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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Wingham Advance-Times, 1984-07-11, Page 15leisure eatures and entertainment PREPARE FOR TAKEOFF—Soaring is a team sport from the ground up. A tow pilot,' a wing runner and a signaller -are needed justto get o'f the ground. And the ground is a good place to get, basic Serving over 24,000 homes in Listowel, Wingham, MoyritForest, Milverton, Ariss, Arthur, Drayton, Harriston, Moorefield, Palmerston, Bloomingdale, preslau, Conestogo, R,Imira, Heidelberg, Linwood, Maryhill, St. Clements, St- Jacobs, Wallenstein, Wellesley and West Montrose. Wednesday, July 11, 1984 Love's Labour's Lost A very pretty show by Ruth Tatham "The Campbells Are Coming, Yo Ho, Yo Ho, The Campbells Are Coming, Yo Ho." ... wasn't that a song of our child- hood? Setting aside Scottish history, the Campbells may be said to have come this year .. , to the Stratford Festival. Father Douglas Campbell is a veter- an. He has come and gone and come again. This year he joins his two sons on the'Festival Theatre's stage in "Love's Labour's Lost", in the small role off the illiterate, bumbling comic, Costard, the groom. It is a standard Shakespearean prat -fall comic role. Done quite profes- sionally. Elder son Benedict Campbell por- trays the King of Navarre, that rather naive scholar who in his youthful burst of enthusiasm enlists three friends to join him in a Three-year celibacy of academic effort. They sign a pledge, al- though one of them signs it only unwill- ingly and after scoffing a lot — a pledge to have nothing to do with women, not . even by speech, during their three years of reading and study. Such a promise taunts them at once. They had forgotten that the daughter of the King of France was even then on her journey toward their royal court, to. discuss businessor whatever (1 must say that I have never found out exactly why she did come ... perhaps merely to get a husband). She comes, with three instruction on how to glide. gorgeous friends in tow, and the young king and •his three student friends all fall in love at once, conveniently pick- ing a different girl for each. Then the subterfuge starts. Each young man tries to sneak a love -letter, and later a gift, to the object of his af- fection without the others knowing, and thug\ acusing him of being the only one to break the vow. ' In all such plots, there, is a , leader, usually 'acknowledged by both the stage roles and the audience. The nobleman Berowne is the leader here. Shake- speare gave him. the best lines and the Vi`21st" itotentictitSftit tirariiatie•• cleveltip-` ment of character. Joseph Ziegler plays him in this sum- mer's production of "Love's Labour's Lost" (and -he played the same role last summer when the Third Stage offered us this play very beautifully 'with the company of young actors), and he plays him excellently. He makes Berowne humorous, intelligent, handsome both outside and inside, and certainly the strongest of the young men .and the most colorful. TOUCH-DOWN—An experienced pilot can land a glider so smoothly that Beside Mr. Ziegler's Berowne, Bene - touching the ground is hardly noticeable to those new to the sport. dict Campbell's king is a pallid,' insipid nonentity. Admittedly, the .playwright didn't give the king much of any impor- tance' to say or do. -At least he melds into the Russian Cossack garb and ac- cent without distinguishing himself as a king or anything else! The third Campbell is little Torquil, the younger of Douglas Campbell's act- .ences. ing sons. He p.rtrays the too -bright and All in all, like most of Shakespeare's far -too -mouthy,/ "age, Moth. Torquil comedies,• "Love's Labour's Lost" Campbell is cu' : ' .Tie is a fine little harps on the theme that a11•life is better actor — by far the most significant of with adults married off in couples .. . the Campbells who came. Unfortunate- even if it is mostly contrived. Avery ly, his voice is still far too high-pitched pretty show to watch. AEROTOW—There are several ways to launch a sailplane, but the preferred. method for the York Soaring Association is to use aerotowing. A towplane normally takes a glider to a height of about 2,000 feet before releasing it. GIidIng.:-the new dimen,sion �n �fl rnflying This promises to be quite a ride, my queasy stomach tells me. There's a myriad of safety belts around me, the tow -line from the plane won't fasten properly, and the in- strument panel in front of me is a lot more complicated than that in my car. My first few minutes in the cockpit of a glider amount to total confusion and despair, all on my part. "We're in a Schweitzer 232, the " Cadillac of sailplanes," reassures my pilot, introducing .himself as Art Schubert. I ask him how long he has flown, and he reassures me some more by stating "Since 1972". limmmm, 12 years. i like the sound of that. He was introduced to it in England' and has loved it ever since, he remarks, because it's an individual sport once you're alone in the wild blue, and it's exciting. My hopes soar for, safe trip in this motorless aircraft, but come to a crashing halt when I see that problems with the tow -line continue. "It 'happens — nothing to 'worry about,' we'll get it," says Art. giving instructions to fellow pilots, now •the ground crew for his flight and mine. 1 feel more confident. My trusted• and experienced pilot is going to get me off the ground without any problems. After all, he's in here too. Culp. My greatest fears turn out to be unwarranted. Suddenly the towplane moves', and moments later, we glide easily off the strip, located about seven miles east of. Arthur in West Garafraxa Township, the airfield of the York Soaring Association. • ) by Maurice Pifher It is bumpy at first, but these are only slight, and only because we are still close to the ground, says Art, 'sitting in the seat behind me. He is explaining what he is doing,' as training gears in front and beside me move this way and that under his sure hand. At 1,000 feet, we turn to the right, and -at 2,000 feet. it's my job to pull the lever .in front of me to release the towline. I do so and suddenly the sailplane sails alone, so smoothly and quietly that the, sensation is not of fear. but of pleasure. The only sound 'is of wind, on this day a wind whith is not well-suited to good soaring conditions. 1 am amazed that after five minutes from .tow release, we have not dropped a foot in altitude. This is a glider having what is known as a 3211 ratio, meaning it goes forward :12 feet for every foot it drops. Art tells me the glider descends about 200 feet a minute, but under the current conditions and with his control. we are maintaining altitude. -We're defying the laws of nature a bit," .he remarks of our progress thus far, and i think with surprise since nearly all the association members here today were disappointed at the soaring conditions. A sunny day with white, puffy clouds provides the hest conditions, for warm air currents under those clouds are for the .glider a sort of energizer. known as thermal lifts, a, phenomena that is in- visible bliss to the pilot.. "Spring has sprung, the gliders riz, To search out where the thermals is," it is stated in the association newsletter. The art of soaring involves finding these uplifting currents of air. Height gains can be made by circling within thermals which are caused by uneven solar heating of the ground. On a sunny clay, a glider can go up 300 to 400 feet a minute, 'says .Art. ' Suddenly our ship falls a bit, and Art turns to go under a Acloud, to try and regain lost altitude'. We are steady for a minute or two, then slowly we go down. At 1,000 feet, Say's Art, a pilot locks for the landing location, then begins a circuit, We have been travelling at about 55 to 60 m.p.h. all along, although it seemed we were merely floating without motion. But at 500 feet, we reach 65 m.p.h. The spoilers in the wings go up as we go in for landing, and like brakes, we slow considerably and drop "like a brick" accordig to Art. 1 don't even feel touchdown as the single, small wheel 'finds earth again. and it is only slightly bumpy as Art Parks the long -winged craft. • "We were up 21 minutes," he notes after glancing at his watch and recording his time. "Twelve minutes up, means you didn't -do anything right and you didn't do anything wrong. "Twenty-one minutes means we did something right." Correct that, Art. YOU did every- thing right. under less than favorable conditions. • it's not hard to become an easy convert to.what the association and its members describe as "Flying in its finest form". Jerry Dempsey of Etobicoke was a pilot who took up gliding because he wanted to add to his flying experiences. "It's very challenging," he says of the sport, "and it's relatively affordable." He compares it to boating in cost and says it amounts to from 16 to 23 cents per minute. - Fred Schnell of Toronto, formerly of Germany, once got to a height of 31,000 feet in his craft. "It's an eerie feeling," is how he remember that level of ascent. Eerier still is the height reached by, Walter Chmela, 41,000 feet, a Canadian record for single'seat gliders (the it American record is 46,267 feet while another pilot has stayed aloft in a• sailplane for as long as 56 hours i. It's not hard then to understand why Wa Iter `I is president of the York Association, as well as its founder,. in 1961. The York club, made up of over 9 members mostly from Toronto an area, is one of 16 making up the Ontari Soaring Society. The society is working to • develop a youth program and i encouraging inter -club cross-country flights, „as well as competitions, since these canihelp popularize the sport, Membership in the York association now costs $250 per year for an adult, less for additional family members. A tow to 2 000 feet is priced at $7.50, cheaper if early in the day. As enthusiasts indicate, soaring simply offers another dimension in .aviation. for the highly -significant speeches of Moth. It is not enough to see Moth. The audience must hear Moth. What he says is witty, saucy, and dramatically im- portant. And from the best seats in the balcony, neither of us could hear more than snatches of what Torquil Campbell was saying. The diction seemed all right, but the voice was far too treble to project. Per- haps the answer is to give this boy a lot of acting experience with a minimum of speaking parts until his voice has changed and he has learned to project the new voice without straining it. His treble solo was lovely, the pure sweet treble that only a boy soprano can achieve • .. but his speaking mice was also a pure sweet treble, with no real words. The four young ladies were beautiful, and were a feast for the viewer, dressed %in John Pennoyer's gorgeous Edward- ian gowns. However, only Rosaline (Rosemary Dunsmore) was in the, slightest vivacious. The two minor roles may be pardoned, they were given no- thing much to do. The Princess of France as portrayed by Maria Ricossa had nothing outstanding at all, rather like blanc mange pudding substance, quite pleasant to look at, but leaving no pleasure ormemory behind. Richard Monette has shown tremen- dous talent in some past roles. How- . ever, Boyet, the silly courtesan, is sim- ply not meaty enough for him. He does what he' can with it, but it is too little a role for him. Maybe these L.L.L. nights could be termed his ""dramatic nights off". " John Neville is. brave as the totally - affected Spaniard, de Armado, and • Nicholas Pennell is delightful 'as the schoolmaster, Holofernes. Both' parts have a certain expected stereotype of lewdity, which is portrayed here. Both allow for heroic bursts of acting and both are given this way, Both maipage to warm tis into-sjpathy flit the color- ful poor, the pedantic fools. - Diego Matamoros is displaying an in- creasing ability to play small comic roles 'of strange chaps who make hu- man existence a farce. He is the car- toon of humanity. In this play'; he joins the Spaniard and the schoolteacher in making a great sport of the proud con- querors —the•Nine Worthies. -• Mr. Matamoros' demonstration of the wimpy, other -worldly clergyman is an accurate portrayal of some clergy I've . seen over the years, but may (justifi- ably! ) ustifiably!) annoy some clergy who fear we will all think this is typical. It is not. This simpering, pedantic fool is no more typical of the clergy than is Bill • Sykes (of Oliver Twist fame) typical of all • Englishmen. We hope Mr. Matamoros can go on enlarging his tal- ent and sharing it with Stratford audi- LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST—Colm Feore as Longaville- and Heather MacDonald as Maria appear in this year's handsome proddction ,of "Love's Labour's Lost" at Stratford's Festival Theatre. The play, directed by Michael Langham, is designed by John Pennoyer. (Photo by David Cooper) 1a