farish, voice recital, Oct 7, 8:15 p.m., Music Recital Hall; NTSU Symphony concert, Oct 8, 8:15 p.m., Music Recital Hall; NTSU Brass Choir concert, Oct 16, 8:15 p.m., Main Auditorium; NTSU Wind Ensemble, Oct 23, 8:15 p.m., Music Recital Hall.



Nightmusic



The Recovery Room (4036 Cedar Springs) is attempting to recover from almost too much success. That’s probably the result of a resurgence of interest in jazz here. Business is booming and the recent three-day celebration of Charlie Parker’s birthday, August 28-30, had them standing, sitting and rolling in the aisles.

Few places celebrate the birthday of the great Bird, the man who almost single-handedly took jazz from swing to modernism. There is some activity in Chicago and New York, but the Recovery Room outstrips them all. Club owner Jeanie Donnelly is a Charlie Parker nut and spent months in preparing for the hallowed event.

First, saxophonists from all over Texas, Oklahoma and surrounding territories were invited. Then a poster was commissioned (with the theme, “Bird Lives at the Recovery Room!”). Buttons carrying the same message were given to patrons. And t-shirts were ordered with Bird’s picture plastered across the chest.

The star of the weekend was John Hardee. He had the standing-room-only crowd worked up to a frenzy, playing with a ferocity and conviction that was nothing short of astounding. His up-tempo numbers were brilliant, an effortless and thrilling crescendo of mean, big band tenor honking, yet with completely modern feeling. And his ballad playing, especially “These Foolish Things,” was simply heartbreaking and true, his sound lush, romantic, smoky. It took Charlie Parker’s birthday to make us realize that we have, living in our midst, what used to be called a Jazz Giant. Marchel Ivery, regular tenor and alto player in the club, has been astounding everyone with the enormous progress he has made this past year. Just months ago he was playing cautiously, tentatively. Now he’s blowing the roof off the place. Such was the case during Bird’s birthday party. Buster Smith (Parker’s teacher), Thorn Mason, (whose flute and alto work was remarkable), Leo Phillips and a brilliant altoist, Kurt deKuebn, who usually plays for dancing at a local motel, took everyone by surprise.

Here’s the conclusion of a message read the night of Parker’s birthday, at the Recovery Room, with Marchel Ivery playing “Star Eyes” behind these words: “When I heard Bird in a record booth in the Walnut Hill Shopping Center just north of Love Field, I was 12.I didn’t dig. It was the future and I wasn’t ready. Now I am. He broke down, ripped open, tore apart and stomped his way through our imaginations, carrying us along, leaving us behind, inspiring us to chase his poetry down the street like mad thieves in the night. He still lives among us; he remains a part of this hot, flat land. He has been dead 20 years. Tonight he would have been 55. But he blew himself up and burned himself out, combining a startling sense of lightning bop and old-fashioned blues.”

David Ritz



Wintergarden Ballroom. Sept 19, Myron Flo-ren. Sept 20, Jack Melick; Oct 3 & 4, Al Pier-son. $4 admission, BYOB. (1616 John West Rdl327-6265l8p.m.-1 a.m., Wed, Fri, & Sat)

Mother Blues. Sept 15-17, Harvey Mandel; Sept 18-21, Oz Knozz; Sept 22-24, Willis Allan Ramsey; Sept 25-28, Bugs Henderson Group; Sept 29-Oct 1, Buster Brown Band; Oct 6-8, Ellen Mclllwain. Cover varies $2-$4. No cover on weeknights with local bands. (401b Lem-mon/ 528-3842/ 6 p.m.-2 a.m. seven days a week)

Sneaky Pete’s. Through Sept 21, Danielle; Sept 22-28, Heaven and Earth; Sept 29-Oct 4, Texas Rose. Cover $1 weekdays, $2 weekends, unescorted ladies always free. (714 Medallion Ctr/368-9107/11 a.m.-2 a.m., seven days a week. Lunch 11-2, Dinner 5-11 /MC)

Venetian Room. Through Sept 20, Tony Martin and Cyd Charisse. Sept 22-Oct 4, Lily Tomlin. Oct 6-11, Lola Falana. Oct 13-25, Lou Rawls. Oct 27-Nov 8, Brenda Lee. Two shows nightly: weekdays 8:30 and 11, weekends 9 & 11:30. Cover varies $8-$15. Reservations. (Fairmont Hotel, Ross and Akard/748-5454/MC, BA, AE, DC)



Movies



Brother, Can You Spare Three Bucks?

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?, at

NorthPark III and IV.

This is a flat, gimmicky, overworked and overedited documentary about the Thirties which, in spite of a wealth of wonderful old film clips, fails to do anything but tease and superficially suggest the spirit of the times.

The technique is reminiscent of the worst of Laugh-In, with shades of Monty Python. We see all-too-ironic juxtapositions of people and events – Cagney and FDR and Citizen Kane, the attack on Pearl Harbor and housewives making toast, Hollywood starlets and skid row bums, striking steel workers and diners at the Stork Club. When prohibition is repealed, the film is speeded up, showing bartenders frantically serving beer. A Ku Klux Klan sequence is followed by a cowboy film in which young boys are initiated in a law-and-order club called the “Flaming Arrows.” Nothing subtle here.

There’s everything you’d expect – in fact, too much of everything. Roosevelt, if anyone, is the hero, but we really don’t know why and are given only flashes of his charm. Cagney is the one movie star who prevails, representing, I suppose, the age’s Everyman. But beyond those two characters – the Politician and the Entertainer – all attempts at continuity are futile. The movie winds its way from year to year, displaying every bit of obvious nostalgia it can fish out of the film archives.

There are a few beautiful moments – Billie Holiday singing on camera, Bessie Smith singing off camera, Churchill’s brief interview, Orson Welles pompously carrying on during his the-morning-after-“The War of the Worlds” press conference. But those flickering images and sounds are not enough. The documentary has no real thought behind it. The visual thrills are cheap, scenes thrown in to guarantee audience reactions like, “Look at how young Bob Hope was! Can you imagine Eleanor Roosevelt knitting!”

Finally, all we see dangling before us is a popcorn chain of flimsy images. It’s facile and glib cinematic work which, in order to suggest fashion, utilizes the trendy and disconcerting techniques of the slick commercial, the sight gag tv comedy show.

David Ritz

D RECOMMENDS

Three days of Sophia Loren films, and maybe a guest appearance by Madama Ponti herself – a veritable Roman carnival. The SMU Cinematheque will be screening some of the best of Loren’s films, including her work with Vittorio DeSica, October 10 through 12, in the Bob Hope Theater.

Farewell, My Lovely, at the Wilshire.

Why are they still making movies like this one? I would have thought that television had done every possible variation on the private eye character, and that Polan-ski in Chinatown and Altman in The Long Goodbye had said the last ironic, bitter, cynical word about him. But here’s Philip Marlowe again – Robert Mitchum following the bloody footprints of Elliott Gould, James Gamer, Dick Powell, and Humphrey Bogart. And like his predecessors in the role getting slugged on the head, doped, conned, and still coming back for more. But why are We, the Audience, coming back for more?

I am told, particularly by French critics, that the private eye is the True Existential Hero, the Victim of a Sordid World, the Down-and-Outer In Us All. Maybe. But let’s have a breather for a while – a ten-year moratorium on private eyes. Let’s send Marlowe, and Lew Archer (or as Paul Newman will have it, Lew Harper), and Jim Rockford, Harry Orwell, Frank Cannon, Joe Mannix, and even lovable old Barnaby Jones away for a rest – a long drying-out and healing of wounds.

Farewell, My Lovely, has its moments, but almost all of them are the work of its technicians – set decorators, costume designers, hairdressers, and especially the cin-ematographer, John Alonzo. They create an opulent and convincing recreation of the early Forties, and have the audience in an ecstasy of nostalgia. “Look at that car,” the man next to me would say; or “Look at that radio . . . that lamp … that hairdo … those clothes.”

But director Dick Richards is content to let his technicians show us all these images from the past without involving us in anything more interesting than the irresponsible and slightly masochistic delights of nostalgia. The plot is the usual involuted Raymond Chandler stuff, the dialogue a hack’s-eye-view of Chandler’s more baroque passages, the situations predictably bloody and kinky.

Richards’ Philip Marlowe is a weary man. Robert Mitchum makes him look suitably tired; his face has always looked like it’s been slept in (though as Mitchum gets older it becomes less uniquely his own face – he now looks like a cross between Buster Keaton and Sheldon Leonard). But it’s hard to make a film about tired people without becoming tiresome.

Charles Matthews



Current Runs

The Fortune, at NorthPark I and II.

Stockard Channing and Jack Nicholson make Mike Nichols’ rather muddled farce come to life. In fact, they’re almost too good, turning the cartoon characters they play into real people. Very funny at times, but Nichols loses control of the film toward the end, and it fizzles.

CM.

Rollerball, at the Medallion.

Only the scenes of the violent and bizarre sport of Rollerball give this film any interest. Otherwise, it turns into unintentional self-parody, never quite making it as either horrifying or humorous. James Caan appears bored stiff by the whole thing.

D.B.

Love and Death, at the UA Cine.

Woody Allen’s best and funniest film, in which Woody recreates a schlock Hollywood War and Peace film and places himself – the neurotic Jewish kid from New York – in the center of the action. Diane Keaton is terrific and the film moves like greased lightning.

D.R.

The Return of the Pink Panther, at the UA Cine.

Peter Sellers redivivus, and what a joy that is! Director Blake Edwards sustains this slapstick triumph from beginning to end. Christopher Plummer replaces David Niven as the suave jewel thief, and that’s a come-down. But Herbert Lorn is back as Sellers’ apoplectic boss.

CM.

The Wind and the Lion, at the Preston Royal.

A cut above most historical romances, largely because the romance is sort of fun, with Sean Connery as a swashbuckling Berber and Candice Bergen as a swashbuckling American matron. The history is phony and the political overtones hackneyed. A popcorn movie – if you can still afford popcorn after paying for the tickets.

CM.

Nashville, at NorthPark I and II.

A marvelous film, perhaps a great one, not because of its message – whatever that may be – but because of Robert Altman’s warm, compassionate, but ironic view of his characters. Stunning, sometimes heartbreaking performances, particularly by Ronee Blakley and Lily Tomlin.

CM.

Counterpoint

Defenders of the movie Nashville- and among them is colleague Charles Matthews – would have us steer clear of the sociological view taken by the film, claiming that whether Altman wants to make a large statement about America or not, there are more central concerns to the work. Baloney.

Look at the central characters!. They are each Significant. One is a female country-and-western star, another a male star, the third the P.R. man. There is the invisible but powerful presence of the reactionary populist candidate for president, the George Wallace we never see. There is the assassin. There is the assassination. There is the L.A. teenie freak. There is the roving reporter. And, most significantly there are the thousands of American flags, the parades, the majorettes, the middle American metaphors and symbols which are thrown at us so quickly and so often that we have to duck or look the other way not to see them.

The presidential campaign sound truck wanders in and out of the film, declaring political messages like a Greek chorus, commenting on everyone and everything. And finally, as the mad killer (driven crazy, Altman would have us believe, by a crazy country) aims and prepares to fire, we are treated to a fullscreen image of the American flag, just in case we missed the point.

The music is amateurish and in no way indicative of the moving, soulful country-and-western around today. Nashville’s fans say it’s bad on purpose. But to what end? Good country music carries the same down-and-out message, has the same tone, would have made the same point. In allowing his performers to improvise their own music and write their own lyrics, Altman makes the same mistake as when he has them improvise their lines. They’re not singers, nor are they lyricists or script writers.

Aside from a few moving personaltouches – Lily Tomlin’s performancecomes to mind – we are left withTheme, the collage of the Americanlandscape in 1975. All this seems tooobvious, too facile. It’s cultural fad-dishness and nothing happens whichcan escape the huge sociological netwhich Altman throws over his extravagant enterprise. David Ritz

Monty Python and the Holy Grail, at the Preston Two.

Typical cynical, giddy, irreverent and unbridled Monty Python humor, with no boundaries of taste and no limits of absurdity. Probably mostly for fans of the group.

D.B.

Jaws, at the Inwood.

Great, scary fun, splendidly performed by Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss, and brilliantly edited. Don’t listen to killjoys who say it’s an exploitation film. It is exploitation, but at the end everyone cheers the hero, and that’s nice.

D.B.

Coming Attractions



UTD Film Society, Wednesdays at 7:30 p.m. in Founders North Auditorium, University of Texas at Dallas, Campbell Rd in Richardson. 690-2281.

September 17: Showboat (USA 1936). The Jerome Kem musical with Helen Morgan, Irene Dunne, and Paul Robeson.

September 24: Study in Terror (Britain 1965). John Neville as Sherlock Holmes meets Jack the Ripper.

October 1: Breathless (France 1959). Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature.

October 8: Nothing But the Best (Britain 1964). Alan Bates as a social-climbing playboy in a film by Clive Donner.

October 15: The White Sheik (Italy 1952). An early Fellini film with Alberto Sordi and Giulietta Masina.

October 22: Open City (Italy 1946). Rossellini’s film about the Italian underground during World War II, with Anna Magnani.

October 29: Disney Cartoons. A festival of short classics from the Disney studios.



UTD Student Government Film Series, Fridays at 7:30 p.m. in Founders North Auditorium, University of Texas at Dallas, Campbell Rd in Richardson. 690-2281.

September 19: The Conversation (1974). Francis Ford Coppola’s film about electronic surveillance, with Gene Hackman.

September 26: Take the Money and Run (1969). The first film to be written and directed by, and to star, Woody Allen.

October 3: The Lady from Shanghai (1947). An Orson Welles film starring Rita Hayworth and Welles himself.

October 10: $$$ (1971). A caper film with Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn, directed by Richard Brooks.

October 17: Harold and Maude (1971). A comedy that became a cult film, starring Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon.

October 24: The Killing (1956). An early Stanley Kubrick film with Sterling Hayden.

October 31: The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967). A Roman Polanski horror-comedy with Sharon Tate.



SMU Cinematheque. The International Film Classics series shows a variety of films in the Bob Hope Theatre, 7 and 9 p.m. Tickets $1.50 for the general public and $1 with an SMU ID. For more information call 692-3090.

September 19-21: Grand Illusion (France 1938). Jean Renoir’s classic film with Jean Gabin and Erich von Stroheim.

October 10-12: Sophia Loren Film Festival. Oct 10: Two Women and Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (a personal appearance by Miss Loren is tentatively scheduled for this evening). October 11: Marriage, Italian Style and Gold of Naples. October 12: Madame and Sunflower. Special ticket prices for this weekend are $7 for all six films or $2.50 for each evening’s double feature.

October 24-26: The Apprenticeship of Buddy Kravitz (Canada 1974). Richard Dreyfuss stare in Ted Kotcheff’s film.

October 31-November 2: The Third Man (Britain 1950). Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Valli, and Trevor Howard in Carol Reed’s film of the Grahame Greene novel.

University of Dallas film series. All films are shown in Lynch Hall on the UD campus, Irving. Call for times and ticket prices/438-1123, ext 323.

September 19 & 21: Three films by Ingmar Bergman, The Devil’s Eye (Sweden 1960), The Virgin Spring (Sweden 1960), and The Seventh Seal (Sweden 1956).

September 26 & 28: Jason and the Argonauts (USA 1963), an adventure film with lots of special effects.

October 3 & 5: Death in Venice (Italy 1971). Luchino Visconti’s opulent version of the Thomas Mann novella, starring Dirk Bogarde.

October 17 & 19: Three films with Humphrey Bogart, The Harder They Fall (USA 1956), Sirocco (USA 1951), and The Maltese Falcon (USA 1941).

October 24 & 26: The Day of the Jackal (USA 1973). Fred Zinneman’s version of the Frederick Forsyth best-seller, with Edward Fox, Cyril Cusack, Eric Porter, and Delphine Seyrig.

October 31: Halloween Special, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (USA 1923; Lon Chanty); The Phantom of the Opera (USA 1925; Lon Chaney); The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Germany 1919; Conrad Veidt).

NTSU Fine Arts Films, Sundays and Mondays, 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. in the TUB snack bar, NTSU campus, Denton. 267-0651.

September 21 and 22: Dr. Strangelove (USA 1964), Stanley Kubrick’s apocalyptic comedy with Peter Sellers and George C. Scott.

September 28 and 29: Cries and Whispers (Sweden 1972). Liv Ullmann, Harriet Andersson, and Ingrid Thulin in a film by Ingmar Bergman.

Classic Films series of the Dallas Public Library. Free.

September 22: Citizen Kane (1941). Orson Welles’ first and greatest film. (7 p.m., Polk-Wisdom branch.)

October 4: King Kong (1933). Fay Wray and Bruce Cabot in the greatest monster movie of them all. (2 p.m., Jefferson branch.)



Art



Showing Up

Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. The American Heritage in Art, American paintings from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, will be featured from September 16 through November 30. Projects II, Bruce Cunningham’s 80-foot mural of drawings, will be on exhibit through September 28. The Southwest Prints and Drawings Show will be October 8-November 23. Tues-Sat, 10-5, Sunday 1-5. Fair Park/421-4187.

Owen Arts Center, SMU. Contemporary Spanish Painting: Miro and After will be on display from September 14 through October 26, in the University Gallery. Weekdays 10-5, Sunday 1-5. 692-2516.

Haggerty Art Center, University of Dallas. Three Printmakers, an exhibition by Diane Marks, Mike Dillon, and Nancy Chambers, runs through Sept 22. Weekdays and Sundays, 9-5; Saturdays, 9 a.m.-12 p.m. University of Dallas campus, Irving/438-1123.

Amon Carter Museum of Western Art, Fort Worth. Photographs of the Big Bend will be on display through October 5. The Image of America in Caricature and Cartoon opens October 17. Tues-Sat 10-5, Sun 1-5:30. 3501 Camp Bowie Blvd/(817) 738-1933.

Fort Worth Art Museum. Larry Bell: Recent Work will be on display from Sept 27. Tues-Sat 10-5, Sun 1-5. 1309 Montgomery/(817) 738-9215.

Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Early English Silver and Gold, on loan to the museum from an anonymous collector, features 99 pieces of rare silver and gold domestic ware from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I to that of George III. Tues-Sat 10-5, Sun 1-5. 1101 Will Rogers Rd/(817) 332-8451.

Mountain View College. Photography by Anne Hanlon on display for one week starting September 29. 4849 W Illinois/746-4180.

North Texas State University, Derton. An exhibition of African culture opens October 25 in the Art Building Gallery. 267-0651.

GALLERIES

Afterimage. The work of Albert Edgar will be featured in a show opening October 5. Mon-Sat 10-5:30, Thurs till 8:30. Quadrangle/748-2521.

Art Collection Gallery. Work by gallery-owner Reagan Word, mainly pencil drawings, will be on display. Tues-Sat 10-5. In the Craft Compound/6617 Snider Plaza/369-7442.

Atelier Chapman Kelley. Paintings by Leon Berkowitz, through September. Mon-Sat 10:30-5, Sun 1-5. 2526 Fairmount/747-9971.

Contemporary Gallery. Paintings by Skynear, a Salt Lake City artist, on exhibit in September. Wood sculpture by Tom Piccolo will be on display throughout October. Mon-Sat 10:30-5, Thurs till 8:30. 2425 Cedar Springs/ 747-0141.

Cushing Gallery. Oils by Andres Escartin and egg temperas by Forrest Harrisberger will be on display September 13-26. Mon-Sat 10:30-4:30. 2723 Fairmount/747-1346.

D RECOMMENDS American art is big news (and big business) during the Bicentennial year. Valley House Gallery is celebrating its own anniversary this year (the 25th) with a show celebrating the country’s anniversary, Master American Painters. The work of artists like Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Edward Hopper, Mary Cassatt, George Inness, and Andrew Wyeth – among others – will be on display at the gallery for three weeks, ending September 30.

Delahunty Gallery. Works by Vernon Fisher and Lee Baxter Davis will be featured in September. Relief prints by Juergen Strunck and work by Bailey, Ward, Rauschenberg and Liechtenstein will be on display in October. Tues-Sat 10-6 and by appointment. 2611 Cedar Springs/744-1346.

Dupree Gallery. Sculpture by Marcy MacKinnon and paintings and lithographs by Nick Abdalla will be featured October 6-31 Mon-Sat 10-5:30, 420 Northgate Plaza Village, Irving/252-8481.

Fairmount Gallery. Paintings by Janet Montgomery and collages by Jane Vieaux will be featured in October. Tues-Sat 11-5 6040 Sherry Lane/369-5635.

The Front Room. Pottery by Ishmael Soto and porcelain by Finn Alban will be displayed in September. A show of kinetic jewelry by Vernon Reed will open October 11 and run through the 25th. Mon-Sat 10-5. In the Craft Compound/6617 Snider Plaza/369-8338.

Gallery Marcus. Photography by John David Loy, pastels by Ken Wise, and paintings by Michael Loy will be displayed Sept 15-30. Paintings by Bill Zaner will be shown October 3-31. Tues-Sat 9-7, Wed till 9. 1313 Avenue K, Plano/424-1487.

Lee Ethel Gallery. Primitive western paintings by Judge Fred “Red” Harris and pencil drawings by Herb Strasser will be featured in September. Mon-Sat 12-6. 3115 Routh/742-4091.

Poster Gallery. Posters for the Bicentennial will be featured in September. Mon-Sat 10-5. 6610 Snider Plaza/363-8223.

Poster Place. New and limited edition works by Karl Gerstner, Milton Greene, Hundertwasser and Trova will be featured in September. Mon-Sat 10-5:30, Thure till 9. Olla Podrida/12215 Coit/661-3383.

Stewart Gallery. Western bronzes by Dick Slo-viaczek will be on display through Sept 18. Paintings by Charles Campbell of Phoenix will be on display in October. Tues-Sun 12-7 and by appointment. 12610 Coit/661-0213.

2719 Gallery. Work by Roy Barnett of Dallas and Ed Bartram of Toronto will be on display from October 12. Tues-Sat 11-5, Sun 2-5. 2719 Routh/748-2094.

Valley House Gallery. Master American Painters, featuring works by Homer, Sargent, Hopper, Cassatt, Inness, Wyeth and others, opens September 10 and shows through September 30. Mon-Fri 10-5. 6616 Spring Valley Rd/239-2441.

Woolcraft and Clay. Weaving by Lou Lyons will be featured in September and fibers by Andrew Wood in October. Tues-Sat 10-5. 2722 Routh/827-3345.

Theater



SMU in Search of a Season



Theatre SMU opens its 1975-76 season October 14 in the Margo Jones Theater, with a production of Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. Until very recently, SMU theater people had hopes of opening earlier with a pre-Broad-way tryout in the Bob Hope Theater, an attempt to repeat the success of last year’s production of Of Mice and Men with James Earl Jones. They came up against the prior commitment of the theater to the USA Film Festival for its Sophia Loren weekend.

Would the Broadway troupe consider dropping a weekend from its run so that the film people could use the house? No way, they said, understandably nervous about the financial risks involved in staging a new play and trying it out so far into the hinterlands. Could the Film Festival people reschedule? No way, they said. Miss Loren has already made a tentative commitment to appear, dependent on the good health of the bambini, and there’s a very profitable tie-in with the Neiman-Marcus Italian Fortnight. Impasse. No show.

There’s a theatrical tradition that bad luck is always followed by good. A bad dress rehearsal presages a good opening night, and actors always attempt to fool theatrical gremlins by exhorting one another to “break a leg.” There’s still hope of scheduling a Broadway tryout later, and the rest of SMU’s season looks promising.

Six Characters opens what is billed as a “Season of Comedy,” with plays ranging from Shakespearean farce (Comedy of Errors) to Shavian satire (Major Barbara), and from American nostalgia (Ah, Wilderness!) to American hip (When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder?). The director of the Pirandello play, Louis Criss, is a guest director at SMU this fall. Criss has an impressive record as artistic director of the Mc-Carter Theatre at Princeton, and work with the Alley Theatre in Houston, the Charles Theatre in Boston, and both on-and off-Broadway.

“I’m not sure I’d call Six Characters a comedy,” Criss says, “except in the terms of the cliche, ’hie is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.’ It’s my contention that all comedy is basically serious, and the more seriously it’s approached, the funnier it will be.”

One of the major problems with staging Six Characters, Criss says, is that it is rooted so deeply in the Italian theater of the Twenties. How to capture that feeling when working with college student actors in the Seventies? Having worked with student actors at Harvard, Princeton, and New Mexico, Criss has a great deal of respect for them, respect colored by a sense of their limitations. “The major problem with student actors, apart from lack of experience,” he says, “is the problem with students everywhere: discipline. That’s a problem with American actors in general, even professional ones. Student actors come to rehearsals late, if they come at all. American professionals come on time, but just barely. English actors come early.” The most disciplined actors in the world, as one might expect, are the Germans. “No Englishman,” Criss says, “would put up with what’s expected of actors in the Berliner Ensemble. But no American would put up with the discipline of the Royal Shakespeare Company. And,” he said with a sigh, “no student puts up with what’s expected on Broadway.” Criss is nevertheless hopeful about the sort of students he’ll find at SMU. “SMU has a good reputation. It’s widely known as one of the four or five outstanding college theater programs in the country.”

Okay, SMU. Break a leg.

Charles Matthews



You’d think that this nostalgia business would be dying a welcome death by now. No such luck. The good ol’ days, it seems, are still worth a lot of good ol’ dollars. While the sociologist may say that nostalgia is an easy mental escape from such current perplexities as recession, the economists would have an equally valid point by claiming that Nostalgia, Inc. is prospering so mightily as to rid us of the cursed recession entirely. And if there’s a gimmick with a market, you can bet your last nickel that good ol’ Dallas entrepreneurship will be right there to cash in.

And so we are given two more opportunities to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear with the recent openings of the Gran’ Crystal Palace and The Great American Melodrama Theater.

The Gran’ Crystal Palace is professional nostalgia, thanks in part to its loose alliance with the Crystal Palace in Aspen, a town that has built a tourist mecca with nostalgic charm second only to skiing as its essential ingredient. The Dallas branch hasn’t missed a trick in converting an old red brick warehouse in the shadows of downtown Dallas into Old West opera hall opulence, a balconied amphitheater trimmed in red velvet Victorian style replete with a massive chandelier. It is a “theater-restaurant” and serves surprisingly fine continental cuisine (surprising because the dinner theater circuit has taught us to expect little more from theater dining than overdone roast beef garnished with mushy broccoli). Here you find escar-gots and duck Bigarade (among several other choices) served by a small army of waiters and waitresses more efficiently than in many of the city’s better restaurants (of course, you pay more than dinner theater prices – $12.50 for show and dinner, plus appetizers, wine, and cocktails).

The staff then becomes the cast as they take to the small bare stage and, with the only accompaniment a grand piano and with almost nothing in the way of props or costumes, present a “cabaret style” musical revue. It’s a talented production for the most part, the highlights coming in the form of several satirical sketches ranging from Watergate to sex education to organ transplants – predictable, but written with a nice splash of wit. But the show in its entirety, culminating in a finale of gospel music revivalism, all smacks a bit strongly of Six Flags All-American exuberant joyous wholesomeness. It’s the kind of show whose gush of happiness would, if you arrived in a somewhat sour mood, likely make you feel worse instead of better. Then again, it can make a good mood better – especially if you like escargots and haute nostalgia.

On the other end of the way-it-was spectrum, we find hamburgers and low nostalgia, at the Great American Melodrama Theater. From the opening moments, when the sing-along leader takes the stage and, in a barely audible singing voice, blunders through a chorus of Little Brown Jug accompanied by the fumbling fingers of the honky tonk pianist and the munching of the audience on nearly cheeseless nachos, there is a distinct air of unpretentiousness, which in another translation means amateurishness. Melodrama can be fun stuff and Saved at the Sawmill (their inaugural production) had all the classic ingredients – blonde boy hero saves the innocent heroine (Sweet Nellie, naturally) from the evil clutches of the mustachioed villain; but in this case, despite the energy and enthusiasm of the players, it demonstrates all the polish of a junior high school play. This is “family entertainment” much more fit for the kids, who have untiring fun pelting the villain with popcorn, than for the parents, who enjoy mainly the relief of having a decent place to take the kids. This place can probably thrive for two years on birthday parties alone. And they do have great hamburgers.

David Bauer

The Gingerbread Lady, at Theatre Three.

Theatre Three’s final production of the season gave us yet another opportunity to marvel at the Neil Simon phenomenon. The most financially successful American playwright ever – his weekly income is estimated at $45,000 – Simon has had a hit play on Broadway every season since 1963. The Simon formula is a simple one: stir a little seriousness into a light comedy – not enough to call for a weightier play, but enough to make us realize that Neil Simon wants to be regarded as more than just an enormously gifted gag writer.

But in The Gingerbread Lady Simon tinkered with the recipe. Instead of a comedy with serious undertones, he has given us a determinedly serious work with comic overtones. The results are a bit disappointing. The corrosively flippant Manhattan-style humor – the deliciously witty put-down, sometimes self-inflicted – still dominates. As in all of Simon’s comedy, the rapid-fire wisecracks make every character sound alike.

The comedy in the play can’t conceal the fact that the story is banal. An alcoholic nightclub singer, Evy Meara, returns from a drying-out session to seek a little help from her friends – an out-of-work homosexual actor and a fading, forty-year-old beauty queen. All she gets is a recital of their troubles, and she is driven to an alcoholic relapse. Simon’s treatment of this familiar story is neither fresh nor bold.

The Theatre Three production was sustained by the highly-charged performance of Norma Young as Evy, the gingerbread lady who crumbles before our eyes, and by the supporting performances of Bick Ferguson, Sharon Bunn, and Catherine Mc-Clenny. But despite these performances, what Theatre Three needed to round out a season that contained successful productions like Purlie and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was a better play.

Doug Holley



Gentle Fires, at the Dallas Minority Repertory Theater.

This one-hour series of vignettes based on the poetry of local writer Irma P. Hall was strictly theater-in-the-rough. When my wife and I arrived a few minutes before the 7:30 p.m. curtain time, we looked around and realized that we were the audience. Director Michael Bourne Hunter decided to cancel the performance, but enough relatives of the cast to make an audience soon arrived, so Hunter decided to go on with the show. There were still a few problems in the early going: a muffled sound system, sometimes trite material, actors a bit stiff and unsure of themselves.

Then something happened. Somewhere along the way Gentle Fires ignited. Miss Hall’s poetry came alive, the actors settled into their roles, and the tiny audience began to respond enthusiastically. Crisp slices of life from the ghettos, barrios, and Native American inner-city began to emerge. Varying moods of self-assertion, exhilaration, humor and pride were conveyed by the multi-racial cast, which was obviously enjoying itself. Its enthusiasm was contagious.

The DMRT production was simple. Performances took place in a medium-sized room of the Bethany Presbyterian Church. Scene changes were accomplished with lighting and with original music composed by Ann Armstrong Hughes.

Gentle Fires wasn’t polished theater, but the rough spots remind us that this is only the second season for the Dallas Minority Repertory Theater. The talent and enthusiasm are there; only the support may be missing.

D.H.

In the Wings

Dallas Theater Center. Count Dracula runs on Fridays and Saturdays only through September 20. Shows 8:30 p.m. and 11 p.m. Tickets $2.50. The Theater Center’s 17th season opens Oct 7 with Saturday, Sunday, Monday. Call for times and ticket information. 3636 Turtle Creek/526-0107.

Theatre Three. I Give You Oscar Wilde, a one-man show featuring Gregg Flood, runs through Sept 27. The new season opens Oct 11; play title unavailable at press time. Wed-Sat 8:30, Sun 7 p.m. and 2:30 matinee on alternate Sundays. Tickets $3-$5.50 with student and group discounts. Quadrangle/748-5191.

Theatre SMU. Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author will be presented in the Margo Jones Theatre, Oct 14-26. Tues-Sat 8:15 p.m., Sun 2:15. $3.50/$3. Owen Arts Center/ 692-2573.

University of Dallas. Ben Jonson’s The Alchemist will be performed October 22-25 at 8:15 p.m. Admission $1. UD campus, Irving/438-1123, ext. 314.

NTSU, Denton. Scenes from American Life, a revue, runs Oct 7-11 at 8 p.m. Tickets $2.50. University Theater. An improvisational theater production will be presented Oct 17 & 18 at 8 p.m. Tickets 50 cents. Studio Theater. 267-0651.

Dallas Minority Repertory Theater. Slow Dance on the Killing Ground is scheduled for an early October opening. Call for times and ticket prices. Bethany Springs Presbyterian Church/ 4523 Cedar Springs/ 528-4080.

Oak Lawn Community Theater. The Skin of Our Teeth, by Thornton Wilder, runs through September 20. The Drunkard opens October 23 and runs through November 1. Performances Thurs-Sat at 8 p.m. $2.50. Group and student discounts. Trinity Methodist Church/Pearl & McKinney/ 691-7320.

Garland Civic Theater. Neil Simon’s Plaza Suite will be performed Sept 26 & 27, Oct 3 & 4, and Oct 10 & 11 at 8:15 p.m. $2.50/$:..75 for students. Central Park, corner of Garland and Avenue F/278-0877, 278-5057.

Irving Community Theater. Barefoot in the Park, by Neil Simon, will be performed Sept 19-21, and 26-28. Performances at 8 p.m., matinee Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets $l-$3. Auditions for the musical Two by Two will be held Oct 6 & 7. Performances begin Oct 31. 2nd and Lucille, Irving/255-4233 or 253-0323.



DINNER THEATERS

Country Dinner Playhouse. 1776 runs through Sept 28. Mickey Rooney is scheduled to appear in a play opening Sept 30. Tues-Sun dinner 6:45, show 8 p.m. Tickets $6.95-$9.75; group rates for 24 or more. 11829 Abrams at LBJ/ 231-9457.

Granny’s Dinner Playhouse. Jane Russell appears in Catch Me If You Can through Oct 5. Bottoms Up, a Las Vegas musical comedy revue, opens Oct 7. Tues-Sat dinner 7, show 8:15 p.m. Tickets $6.85-$10.25. 12205 Coit Rd/ 239-0153.

The Great American Melodrama Theatre. There Goes the Old Ballgame runs Sept 18-Oct 22. Thurs 7:30; Fri & Sat 7:30 & 11; Sun 7 p.m. Doors open at 6 p.m. $2.50 admission. Hamburgers, etc., $1.80. 316 Hillside Village/821-3540.

Windmill Dinner Theater. Arlene Dahl appears in The Marriage-Go-Round, through October 5. Tues-Sun, dinner 6:30, show 8:30; Sunday matinee, lunch 12:30, show 2 p.m. $6.60-$9.75, matinee $5.50 for under 21. 4811 Keller Springs Rd/239-9104.



CHILDREN’S THEATER

Junior Players’ Guild. The Junior Players’ Guild Bicentennial celebration, America in Song and Verse, will be trouping DISD schools beginning in late October. For further information, call Jane Hook, 363-4278 or 351-4962.

Kathy Burks Marionettes. Jack and the Beanstalk will be presented throughout September. October shows include The Codfish Review, Oct 1-18, and a special Halloween show, Oct 22-31. Wed, Thurs and Sat at 11:30 a.m., 1, 3, and 4 p.m. and Thurs at 7:30 p.m. Tickets 75 cents. There will also be performances at the State Fair, Oct 3-19, and at the Sale Street Fair, Oct 18 & 19. Olla Podrida/12215 Coit Rd/387-0807.

Looking-Glass Playhouse. A musical version of Rumplestiltskin runs through October 5. Performances are Saturdays at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets $1.75. 11171 Harry Hines, Suite 120/337-7462.

Magic Turtle Series. The first show of the new season is Lady Liberty, opening October 18 and running each Saturday for eight weeks, at 10:30 a.m. Season tickets, for four shows, are $5.25. Dallas Theater Center/3536 Turtle Creek/526-8920.

Mountain View College. A production of Pinocchio will be presented October 13-19 in the Performance Hall/4849 W Illinois. For ticket information call 746-4180.

Casa Manana. The season opens with The Wizard of Oz on October 4, 11, and 18, at 2 p.m. Call for ticket information. 3101 West Lancaster, Fort Worth/(817) 332-6221.



Sports



Grandstanding



BASEBALL

Texas Rangers, Arlington Stadium. Games at 8 p.m. except where noted otherwise. Box seats, $4.50 & $5. Reserved seats, $4. Bleacher seats (general admission), $2 for adults/$1.50 for children under 13. 265-3331.

Sept 15,16 vs. Oakland A’s

Sept 17,18 vs. California Angels ]

Sept 26,27 vs. Kansas City Royals

Sept 28 vs. Kansas City at 2:05



CRICKET

Dallas County Cricket Club holds matches every Sunday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. at Glencoe Park, Martel Ave at North Central Expwy (Exits 7 or 8). Spectators welcome, free. For further information, call Patrick McCarthy, 252-3549.



FOOTBALL

Dallas Cowboys, Texas Stadium. Tickets $6 (general admission), $10 (reserved). 369-3211.

Sept 21 vs. Los Angeles Rams, 3 p.m.

Sept 28 vs. St. Louis Cardinals, 1 p.m.

Oct 19 vs. Green Bay Packers, 1 p.m.

SMU Mustangs, Cotton Bowl. Tickets: Reserved $7; General Admission (End Zone) $3 adults/$2 children. For tickets and further information, call 692-2901.

Oct 4 vs. West Virginia, 1:30 p.m.

Oct 10 vs. TCU, 7:30 p.m.

Texas-O.U. in the Cotton Bowl, Oct 11, 2:30 p.m.



HOCKEY

Dallas Black Hawks, State Fair Coliseum. All games at 7:30 p.m. Tickets $2.50-$5.50. For information, call 823-6362.

Oct 25 vs. Fort Worth

Oct 29 vs. Tucson

Oct 31 vs. Salt Lake City



POLO

The Silver Cup Tournament, biggest tournament of the year at Willow Bend Polo and Hunt Club, begins Oct 11. The tournament finals will be held Oct 19. For teams, times, and ticket details, call 248-6298. (Regular matches are held every Sat & Sun, weather permitting, beginning about 4 p.m. Spectators welcome; $1.50 for non-members.) FM Rd 544, 1 1/2 miles west of Preston Rd. 248-6235.



QUARTER HORSE RACING

Ross Downs, Hwy 121, 4 miles southwest of Grapevine, 481-1071. From 9-19 races every Sunday, year ’round, beginning at 1 p.m. Adults $2/children $1.



RODEO

State Fair of Texas Rodeo, Oct 4-12, State Fair Coliseum, 8 p.m. each night. Top rodeo stars will compete for over $50,000 in prizes. Everything from steer wrestling to barrel racing to trick riding. Tickets: Box seats $6/Reserved $4. Write State Fair of Texas, P.O. Box 26010, Dallas 75226, or call 827-5541.



RUGBY

The Texas Rugby Union this fall will have five teams in the Dallas area: Dallas Harlequins, Our Gang, Dallas Rugby Club, SMU Rugby Club, and Wildebeest. Matches are played on Saturdays and occasional Sundays at Glencoe Park (Martel Ave at North Central Expwy) and Merrirnan Park (6800 Skillman at Merri-man Lane). For information, call Randy Lang-ston, 350-9045.

Sept 20: Wildebeest vs. SMU, 12:30 p.m. Glen-coe Dallas vs. Austin, 2 p.m., Glencoe

Sept 27: Harlequins vs. Sam Houston, 12:30 p.m., Glencoe Harlequins vs. Denton, 3 p.m., Glencoe

Oct 4: Harlequins vs. Ft. Worth, 12:30 p.m, Mer-riman

Harlequins vs. Odyssey, 2 p.m., Merriman Harlequins vs. Wildebeest, 3:30 p.m., Merriman Dallas vs. SMU, 12:30 p.m., Glencoe

Oct 11: Austin vs. Oklahoma, 10 a.m., Glencoe Harlequins vs. Houston, 12:30 p.m., Glencoe Our Gang vs. San Antonio, 12:30 p.m., Merriman SMU vs. Odyssey, 3:30 p.m., Merriman

Oct 12: Our Gang vs. Houston, 12:30 p.m., Glencoe

Oct 18: Our Gang vs. Harlequins, 12:30 p.m., Glencoe

Dallas vs. Odyssey, 12:30 p.m. Merriman Dallas vs. Wildebeeste, 2 p.m., Merriman

Oct 19: Harlequins vs. Old Maroon, 12:30 p.m., Glencoe

Oct 25: Our Gang vs. Wildebeeste, 12:30 p.m., Glencoe



THOROUGHBRED HORSE RACING

Louisiana Downs began its second season of operation on Aug 29 and will run through Dec 21 (the second segment of the season will be Jan 2-Feb 1). Located in Bossier City, Louisiana on IH 20 (about three hours drive from Dallas). Nine or ten races daily except Tue & Wed; post time 1:05. Grandstand $1, Clubhouse $2.50, plus $1 entrance fee. For information, call (318) 742-5555.



D RECOMMENDS

Q. How many players are there on a polo team?

A. Pour (but you probably didn’t know that, did you?)

You probably also didn’t know that polo is considered by many authorities to be the oldest organized sport in the world. Well, now’s your chance to find out everything you always wanted to know about polo. October 11 marks the opening day of the Silver Cup Tournament at Willow Bend Polo and Hunt Club. The Silver Cup is one of the largest and most highly rated polo tournaments in the nation and, though arrangements were still being made at press time, at least six top teams, including Milwaukee, Tulsa, and Houston, are expected to enter. Admission for non-members will probably be about $2.50, but for final details and schedule, call 248-6298.

Dance

Dallas Metropolitan Ballet. Galina and Valery Panov appear with the company on October 4 and 5 at McFarlin Auditorium. Performances are 8:15 p.m. Saturday and 2:30 p.m. Sunday. Tickets $3-$20. For information call 361-0278.

Mountain View College. The Mountain View College Concert Dancers present a series of performances, Oct 24-26, at 8:15 p.m. in the Performance Hall. 4849 W Illinois/746-4180.

Dance Theatre of the Southwest. Guest artist Kelly Holt, formerly a member of the Erick Hawkins Dance Company in New York, and Sandi Combest, artistic director of the Dance Theatre of the Southwest, will perform two duets choreographed by Mr. Holt on October 24 and 25 in the University Theater, NTSU campus, Denton. The Company will also perform works choreographed by Ms. Combest and other members of the group. For information call (817) 365-2574.

Fort Worth Ballet Association. The Houston Ballet will present three works by Texas choreographers on September 27 at the Tarrant County Convention Center. The featured works will be Allen’s Landing, depicting the founding of Houston, choreographed by James Clouser with music by Fisher Tull; Moonscape, choreographed by Jan Stockman Simons with music by Michael Horvit; and Galveston Suite, choreographed by Ruthana Boris with music by Scott Joplin. For ticket information call (817) 731-0879 or 731-4641.

Fexas Woman’s University, Denton. The Gloria Newman Dance Theater will be in residency at TWU October 30-November 1. There will be a performance Oct 31 in the Main Auditorium at TWU. For further information, call (817)382-5311.

NTSU Fine Arts Series. The Rod Rodgers Dance Company appears on September 30 at 8:15 p.m. in the NTSU Main Auditorium. Tickets are $3/$1.50 to NTSU community. Season tickets for the series, which includes appearances by Marilyn Home and the Cleveland Orchestra, are available in Room 101, Temporary Union Building, NTSU campus. For information call (817) 788-2551.



D RECOMMENDS

Galina and Valery Panov became an international cause célèbre two years ago, when the former Kirov Ballet artists asked to be allowed to immigrate from the Soviet Union to Israel. Now they are on their first tour of the United States, and are making a stopover in Dallas under the aegis of the Dallas Metropolitan Ballet, at McFarlin Auditorium on October 4 and 5.

Etc.

Enlightenment

“Fall for 13,” a ten-day premiere of the new season on KERA Channel 13, will run October 3 through 12. Making their debuts during the week will be a new series of Monty Python’s Flying Circus; The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, 13 classic English detective stories by contemporaries of Conan Doyle; The Search for the Nile, an Emmy-winning series about the search for the river’s source; “Shoulder to Shoulder,” a six-part series on Masterpiece Theatre about the Women’s Suffrage movement in England; and “Jennie: Lady Randolph Churchill,” a seven-part drama on Great Performances, starring Lee Remick. Musical events include Beverly Sills, starring in Roberto Devereux; an appearance by Blood, Sweat and Tears with Janis Ian; and concerts by Ella Fitzgerald, David Allan Coe, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Movies to be shown include Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, the first film in the new season of Cinema XIII; Lenny Bruce Without Tears, a documentary on the late comedian; and two Marx Brothers movies, A Night in Casablanca and Love Happy.

“Invest in Dallas,” financial exhibits by 29 publicly-owned corporations headquartered in Dallas, will furnish corporate financial information to potential investors at NorthPark Shopping Center Mall, September 18 through 28.

8th Annual Taste of Dallas, a food sampling extravaganza sponsored by the Dallas Restaurant Association, will be held this year in the Regency Ballroom of the Fairmont Hotel on Oct 22. Some 50 Dallas restaurants will spread their wares in sample-sized portions for tasting. The emphasis is on variety, with a wide assortment of international cuisines. The Lasting runs from 6:30-9 p.m. and there will be a dance from 8-midnight in the International Ballroom. Tickets are $15 per person with all proceeds going to charity. Tickets are available through A Taste of Dallas, 5605 Dyer, Dallas 75206 or at many area restaurants. For further information, call 361-7914.

University of Dallas courses in continuing education include a variety of special courses for adults beginning in mid-September. Instruction in ceramics, drawing, printmaking, German, Spanish, arts, humanities, philosophy and theology are taught in eight-week sessions. For information contact the University of Dallas Center for Continuing Education, Irving, TX 75061.

Scottish Highland Games, September 27 at Sandy Lake Park in Carrollton, will feature piping competitions, Scottish dancing competitions, and other events. Bagpipe bands from all over Texas and several other states w ill appear. Activities start at 8:30 a.m. Park entry fee, 50 cents. For information call 321-6061.

State Fair of Texas, October 3-19 at Fair Park, will have a Bicentennial theme. The US Marine Drum and Bugle Corps, the Corpus Christi Navy Band, the US Army Band, the Air Force Band of the West, and the Fourth Air Wing Drum and Bugle Corps will all appear in concerts. Other events include performances by Juliet Prowse, Oct 3-12, and Johnny Cash and the Carter Family, opening Oct 13, at the Music Hall, Sunday afternoon concerts in the Cotton Bowl with performers like Charley Pride and Waylon Jennings, circus and aerial acts, and a variety of spectaculars in the Cotton Bowl. The State Fair of Texas Rodeo takes place each day at 8 p.m., in the State Fair Coliseum. For more information on Fair activities, call 827-5541.

Showhouse 1975, a project of the Dallas alumnae of Kappa Alpha Theta, in cooperation with the American Society of Interior Designers, will conduct tours of the Everette DeGol-yer home, 8525 Garland Road on the east shore of White Rock Lake, Sept 27 through October 5. Hours are 10-8 Monday and Thursday; 10-4 Saturday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday; and 1-6 on Sunday. Tickets are $3 in advance and $3.50 at the door. For further information, call Sue Cleek/239-6350.

Urban Pioneer House Tour. A tour of 14 revitalized inner-city homes in Oak Lawn, Oak Cliff, and Old East Dallas, will be conducted by the Historic Preservation League on October 4 and 5. Tickets are $5, available from the League/Box 9778/Dallas 75214.827-5800.

Community Course. The 1975-76 series of events sponsored jointly by SMU and Temple Emanu-El begins October 7, with an appearance by “The Amazing Kreskin,” famous ESP expert. Other events include appearances by Bob Green’s jazz band; DeMaio and silver, duo-pianists; fiscal expert Lindley Clark; the Norman Luboff Choir; Los Indios Tabarajos, and the National Players in a performance of Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! All events take place in McFarlin Auditorium. Admission is by subscription only; no single tickets are sold. For further information call 692-2261/ 692-2262.

Arlington 200 Art Show and Sale. The fall show of the group, formerly called The North Texas Starving Artist Group, takes place September 20 and 21 in Doug Russell Park, southwest of the UTA campus, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Sat, 1-7 p.m. Sun. Works in all media will be exhibited, and recreation facilities for kids and concessions will be available. For further information call (817) 335-2107.

Lectures at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. Free to the public. September 17: “The Heritage of American Art,” Jerry Bywaters, 11 a.m. September 24: “Asher Brown Durand’s ’Landscape – Scene from Thanatopsis,’” Larry Glee-son, 11 a.m. October 1: “Eighteenth Century American Art,” Louise E. Teitz, 11 a.m. October 22: “The Heritage of American Art: The Tradition of Portrait Painting,” Barney Delabano, 11 a.m. October 29: “The Heritage of American Art: Landscape Painting,” Susan Bodin, 11 a.m. DMFA, Fair Park/ 421-4187.

Lecture, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. “Claude Lorrain and Classical Landscape,” by Maurice Roethlisberger, professor of art history at the University of Geneva, October 9. For exact time, call (817) 332-8451.

Fiber Artist Lee Erlin Snow, nationally known author, will give a lecture and conduct a workshop on off-loom weaving and canvas work for the Fiber Designers, Creative Stitchers, Inc., on October 9, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $1. For further lecture and ticket information call Beverly Tucker at 271-7229.

Richland College Planetarium. Child of the Universe, featuring the Plapetarium’s new quadraphonic sound system, is the September show. Shows at 2, 3, and 4 p.m. Sundays and 8 p.m. Wednesdays. Tickets $1/50 cents for children under 12 (under 6 not admitted). 12800 Abrams/ 746-4582.

Temple Emanu-El presents a major exhibit of Jewish history in America, We Have the World to Begin Again: Aspects of Colonial American Jewish Life 1654-1794, 8500 Hill-crest Rd/ 368-3613.

Dallas Civic Garden Center. Courses in gardening include Horticulture for the Home, an eight-class session, and A Plant for Every Purpose, a six-class session. Call for information and registration. Dallas Civic Garden Center /Fair Park/428-7476.

The Olla Podrida. Special events include a display of photographs by Sam Banks, Sept 16-30. The second annual “Best in Texas Quilt Show” will take place Oct 8-28. The Texas Designer Craftsman Show, featuring work by craftsmen and artists from all over the state, will move to The Olla Podrida October 29, after three weeks at Medical City Dallas. 12215 Coit/239-8541.

Chinese Acrobats from Taiwan will perform at NTSU, Denton, on Sept 24 at 8 p.m. Tickets $3.50/$2.50 for NTSU students. NTSU Coliseum, Denton/267-0651.

Good Deeds



Encore Sale. A huge garage-type sale of “nearly new” clothing, furniture, and boutique items lasting for five days. Sponsored by the National Council of Jewish Women, all proceeds will go to various Dallas volunteer programs. Oct 16: 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Oct 17,18,20: 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m.; Oct 19: 12:30 p.m.-5 p.m. At 10835 Harry Hines. The earlier you get there the better – last year’s sale was swamped with buyers. (The Council also runs a year-round thrift shop at 3300 Ross Ave, 823-0164.)

Dallas Symphony Orchestra Benefit. The Diamond Ball, September 27, will be held at the Sheraton, following the Symphony’s performance with Beverly Sills at 7:30 p.m. Peggy Lee and Mal Fitch’s orchestra will perform at the ball. Tickets, which include both the Symphony concert and the ball, are $150 and $100. They may be obtained from Mrs. Ralph T. Dosher, Jr., 7127 Lakehurst.



Art About Town Auction. Benefitting the Dallas Society for Crippled Children, the auction will be held on September 20 at the Music Hall, Fair Park. Three or four hundred works will be auctioned, and dinner will be served. For further information call Jane Pierce, 352-6908; Kathy Riggs, 358-5261.



NAACP Freedom Fund Benefit Dinner will be held Sept 18 at 7:30 p.m. in Market Hall. The speaker will be George L. Brown, Lt Governor of Colorado. Subscriptions are $10 (tables of ten solicited). For information write NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner Gala/Box 7027 /Dallas 75209.



Brandeis Book Sale Donations. Books and records of all kinds are being requested for the November sale. If you wish to donate, call 528-1432.



Kidstuff



Northhaven Cooperative Preschool holds a book fair and bazaar Oct 20-25, 9 a.m.-12 loon. The Bookie Monster will be on hand, with lots of paperbacks, posters and records. Handmade items and plants will be on sale. A preschooler carnival will conclude the fair on Saturday, 11-4, admission 50 cents. A magic show, pony and motorcycle rides, a petting zoo, and other activities will take place. 11211 Preston Rd/691-7666.

Jack-o-lantern carving will be one of the crafts taught during October at Dallas Public Library branches. Other activities include Halloween parties, puppet shows, scary mask-making, story hours, and programs presented by the Museum of Natural History. For more information, call your nearest branch of the Dallas Public Library.

Rootabaga Bookery. A spooky party bikes place at The Bookery Oct 25, 3:30-4:30. Kids should wear costumes and be prepared for ghost stories, seances, and other spooky hap-penings. September activities include a storybook totem pole, to be created in front of the Bookery on September 20, 2-3 p.m. 6715 Srider Plaza/361-8581.

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