The Minneapolis Star from Minneapolis, Minnesota • Page 36

THE MINNEAPOLIS STAR Nov. 6, 1969 in 10 GO GG0 Published text of 'Naked Hamlet' no more than ludicrous travesty Wo reil.ilnly right not to want old vaudeville routines foisted oil on us as Hvunl guide xperimenis. Certainly the llu'aUT can uiul hlioutd speak in today's language, ought to u.w wk imlT iind relate icinote events to familiar ones. But that understanding is hardly IUoiino for dim-willed tomfoolery, "ir'tni disregard of lliwitrlcul honesty, shallow Insight mm character sloganeering Artist Larkin works, mm resides contentedly away from 'big town' more criticizes updating of classics for violation of sacred texts. But wo do have a right to expect pro-ducers to see their ji as extracting what Is most timeless and important in the classic as they choose rather than as rewriting them nt will.

fa, i i if i I western Hennepin County that was homesteaded by his grandfather. He studied art at the University of Minnesota. Except for six 1 years teaching at Kansas Stale College, he has spent his professional life here (he returned in 1954 to teach prlntmaking at the Minneapolis School of Art). "The general cultural tone of this community is distinctive. I see no need to go elsewhere," he said.

Nor, he says, does remaining "local" artist 'hide his work from the wider world. 'V THEATRE Gideon Scheln is seen as Albert the Vagrant and Bea Morris the Chrysalis in "The Insect Comedy," a Chechoslovakian satire on the regimentation of contemporary life which opens this week at the University of Minnesota Theatre, Scott Hall. The play by Josef and Karel Capek will run Friday and Saturday and Nov. 11-16 at 8 p.m., with 3:30 p.m. performances also on Nov.

11 and 16. The production has been entered In regional competition for the American College Theatre Festival. military dictator. The logic of assembling the rehearsal text was to distill and reassemble the complexities of the (original) text." What this eventually led to was the presentation of "Hamlet" as a succession of bits rather than a unified, consistent drama. We discover the text broken up not into five acts but into scores of separate routines, labeled individually In the published script as "Tho Old College Banter." "The Old Rope Bit," "A Joke on Polonius," etc.

There bits are often idiotic. In "The Basic Peanut Vendor Bit," for example, "Hamlet enters wearing a straw hat and moves down the aisle" hawking nuts and 'balloons. This is supposed to "give life to Hamlet's new-found antic disposition," Papp says, but all it does is disrupt. Another time Hamlet appears as "the porter Ramon, wearing a peeling leather jacket, combination false nose and glasses, and a paste-on moustache. He sets down a garbage can and begins to sweep up." Important lines and speeches are chopped up or smothered with equal point-lessness.

Papp says he started out from two assumptions, both dubious. First, since there are various texts of "Hamlet" extant, there is no such thing as a correct text. Therefore, we cannot know what Shakespeare really meant (if we care). Second, that "Hamlet" and other classics are only vi- able if they are revitalized by modern relevance and sensibility. This latter line of thought leads to passages in the foreword like "Hamlet What a piece of work is-man sprawled in the dirt of Vietnam on 125th St.

in Harlem in a grave in Alabama This is adolescent, inarticulate cant. We appear in this book to have reached the crisis stage with radical theater. No serious person any I I different hi I our lovable I jushions. I Sliati'S-18 I Charge accounts laybys I II Open every Friday night I I -f til 9.00 P.M. ivA 5032 34th Avenue South JJ 729-7988 Jf? pictures, such as humanlike figures he finds in the patterns or shapes suggestive of other things.

He also is building these upon canvases that often have been painted with complementary color panels. It is a stronger, guttier art that the former, printlike works. He also is having fun with non natural materials. His "Son" is delightful a boy's pair of pajamas served as the "type" to print this picture, plainly outlined with the fabric texture showing. In collage with some plant impressions, it'is both funny and touching.

"The Bride" is somewhat simiar, except that it features the ghosts of a dress, a brassiere and a girdle, put together with black collage paper that creates legs and a hand. "Mother" goes all out a dressr with- a real striped scarf hanging around its shoulders. Larkin's work is unusually satisfying. It never loses its reality, the strong natural imprint of its component parts, but it has an ethereal beauty also, a haunting "see through" quality as in a romantic dream. This is a newsness that transcends any faddish novelty.

HARVEY'S tion Is nn example a wholly unique technique he has been refining for several years. Earlier examples of it were seen in his 1968 Minneapolis institute show and the 1967 Walker show. In its most frequent application, larkin places natural materials grasses, leaves, twigs and plants on the bed of a heavy engraving press. Over them is laid a special paper and on top of that an inked wooden plank. Under pressure, the plant material is crushed up into the wood.

The ink transfers to the paper to create impressions that vary in shade according to the thickness or hardness of the material. The result is beautiful graceful forms and lines with a spectral, almost x-ray, quality. Some have an Oriental flavor, like Japanese woodcuts, but the Imprint of nature is more direct and forceful. At first, Larkin used only the paper impressions cutting them into shapes suggested by the random patterns and composing these into collage abstractions. Now, in his new show, he is "taking a stronger hand" and making more representational DICK Iff from EUGENE LARKIN Finds satisfaction "I've been in group shows in all the major galleries around the country including the Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress and the Chicago Institute.

I have been in shows overseas. I am not bragging, but I sell widely, too." Larkin docs not believe, in the cult of originality, that every artist should be off on some radical new tangent to be creative. However, he consistently, seems to come up with' new ideas and new ways to use materials. His current K-B exhibi WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S "NAKED" HAMLET, a production handbook by Joseph Pnpp, assisted by Ted Cornell (Macmillan, 187 pages, The text for a radical version of "Hamlet" developed by the New York Shakespeare Festival, Including photographs and rock music scores. Reviewed by PETER ALTMAN Minneapolis Star Critic "William Shakespeare's 'Naked' Hamlet" Is the record of a rock version of the classic tragedy which was developod in workshops of the New York Shakespeare Festival last year, and has received a violently mixed critical re- action.

As a theatrical event, Joseph Papp's aggressively unconventional production may or may not have been a success, but at least it had shocking One notes suspiciously that most of the staging's critical praise lauded it for pointing "toward emerging and liberating forces within the theater" rather than for being moving or entertaining. But even the happening's detractors generally admitted feeling a strong kinetic excitement. Reading the published text of "Naked Hamlet," however undistracted and unconfused by the bewildering physical novelty with which Papp's actors shook up their audiences one discovers nothing more than a ludicrous travesty. The sober page reveals Papp's "Hamlet" as fragmented, forced, cheap and absurd. It exposes the 'sophomoric gimmickry on which so much "revolutionary" theater relies.

The reader laughs at, not with, the script. 1 Papp explains his "Hamlet's" genesis thus: "The text that was presented to the company at the first rehearsal was already considerably abridged, and the action was set in Fortress Denmark with Claudius, the usurping king, assuming the role of a mili- DICK nnia I 3-cycle, 2-speed improved permanent vvnuv i itj pom ICS. WASHERS 4 DICK HARVEY'S fey DON MORRISON Mlnneapoll "I have the kind of sue-cpm I want. If New York wants to come to Minneapolis and look me up, that's fine. But if not, thafi fine too 1 really don't Eugene Larkin was speaking in a room at the Kilbride Bradley Gallery, where a one-man show of new Larkin works was being hung for the Monday night opening.

Larkin is one of many strongly creative, recognized and respected artists who reside contentedly In Minneapolis and consider themselves successful although in the popular mind it might bo thought that "success" is a plant that flourished only in the big New York art scene. That may be true in economic terms, Larkin admits, but it isn't what he's talking about: "Even if he doesn't get rich, a young person can gain recognition; his talent is noticed." That is a more sustaining force for artists than money, Larkin believes. He said he supports himself and his family largely by teaching Larkin is a professor in the Division of Related Art of the School of Home Economics of the SC Paul campus of the 'U 'but that this does not curtail the productivity of his own creative life. Nor does living in Minneapolis, distant from the major art capitals. "Communications are worldwide now.

You know what is going on everywhere. I make a couple trips a year and get to Europe for extended periods. It hardly matters where you live," he point-' ed out Besides, Minneapolis is entirely congenial to him and to his artistic He was bom on a farm in TV Appliance Sales I Service DICK IZZj A Y' IBIlN V.IN 0 PICK HARVEY'S HARVEY'S IP Columbus Park) NQV.6r7&8 CK HARVEY'S A SOUTH MPLS. STORE 707 East Lake (between HOPKINS STORE 818 Excelsior Ave. DRYER REFRIGERATORS! Whirlppoljgi 12 cu.

ft. 109 lb. freezer Auto defrost Porcelain -interior Million magnet doors psT A fin 3-cycles limited IP Surgilator Agitator Limn" II MU-i-i. WASHER 2 Speed 3 Cycle Normal Gentle Perma-press im3it, mix urn imer if i '-L $177 15.0CU. FT.

True even the 135-Ib. "jero-degree" freezer never needs defrosting IceMog-ic automatic ice maker Jet-Cold meat pan, porcelain-enameled steel Twin porcelain enameled tteel crisperi Adjustable tteel shelves. Mmk. -r tint Vtttt C.rv,la $00000 WRINGER "Dick and MODEIEIT 15PM special cool-down care (or permanent press 3 drying temp selections extra large top mount lint screen 1 DRYER press cycle super SURGILATOR agitator MAGIC MIX filter 5 water temps, 2-levels AND UP Harvey 5.11 thtltstl Fix Everybody Elso'sl" WASHER 199 HARVEY'S 95 I'm Dick -He's Harvey! -)o NEW MPLS. STORE 707 EAST LAKE (BETWEEN PARK COLUMBUS) 825-4431 Open Mon.

Thurs. 'Til 9 HOPKINS STORE 818 EXCELSIOR AVE. 935-3361 Open M-F 'Til 9 I DICK HARVEY'S JpiCK HARVEY'S DICK HARVEY DICK HARVEY'S.