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RETRIEVER Arts & Entertainment NOVEMBER 5, 1991 PAGE 11 Hoffman shoots and scores in Billy Bathgate relationship). by Teddy Strong performances by Nicole Kidman (Mrs. Tom Cruise) and, Durgin to my surprise, Bruce Willis round Retriever Editorial Staff out the cast. It also doesn't hurt that the film is based on a best- Maybe it's me. but every time 1 see Dustin Hoffman now, 1 think selling book by E.L. Doctorow, of his Raymond Babbit; Rain Still, I couldn't help leaving the Man character. Perhaps that's theater feeling like i wanted more. why during the screening of his Once you've experienced Good- new mafia film. Billy Bathgate, 1 Fellas, you've already seen the kept expecting him to blurt out, best, and if there aren't any new "I . I'm an excellent gangster." wrinkles introduced into the for- I know, it's just me. mula, you won't feel like you're Billy Bathgate stars Hoffman as seeing anything great. mobster Dutch Schuhz, the head Billy Bathgate is not great, but of a notorious crime organization. it is good. Tales of youth cor- The film chronicles the rise of a rupted (such as Ray Liotta's young man (Bathgate. played character in Good Fellas) always quite well by newcomer Loren prove fascinating to audiences, Dean) within the New York and provide the framework for underworld. If this reminds of you hundreds of stories. Billy Bathgate is one ol those stones, and does GoodFetlas from last year, you're a pretty good job of telling it. This is the second collaboration Bathgate continues Holly- between Hoffman and director wood's rekindled fascination with Robert Benton, who both won mafia films. Last year, the market Oscars for the divorce was so saturated with them, it was drama Kramer vs. Kramer. Of hard at times to tell the good from course, comparing the two films the bad. What saves this flick, is impossible (divorce is only though, is the quality and profes- slightly less painful than a Mafia sionalism of ail involved. Hof- hit). What Benton brings to the fman and Dean are wonderful film, however, is experience, and together, forming a predictable, a calm finger on the trigger of yet still enjoyable teacher-student Hollywood. In a film like this, relationship. They're a much ■where emotions run high, and anybody can blow anybody away — ■ —- photo courtesy of Touchstone Pictures, All Rights Reserved better team than Al Pacino and Andy Garcia were in The God- at any given moment, a calm Dustin Hoffman, Steven Hill and Loren Dean walk the beat in the new gangster film, "Billy Bathgate," directed by Robert Benton. father Part III (who had a similar trigger finger is greatly needed. Freshmen Theatre students get their chance Kennedy voices his passion Kennedy's wife and sister both play produce operas. The goal of the Diving in by the skin of their teeth the piano (Kennedy and his wife Workshop is not to produce met- are given to established actors (me freshmen," said cast member by Kelle-Anne met in their high school choir), and ropolitan singers. Instead it aims to aning upperclassmen) and the Sherri Smith, "[but] I really think his father Kennedy sings, and plays show students what is involved in. by Dawn crew rooms backstage are sacred. we can do it. [Brown] is a really Allen the flute and violin. performing an opera role: the Dr. William Brown, chairman of good director." Brown admits the Retriever Feature Writer This musical background has discipline of learning the role, Almes the Theatre Department, wanted play is difficult because of the imbued Kennedy with a deep appre- training your voice, and being Retriever Feature Writer to bust this bowl by getting deeper meanings and spectrum of Music has always played an ciation of classical opera and prepared to go out without your freshman involved in the depart- emotions. integral part in the life of Robert oratorio that has stayed with him music sheets and entertain a group This is the first in a two part ment, beyond usherdom. He pro- Why, then, does the head of a Kennedy, instructor of the voice all his life. He finds the music of of people night after night. The article on Dr. William Brown, posed a full-scale freshman department bother meshing his classes and Opera Workshop here Mozart particularly entertaining, students of the set design classes head of the Theatre Department production, complete with sets, green recruits and serious theater? at UMBC. and such works as Puccini's also benefit; they are able to see.' costumes, and tech. Mindy Hand, "I believe in helping, developing, Born in Alabama in 1952, 'Madam Butterfly" move him so their work materialize and be put When I was six years old, I director of admissions, supported [and] offering every experience Kennedy studied the trumpet and deeply that he gets "chill-bumps". to use. moved my goldfish from her dinky the idea as a showcase of talent and assistance we can offer," he piano, and sang in the church choirs Kennedy not only appreciates Each season the UMBC Opera fish bowl to the toilet bowl, for the students' parents and a said in a recent interview. and college choirs that his father opera, he has actually sang some, Workshop presents a special per- thinking she'd be happier with the draw for prospective UMBC stu- "The transition from high conducted. It was while singing in such as "The Marriage of Figaro", formance designed to introduce extra room. The telltale swoosh dents. Funding was provided by school to college is difficult," these choirs that his interest in excerpts from "The Magic Flute" elementary and middle school moments later (thanks, Mom) Dr. Charles Woolston, Assistant Brown contended, so he stresses music emerged. and 'Don Giovanni." He said, students to the world of opera. The almost took my heart with it. So Provost for Freshman that rehearsals are secondary to Now he has three daughters of "Once one has performed an opera, idea for these special performances it is with freshmen and college Experience. classes and study time. The cast his own, and the musical tradition one develops a special feeling for stems from Kennedy's past expe- theater. They were big fish on the Brown chose The Skin of Our currently rehearses three times a lives on. Two of them sing on choirs that work and finds oneself judging riences with children. high school stage, but college is Teeth by Thornton Wilder, both week for about two hours a night. and one of them has been studying the performance from a different He has taught grades six through ... yep, the toilet bowl o'justice. for the large cast and the acting the piano for three years. His perspective." to nine in the areas of science and Diving into the theater pool at challenge. "A lot of people think offspring are not the only musically This love and special understand- music, and became aware of the UMBC is no easy task. Good roles he was crazy for trying this with (see FRESHMEN, page 13) inclined members of the family. ing of opera has led Kennedy to enormous learning potential of that make it his life's work. In 1976 he age group. entered the Yale School of Music Kennedy also toured North as a graduate and studied opera Carolina with a music company The Queen royally takes Center Stage directing for two years. From 1982 from 1980 to 1981. The aim of the to 1983 he directed opera in company was to bring music to the reminded of how stupid and worth- Now, how come we never get to situation in life as being directly Munich, and then moved on to children of North Carolina, and less the human race can be, eh? see a movie like that? analogous to the queen's plight; that Severna Park in the late 1980's. He Kennedy was struck by the positive by Matt On the other hand, some wartime Anyway, the play is set in the late she, like the overthrown queen, has has been at UMBC for three years response they received. dramas, like Ugo Betti's The Queen 1940's, in some unnamed European had no power to exercise any and has produced an opera every Today, Kennedy has the same Sherman country, and it centers around control over her life. Because of this and the Rebels, — now playing at semester. goals for his Opera Workshop Retriever Feature Writer Argia, a street-wise societal hustler, realization, Argia does her best to Kennedy is obviously pleased performances. He wants to destroy Center Stage's newly constructed who makes a transformation from try to save the queen from the Head Theatre — can demonstrate with the work of the students in the the stereotypical image that most Jeez, I really hate wartime drama. selfishness to selflessness during her revolutionaries by helping her people have of opera as a "high- not only the possibility of holding Opera Workshop. He considers Platoon, Apocalypse Now, The detainment by revolutionaries who escape. brow", essentially boring art form, Deer Hunter . stories about opera to be "more demanding then on to our principals amidst the are in search of "The Queen." Unfortunately, Argia's good-will church choir music..You're having performed in a language that rel- waste, laden with depressing cir- ruthlessness and betrayal that The focus of Argia's transforma- ends in vain. "The Queen" is caught, to act,...sing difficult music, and atively few people understand. cumstances, all wrapped-up in a accompanies war; but the chance to tion stems from a bond she forms and she never lives long enough to manipulate props...and all of this He wishes to replace this precon- ball of philosophical confusion; all create a new and higher standard with a peasant woman, another substantiate any truths because she is memorized".

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