The University News (Irving, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 17, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 27, 2002 Page: 2 of 4
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The University News
Arts & Entertainment
February 27, 2002 5
Coming
Events
concerts
• Static-X, Soul Fly
Feb. 27
Bronco Bowl Theatre
214.943.1771
• Dashboard Confes-
sional, The Anniversary
March 1
Ridglea Theatre, Ft.
Worth
817.738.9500
•Mary J.Blige
March 1
Bronco Bowl Theatre
214.943.1777
• Bad Religion, Less
Than Jake
March 2
Bronco Bowl Theatre
214.943.1777
• Willie Nelson
March 2
Billy Bob's, Ft Worth
817.624.7117
•Fu Manchu
March 3
Galaxy Club
214.7GA. LAXY
• Tristeza
March 4
Rubber Gloves, Denton
940.387.7781
• Death Cab for Clitic,
Dismemberment Plan
March 5
Ridglea Theatre
817.738.9500
galleries
• Sleeve
Opens with a reception
March 2,6-9 pm
Runs through March 24
500X Gallery, Dallas
214.828.1111
theatre
• Blues in the Night
Through March 17
Dallas Theater Center
214.522.8499
• Proof, by David Au-
burn
March 5-10
The Majestic Theatre
214.631. ARTS
E 'oris by Spears, Branagh best Costner
by FS
The notion of a movie starring Britney Spears might strike terror
into the hearts of some, but Crossroads (wide release), her first star-
ring vehicle, isn't as bad as you might expect.
The tale about a high school brain who goes off on a cross-coun-
try trip with two old girlfriends and a handsome guitarist to visit her
lost-absent mother—finding adventure, love and friendship along
the way, of course—is pretty thin, obvious stuff, alternately fluffy
and weepy. But it's not nearly as awful as most of the movies Ma-
donna has made, nor as bad as the recent efforts of Mariah Carey
and Lance Bass of 'NSync. Her fans should enjoy it; others will
understandably stay away.
Kenneth Branagh has a field day playing a curmudgeonly play-
wright in How to Kill Your Neighbor's Dog (Regent Highland Park);
Michael Kalesniko's script gives him an endless stream of barbs and
witticisms, and he delivers them with relish.
Unfortunately, the overall plot—about how the sharp-tongued
writer is mellowed by his contact with a disabled young girl—is
extraordinarily sappy, and attempts to dress it up with a pretentious
subplot about an oddball doppelganger fail miserably.
The picture does feature the funniest proctological exam even
committed to celluloid, though.
Kevin Costner ambles his way, blank-eyed and almost catatonic,
through Tom Shadyac's would-be paranormal thriller Dragonfly
(wide release). He plays a doctor who comes to believe that his
wife, recently killed in an accident, is trying to contact Mm with an
urgent message from beyond.
The picture alternates between cheap shocks and mawkish melo-
drama, and the revelation at the close will surprise almost no one
who's been paying attention to the ponderously-paced narrative. It
also has the misfortune of being released soon after The Mothman
Prophecies, another bad picture with which it shares many elements,
not least an insect-related title.
!
Ik*
PHOTO COURTESY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES
Kevin Costner strikes a properly pensive pose as Joe Darrow, a doctor
who believes his dead wife is trying to get in touch with him, in Dragonfly.
Allegro: hardly a forgotten masterpiece
by FS
Even the most dedicated fans
of Rodgers & Hammerstein have
probably never had the opportu-
nity to see a staging of the team's
third effort, Allegro, which
opened on Broadway in 1947,
following the smash hits Okla-
homa! (1943) and Carousel
(1945) and preceding South Pa-
cific (1949).
It would be nice to report that
the show was an unjustly over-
looked masterwork, but the pro-
duction by Lyric Stage—continu-
ing at the Irving Arts Center's
Dupree Theatre through next Sat-
urday in celebration of the cen-
tenary of Rodgers' birth—only
confirms that its initial failure and
subsequent obscurity are well
deserved.
That's not to say that Lyric
Stage hasn't done the piece
proud. Director Cheryl Denson
has assembled an excellent cast
of singer-actors, and has staged
the piece expertly against a nicely
minimalist set designed by Wade
Giampa.
The chamber orchestra con-
ducted by Nyela Basney might be
a trifle thin tonally, but they play
enthusiastically. Moreover, the
score does contain a few lovely
Rodgers melodies. A Fellow
Needs a Girl, So Far, and You Are
Never Away are memorable, and
The Gentleman Is a Dope is
catchy, though too derivative of
the Rodgers and Hart standard
The Lady Is a Tramp (from Babes
in Arms of a decade before).
What sinks the show are the
book and lyrics of Hammerstein.
The libretto, about an idealis-
tic med student who loses his
principled way by going to a big-
city hospital under pressure from
his ambitious wife, comes across
as preachy and sanctimonious,
and the lyrics haven't the effort-
less ease of his better-known
work, too often seeming surpris-
ingly clumsy.
What Allegro needs to balance
its bare-faced sappiness and sen-
timentality is a healthy dose of
irony, but Hammerstein just isn't
capable of providing it; when he
tries, in a depression-era anthem
called Money Isn't Everything,
for example, the result is unbe-
lievably heavy-handed.
The construction of the show
is also unsatisfactory: the best
songs are given to supporting
characters, and the central figure
of Joe Taylor, Jr. is too obtuse and
clueless to be very sympathetic—
and we're intended to identify
with him. The hook also makes
all its female characters into mere
servants of their men—an atti-
tude that strikes a viewer as posi-
tively antediluvian in this day and
age.
Give Lyric Stage credit, there-
fore, for unearthing another
Broadway rarity, and for show-
ering it with the group's usual fi-
nesse. But unlike some of their
other rediscoveries—Gait
MacDermot's The Human Com-
edy and Cy Coleman's On the
Twentieth Century, for example
- Allegro proves a curio probably
best left buried.
Horror Films Schedule
Feb. 28, 6:30 p.m. - The Night of the Living
Dead (1968, 97 min.)
When the dead mysteriously begin returning to life, a
band of squabbling human survivors hole up in an abandoned
Pennsylvania farmhouse where they fight off the growing
army of flesh-eating zombies.
March 1, 7 p.m. - The Blair Witch Project
(1999, 81 min.)
Three college students lost in the woods of Western M ary-
land, one shaky video camera, witches and such - what will
happen next?
March 1 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
(1974, 83 min.)
Five teenagers driving through rural Texas stumble onto
an old farmhouse that turns out to be inhabited by a ghoulish
family of mass murderers. It looks like curtains for certain for
the teen travelers trapped inside this house of horrors — unless
one scantily-clad female can elude the powertools and survive
the night of terror intact.
SYNOPSES COURTESY OF IFILMS.COM
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Watson, Thomas & Danaher, Julie. The University News (Irving, Tex.), Vol. 31, No. 17, Ed. 1 Wednesday, February 27, 2002, newspaper, February 27, 2002; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth201358/m1/2/: accessed May 1, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Dallas.