A Clockwork Orange

...and a fascinating piece by David Hays on the Theatre of the Deaf, one so exiciting that I've marked the deaf theatre down as an experience not to be missed the first time it comes to Boston or I come to it...

...Of course, allowing for human frailty, it would be difficult to stop the earth as effectively as He did, for an imperfect job would result, most probably, in the general displacement of the continents into space, with the resultant great inconvenience to the inhabitants of the same...

...Barnes seem almost to smack his lips with glee as he writes of all the wild and whacky (and, in some cases, nauseating) stage business enliven the off- and off-off offerings...

...Young people who love Lindsay's verbal dreams, senior citizens who are not affected by his pro-busing stand, and black voters caught by his catchy phraseology - - all will offer support that should together total 21~ of Florida's 3,000,000 plus voters...

...Barnes shows why...

...Returned to society as a harmless marshmallow, Alex is trumpeted by the state as the final solution to the problem of crime and lawlessness, but through happenstance falls into the hands of a liberal muckraking writer and his cronies, who plan to use Alex as a martyr for their anti-Establishment cause...

...He is perhaps the nadir of human existence - - but, like all humanity, appears to have a saving grace, in this case a devotion to Beethoven...

...Jackson's pro-defense position has won the respect of many white Floridians - - and, in many non-urban counties, black Floridians are being led to Jackson as part of a county-by-county effort to defeat Wallace by "'blocking" the black vote behind the one candidate who is considered able to draw well against Wallace...

...Kubrick his tawdry settings, his occasional lapses in taste, for there are so many moments when everything comes together and we have a frightening, powerfully moralistic tale...

...I recently saw Follies, as superlatively staged and as technically proficient a perforinance as one could want: big, bold Broadway...

...Los Angeles Times man Dan Sullivan's discussion of California theatre...

...The total disregard for human dignity and the sanctity of life, the absence of any civilized restraints, that characterize the rule of the barbarian have seldom been so chillingly portrayed...

...Zelda Fichandler doesn't know for sure what direction the American theatre is taking...

...The American Theatre, by no means perfect, nonetheless is a healthy sign of the continued high level of concern about and activity in our theatre...

...critics have made profound judgments about it as a Parable Of Our Times...

...Once more (I hate to dwell, but I see I'm dwelling), for what is nudity for nudity's sake, if not merely to arouse...

...But obviously that's beyond the purview of such a collection of essays prosaically grounded in discussions of what is, rather than in convincing hypotheses of why it is as it is, and isn't...

...Things are indeed a-happening down here in the Provinces...

...Wallace's 41% will cement his position as a contender, and will set a pattern that will see him arrive in Miami Beach with a substantial commitment of Democratic delegates (whose ultimate disposition may provide the greatest real drama for that convention and Party...

...At any rate, Alex is finally caught by the police and convicted of murder, and after a useless year or so in prison is subjected to a "new" form of penology, a sort of cinematic Pavlovian brainwashing that conditions him against violence arid sex, and inadvertently Beethoven, by depriving him of his free will...

...Briefly, we have a fantasy-fable of the future, set in an Orwellian nightmarish world ruled after dark by teenage gangs...

...Herbert Kupferberg's fine piece on the New York Shakespeare Festival, this being the remarkable free theatre in Central Park which may account for whatever chance the "masses" have to come to love the bard as he deserves...

...the with-it crowd has already seen it three times...

...This would be very convenient for those engaged in agricuffure, sunbathing, or other daytime activities...

...Having devoted most of my leisure time to intimate conversations with the Deity, I can only say that we are both extremely, displeased with the way humanity is polluting the world with waste heat, noxious chemicals, and sex...

...Florida voters are preparing to dispense both "'cold water" and 'new mandates" to Democratic Presidential aspirants on March 14th, 1972...

...Alex and his gang walk through the urban rubble of a decadent age which, with its moral decay and its attack on individual freedom and integrity, bears more than a fleeting resemblance to our own...

...The dividing line between organism and mechanism seems to be free wiIl, a doctrine which runs like a thread throughout the movie - - but, to my mind, Alex is as will-less a monstrosity before the treatment as after...

...The new sensibilities, in Daniel Bell's terms, are definitely to be found in all degrees of quality, on stage...

...But even for infrequent theatre-goers like me, the theatre remains uniquely that artculture form which can transport one for a limited time into a world removed...

...So i t should take about five or six days to completely stop the earth...

...But-the plays -- and of this I'm in accord with Mr...

...Alex and his "'droogs" (friends) live somewhere in a dreary socialist England that is in the process of becoming a police state...

...And Sunshine State voters, on the other hand, will shock the experts and blow Lindsay's smoldering flame into a full fire by giving him 21% of the vote - - a second place finish...

...God stopped the sun for three hours, or six hours, or something like that...

...The plain fact is that most of what's exciting in New York theatre isn't Broadway...

...How stupid it is for mankind to seek to find new sources of energy when for 3245 years the answer has been easily apparent...

...Gottfried had to strain to get through to the end of his piece without a yawn...

...Barnes in the...

...The greatest crisis now facing mankind is the problem of generating sufficient electrical power for his sinful needs, and,.as we ore at the moment ruled by a kind and just God about to condemn us all to eternal torment in adamantine chains and penal fire, as the saying goes, for 16using up his favorite planet, it would be prudent to~ other sources of power than fossil fuels and/or nuclear energy...

...b) the older...

...Barnes differentiates the "outrageious and uproarious" Dirtiest Show in Town, which was fresh and amusing, from such "drivel" as The Way It Is and A Circle in the Water, respectively heteroand homo-nudies, both aborted even before their openings...

...Jackson's third place finish will keep him viable in the horserace, but will be the result of g curious constituency...

...The movie itself, utifortunately, is also a clockwork orange, for it suffers from the elaborate plasticity and heavyhanded technology with which Kubrick tries to do justice to Anthony Burgess' brilliant novel...

...Hence: Chisolm - 2% : Humphrey - 2% : McGovern - 0.4% : Hartke - 0.l% The shocker...Lindsay...will draw his constituency from predictable sources: (a) the young...

...In Houston, in much of Texas for that matter, where I spent two years in the middle sixties theatre, most particularly the Alley Theatre, was rousing, innovative, daring, and Texans supported it...

...Oklahoma City is big this year...

...Times know, is scintillating, and he's so urbane, so quick to tire of faddism, that he deftly leads us through the mass of whoopsy-doo i-n-n-o-v-a -t-i-o-n to some perspective about what might have lasting value and what's there just to arouse...

...Alex is nothing short of a fascist beast...

...in addition, there doesn't appear to be much to separate such street theatre from the histrionics of the political slreet-corner harangues to which we've grown accustomed these days...

...Broadway is in bad straits...

...The delinquent product of some future counterculture, Alex is degeneracy epitomized as he takes pleasure only in the most brutalized forms of techno-sensuality...

...oh, the Alley has a multitrillion dollar home in which to frolic, but the theatre is dead...

...Of course, this method would not provide an eternal source of power, but, as I have been informed, the world may expect the return of Christ on October 3L 1996 at 8:05 GMT, I shall really not care if it proves insufficient for further needs beyond that point...

...Theatre waxes and wanes in Middlemerica...

...Yet we can forgive Mr...

...Sincerely yours, X. Mordecai Kaplan Cloremont Men's College The Florida Primary A Note from the Provinces J e r r y Gerde Prediction One: _9 Wallace - 41% Prediction Two: 'Lindsay - 21% Prediction Three: Jackson - 19% Prediction Four: Muskie - 14% Down here in the Provinces, things are a-happening...

...regional theatre is a sometime thing...

...Although I suppose it would be asking you heathens o little bit much to expect you to know of the event which I am about to relate, a cautious perusal of the same would be beneficial...

...The earth is quite massive, and, since it is rotating, possesses quite a goodly amount of available energy so stop the earth...

...Imagine --selling _9 "cold water" and "'new mandates" at...

...Just before the last few essays there appears one which is alone worth the price: "Theatres of Institutions...

...Finally, Alex again becomes a tool of the Establishment politicians, and as we close out he is converted back into his lovable barbarian self...

...Of course, most of the energy would have to be stored up, in order to provide adequate air-conditioning services once we reach our destination...

...The discerning moviegoer will have already recognized these' phenomena as signs of a Very Bad Movie, but for once he is in for a surprise: A Clockwork Orange, despite some major faults, ,has moments of true excellence that stand like a lighthouse amidst the pornographic and commercial mainstream...

...To present a forceful display rOf savagery was Burgess' intent, of course, but the boxoffice interpretation of Kubrick tends to replace content with flashing lights and gaudy colors - - and, when coupled with the mediocre acting of Alex and h is droogs, sometimes produces scenes, like the opening at the milk-bar, that should have been left on the cuttingroom floor...

...The problem of tapping this power is easily solved, since it would be fairly easy to boost magnets into orbit, and, as everyone knows, the earth, a rotating magnet in its own right, would cause on electric current of magnificent proportions to be generated...

...Now it's dead...

...the same time to those Yankee politicians ! [ ] The A l t e r n a t i v e A p r i l 1972 21...

...and with a discussion of books and a good bibliography...

...Perhaps...

...The showings by the other candidates should be only moderately surprising, and of little immediate effect on their respective candidacies...

...DavM Brudnoy Blood 'n Guts'n Beethoven A Clockwork Orange A CLOCKWORK ORANGE has arrived on The Scene with the force of D-Day...

...Were the earth stopped, it is obvious that One side would continuously face the sun, and, I suppose, the other would not...

...a causeless rebel whose level of thought oscillates between the gutter and the groin -yet there is one aspect of his humanity that is not perverted, and that is his love of classical music...

...As we now know (it had apparently slipped God's mind at the time) that it is not the sun that moves, it is the earth (first demonstrated by Archimedes...

...Kevin S. Olson CORRESPONDENCE k " ':' To The Editor: The problem of being a Christian in these days of heathenish activity is not lessened by one's being a scientist, which, in this case, one is...

...His passion for Beethoven is, I suppose, what makes him strangely forgiveable as he patrols the streets with his gang, committing indescribable acts of violence and mayhem...

...Other essays include an interview with Peter Brook...

...Next year...

...Our anti-hero is Alex, leader of his own gang and a working-class tough whose primary interests in life seem to be mugging, looting, raping and listening to Beethoven...

...and (c) the black...

...The same infantile fascination with James Bond gimmickry and philosophical pretentiousness that so marred 2001 is present here, but even more hoked up, with sparkling sadism and glittering pornography...

...The book continues with some good pieces about theatre elsewhere, such as Arthur Ballet's "The Theatre of Middle America," which especially attracted me because of its intelligent discussion of the Guthrie Theatre in my boyhood home-town, Minneapolis, probably consistently the best company not on the coasts...

...Pre- and postbrainwashing, Alex and his world are debased caricatures of humanity ; nightmare products of a decaying and dehumanizing technocracy...

...so we must assume that God stopped the earth, thus setting a sort of precedent, a deus ex mmchi, u, if you will...

...From the "Nadsat" language of the young we are given to believe that the Russians have conquered and are in the process of instilling the Worker's Paradise, but this aspect is underplayed by the producer, Stanley Kubrick...

...Not only is this an extremely natural method of generating almost unlimited amounts of electrical power, but some of the side effects of this action are even more appealing...

...Time and Newsweek have headlined it...

...When Martin Gottfried turns to "Broadway 1~0-70," however, we really see the morass into which Big Theatre has fallen...

...I suppose that if we really needed power in the meantime, we undue leakage in the storage batteries), we could boost magnets into solar orbit and harness the energy generated if we slow the earth's orbital motion enough to cause it to fall into the sun...

...off-Broadway is a jumble of true creativity and squalid opportunism...

...Indeed, it is a clockwork universe, for there appears to be no aspect of society that does not suppress the individual and his freedom...

...The writing, as those who follow Mr...

...Gottfried -- the plays have been less than brilliant...

...On that date, Sunshine State voters are going to turn "'thumbs down" with Roman imperiousness to Muskie's national candidacy...

...they'll do it by giving him just 14% of the total vote - - putting him in fourth place...

...Perhaps this twist, left unexplained in both book and movie, is meant to cast a ray of hope on what, deslJite its faults, must surely be one of the most terrifying visions of the future since the work of Huxley and Orwell...

...Not so Clive Barnes, whose "Off-Broadway and Off-Off 1969-70" sparkles...

...by Zelda Fichandler, the driving force behind the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C...

...None of the book's articles gets into any sort of satisfying analysis of why...

...Also, from a political standpoint, it would prove most amusing to leave our atheistic Communistic fellowmen in perpetual darkness...

...A Clockwork Orange is, I suppose, something that appears organic yet is 20 The Alternative April 1972 actually mechanical - - this concept can be directly applied to the post-brainwashing Alex, and also to the collectivist society in which he lives...

...The book concludes with a perfectly dreadful -- adverb and adjective carefully chosen -- mishmash "play" called Vietnam Campesino, which for ten dreary pages reveals why so much of the theatre of the political is unseeable, at least by me...

...the resulting electricity could be returned to the surface of the earth through the use of storage batteries...

...a nicely-done light expose of "The Great Mail Fraud" and the hucksterism of regional theatre...

...The inventiveness, Gottfried clearly shows by omission, is no longer on Broadway, though the technical expertness still is...

...On the other hand, the clark side would be perfect for astronomers, photograpic development, and other activities of the nocturnal persuasion, which good taste prohibits me to do more than allude to...

...Her enthusiasm for the state, for the possibilities of theatre even in today's United States, are inspiring and solidly grounded in experiences, heartbreaks and successes alike,, lending authoritativeness to all that she writes...

...Theatre in the streets has possibilities, though I'd guess that the loss of that magic quality present in an enclosed building is not sufficiently offset by the immediacy and mobility of outdoor theatre in public plazas...

...Unfortunately, the writer soons recognizes Alex as the young lad who, a few years earlier, had raped and beat his wife, and his desire for vengeance overcomes his devotion to his cause...