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FEbRUARY 2, 1999 ENTERTAiNMENT TliE PolEMic Superfluity By Josh rimlick ~~8q(lj 1®ij f ef aA~f ~, i l@lygo/@~ L,, • Barbara Kingsolver goes into Africa BY JOHN KISSANE STAFF WRITER The father, a minister, is rigid in his belief systems a,nd un- , willing to make any conces- "Imagine a ruin so sions to the age-old beliefs of strangeitmustneverhavehap- the Congo people, which pened," li>egins The Poisonwood causes many problems. Also, Bible, Barbara Kingsolver's he verbally and sometimes masterpiece. The line is osten- physically abuses his family. sibly a description of the The church that spon- jungles of the Congo, but it sored their stay in the Congo also serves as foreshadowing, decides to stop sponsoring as the novel is a tragedy, one them after a year, seeing no so awful it cannot be believed, results, whith means that the but rendered with such verisi- family will not even have the militude it must be believed. meager outside help they once Kingsolver has written did. The father elects to stay, three other novels, and all of despitetheprotestationsofhis · them have been excellent in wife, and tries to instill a love depiction.of character. This one of Christ into the natives while is better. Her other three nov- he slowly loses any last ves- els have also resonated tiges of sanity. strongly on the political level The novel shows the ar- and so does this one, involv- rogance of trying to force oth- ing the political turmoil of the ers to your way of thinking. It _ Congo sta'rting in the late showsthecomfortoffaith,and 1950's, during which a popu- what'sleftafterallyourfaithis lady-elected president was gone. It shows how to survive killed, probably by the CIA, even after you lose your hu- and replaced with a more manity. Ultimately, it puts the American-friendly dictator. lietotheoldsaying, "whatever This facet of the book, though doesn't kill me can only make very well fleshed-out, never mestronger."Noneqfthecl}ar- intrudes on the main story. acter's who survive until the The maip. story involves end of the book do so without four girls who are taken by serious psychological and their mother and father to the physical scars. Congo for missionary work. Kingsolver manages to be literary with.out being showy. She gives the novel extraordinary depth while managing never to descend to the self-conscious level of such exercises in verbal self-indul- gence as Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater or Michael Ondaatje'.s The English Patient. In the end, this is a novel of character. The.four daugh- ters narrate the bulk of the story, with occasional passages from their mother. The charac- ter of Adah, one of the daugh- ters, is in particular powerfully drawn-out and alive. She's a malformed genius with a taste for palindromes and a stoic attitude, and to trace her de- velopment is to watch a real · human being grow. Buy it, borrow it, check it out, or steal it. I love this book, and I very much believe you will too. Of the hundreds and hundreds of novels I've read, I've never encountered a bet- ter one. alpena medical arts, p.c. Now Accepting -New Patient's Family Practice Physicians Including Obstetrics JOANNE M~ ROOT, D.O.·. JASMINE M. PABALAN, M.D. 211 Long Rapids Road, Alp.ena, Michigan 49707 Call (517) 354-2142 or 888-310-5100 Toll Free Nunsense: The Divine Comedy Bv AMY W ALLOT STAFF WRITER Five hilarious nuns graced the stage for ACC's sec- ond annual scholarship fund- raiser. Nunsense, a musical by Dan Goggin, was performed . inGranumTheatreJanuary14- 17 and January 24. The fundraiser is.used to supportperforming arts_schol- . arshipshereatACC. Last year's faculty variety show raised $3,500. Sonya Titus, the direc- tor of Nunsense, said that she · hoped to raise around $4,000 this year. Nunsense is a musical about the Little · Sisters of Hoboken. They stage a talent show to raise money to bury the last four, out of 52, Sisters who died after eating poison- ous soup. The surviving nuns were spared since they were off playing bingo. The Little Sisters of Hoboken would have had enough money to bury all the dead, had Sister Mary Regina, played by ACC business fac- ulty member Linda Suneson, not bought a new VCR. The musical is unique in that the cast interacts with the audience. The nuns use the au- dience as the audience for their talent show. "It was funny. I loved it," said ACC student Amanda Nielsen. "I laughed so hard I cried!" Humor and good times were not the only reason Titus decided on doing Nunsense. · "I thought I could cast it really well from the area so that it would be a high quality show," Titus said. · And indeed, the cast did contain some of northeast Michigan's finest talent, in- cluding Marlo Chittick as Sis- ter Amnesia, Alisha Cole as Sister Hubert, Melissa Gleason as Sister Leo, and Mary Jo Scott as Sister Robert Anne. With help from choreog- rapher Christine Giordano, the cast started learning the dance routines in September. While the stage was filled with talent, so was backstage, where many people worked hard building and painting the sets and doing lights and sound. ACC student Chris Tho- . mas helped paint the set.Tho- mas is also one of about 20 students who received a per- forming arts scholarship this year. "Working in the theatre is a great experience, especially _ for people who want to per- formin theater. You have to do more than just act in a show to knowwhattheater'sallabout," Thomas ·explained. He plans on . transfering to CMU next semester to study theater and vocal t;nusic education. Titus noted, "As our [per- Hooked on spiel-cheque worked four me forming arts] program grows, we're going to need more scholarship money. So far we've been able to support all our scholarship applicants." To qualify for a perform- ing arts scholar·ship, a student must present Titus and ACC's acting instructor Nan Hall with a portfolio detailing their past work in theater. They must also include recommendations. If Titus and Hall are unfamiliar with the student's work, the student may have to audition for the scholarship. Titus and Hall try to see · area high school plays as often as possible to watch for talent that might head to ACC after graduation. With more than 200 · people in attendance for most of the shows, and even a few shows that sold out, this year's fundraiser was a great success, Titus said. Eye halve a spelling chequer It came with my pea sea As soon as a mist take is maid It nose bee fore two long . l~a.. It planely marques four my revue Miss steaks eye kin knot sea Eye strike a key and type a word And weight four it two say Weather eye am wrong oar write It show.s me strait a weigh. ' And ~ye can put the error rite Its rare lee ever wrong. Eye have run this poem threw it I am shore your pleased two no Its letter perfect awl the weigh My chequ·er told me sew. Looking for a great place to eat? 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