LC mainstage play intriguing and controversial

by Joe Sixta

The Lewis & Clark Main Stage will perform Daniela Fischerova’s play The Hour Between Dog and Wolf. Originally written in Prague in 1979, the play was intended to address the extremely authoritative nature of the Communist Party in Czechoslovakia at the time.

The play’s central theme is of the struggle between order and freedom, and the difficulty in finding a healthy balance between the two. Director Stepan Simek has always been drawn to this topic and felt that the theme held relevance with current events that needed to be addressed. The play is not passive and audience members will not simply sit and watch a show. Rather they will be provoked into thinking and evaluating the plays relevance and how its theme plays out in their daily lives.

The play’s content, theme, and lack of formal structure allow for a wide range of creativity. Original musical pieces have been written by the cast and all songs are based off the original poems of Francios Villon, the protagonist. The play’s settings have allowed designers to use their creativity in designing costumes and sets. The plays actors have also been challenged because of the play’s unique characters.

To fully appreciate the play, the audience must understand the historical context in which it was written. At the time Communist Czechoslovakia had strict censures on all their arts. Any criticism of the government was not tolerated, causing writers and artists to invent new ways in which to get their messages across to their audiences.

The play is about the 15th Century French poet, Francois Villon, and his conflict with the Catholic Church. Villon is a man of an ambiguous past, and whom historians have yet to clarify his actual history. The symbolism is instantly recognizable to anyone watching the play. The dominance of the Catholic Church is representative of the Communist Party’s control of Czechoslovakia at the time. The main character, Francois Villon, is representative of all those who are subject to the government’s control. Communist authorities quickly picked up on the symbolism and the play was banned after its first dress rehearsal.

The play will be shown Friday Nov. 15 through Sunday Nov. 17 and the following weekend of Nov. 21-23. All shows will be at 7:30pm in the Fir Acres Theatre Main Stage and the box office will open at 6:30pm. Tickets will also be available between 1-5pm on weekdays. Tickets are $8 for general admission, $5 for Lewis and Clark faculty, staff, alumni, senior citizens, and non-Lewis and Clark students; and $3 for Lewis and Clark students. Parking is free on campus lots after 7pm on weeknights and on weekends.

In the words of the director, "…while the play is not easy to fully understand, its theatricality, the questions that it raises, and it’s fascinating history are well worth exploring." Because of the play’s controversial history and the relevance it has in current society, it is highly encouraged that all students attend.

Gallery receives collection, name

by David Oppenheim

Learning to Look, Photographs from the Ronna and Eric Hoffman Collection, now showing at, on the campus, is a stellar and sweeping example of the photography spanning nearly its entire existence. The show, which is running now through Dec 12 at the Lewis & Clark museum of contemporary art named after the Hoffmans, features prints from as early as 1895. The show explores almost every means photographers have used to tantalize viewers for nearly two centuries.

The artists represented include traditional and non-traditional photographers alike. In one corner, Ansel Addams’ Zen-like portrait of California’s redwoods, exhibits severe symmetry and profound posture, while in another photograph an angry Winston Churchill scours down Yousuf Karsh’s lens (the photographer snatched a cigar from the British prime-minister, and snapped a photo showing the glowering leader before he could regain composure). Karsh’s image, which for many was the foremost representation of Allied power in the Second World War, first appeared in Life magazine in 1945.

Another photograph, this one dating back to 1895, depicts an incredible abstraction of an early airship seeming to slice right through the Eiffel tower.

O. Winston Link’s contribution to the collection, Hot Shot Eastbound, would make any Steve Martin fan happy, as drive-in movie-goers watch a plane on screen scream towards a passing steam locomotive.

Man Ray, the controversial mid 20th-century artist, offers an image of a woman that hauntingly fogs the line between vasoline-glamour and out of focus. Yet it draws the viewer back and back, the protruding female character intriguing in her natural, silvery distortion.

The collection also features photographs of eerie magnitude, photographs that call many social and political aspects of popular culture into question. One image, depicting a girl no older than six striking a pose that even Marilyn might consider racy, explores the despotism of pop culture on a generation of youth. Irving Penn, photographer for publications such as Vogue Magazine, juxtaposes the previous image with his less familiar glamour shot of West African girls, calling into question the entire western definition of beauty.

Another picture from Africa also resonates hauntingly superficial, despite its very grounded truth. The centuries-old mud-built mosque in Mali, features grandeur reminiscent of more traditional European cathedrals, but without the sharp lines afforded by a Christian budget or European technology. This particular photograph emphasizes the cultural differences between the efficient, if not calculatingly destructive Westerners, and the much slower-paced vibrations of an African continent that in many ways still resembles centuries past.

A portrait by Arnold Newman displays the despondent and usually reclusive artist Max Ernst in a cloud of vibrating and liquid cigarette smoke, the light pulsating between soft reality and outright fabrication.

The show, which features many of the best and most influential names in photography and some of their most treasured works, is an incredible example of what the genre of photography has meant to the artistic community for nearly two centuries. It is without a doubt worth the twenty minutes it takes to walk the gallery.