A NEW
View

If you’re a worker living in
Toronto and can save five or six
bucks after the last tax whack,
take your wife to the ‘Nestor-

View from the Bridge now
showing at the Toronto Work-
ge here Theatre.
ur er’s play, perha

his best, is the he ek
New York longshoreman, Eddie,
who betrays his instinctive
sense of class justice and pride
because of his overwhelming
love for his niece, Catherine:
First his is a natural love for a
girl he has raised as his own
daughter, sacrificing, as so many
workers do, his own physical
and spiritual well-being in order
to lift her out of the poverty
and insecurity all too character-
istic of even today’s “affluent”
America. But his affection grows
tragically perverse as Eddie
tries to stop Catherine’s natural
desire to create her own life
with an illegal Sicillian immi-
grant, Rodolpho.

Vincent Gardenia, an Italian-
American actor, gives a magni-
ficent performance of Eddie;

BACK ISSUES WANTED
OF INFORMATION
BULLETIN

We are in short supply of back
issues: Prague edition (English)
1-9 incl. All other issues. Please
send copies not required collect.
We will exchange copies we have
in excess for needed ones. Send
to Progress Books, 487 Adelaide
St. W., Toronto 2-B.

Alpert Boston production of A - :

1. An early edition of the Houston
Chronicle for August 22, 1967,
carried the offer below:

agar

3. A week later, “FREE” turned
up squarely in South Viet Nam:

For your copy of this graphic guide
|] te Southeas! Asia send a stamped,
VIETHAM MAP-

_ Housipn, Texas 77002.

APRIL 13, 1968—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 10

captures Eddie’s pride, genero-
sity and the subtle growth of
his jealousy toward Rodolpho
(rationalized by his conviction
Rodolpho “ain’t right’? because
he sings and has blonde hair)
until it reaches a tremendous
climax of violent retribution in

. the final scene.

Sandra Seacat, as Beatrice,

: FLOATING FREEDOM

2. Apparently somebody noticed
that “FREE” lay in North Viet:
Nam, and it disappeared in a
later edition:

Keep informed on the criti-
cal Southeast Asia crisis. To
get your free map send a
stamped, self addressed
business size envelope to:

VIETNAM MAP

The Houston Chronicle
Heuston, Texes 77002

4. But ultimately (September 5),

it landed in Thailand:

is

FULL PAGE
COLOR MAP OF

VIETNAM

Keep up with the
war in Southeast Asia.
For your free copy of this
mop send o
stamped self-oddressed
business envelope to:
VIETNAM MAP
The Houston Chronicle
Heustes, Texes 77002

from the bridge

a

plays a less convincing role as
Eddie’s working-class wife
whose sexual and spiritual at-
traction is eroded by years of
confining household drudgery.
Her accent, even to an non-
Henry Higgins ear, is unnatural
and made me particularly un-
comfortable during the first
scene before the momentum of

the play involved my imagina-

tion. Marsha Frank in the diffi-
cult role of Catherine seemed a
little too stylized in projecting
girl-becoming-woman. Neverthe-
less I found the de-emphasizing
of her sexuality a tribute to
director Mitchell Nestor’s sensi-
tivity. ag

Special credits. go’ to Cone
stantine. Katsanos for’ his bril-
liant Marco, strong, proud Sicil-
lian “submarine” (illegal immi-
grant) who defies American law
with working class justice
Michael Ebert, as  Rodolpho,
played a little too close to Ed-
die’s image of him as a blonde-
haired, singing, dress-maker.
Butmaybe that’s my hang-up.

Nestor’s presentation of A
View from the Bridge would be
complimented more than the
opening night standing ovation
from Toronto’s “first nighters”
if several thousand Toronto
workers attended.

Charles Boylan

Remarkable

Canadian

Not by Gods but by People by

Catherine Vance (Progress
Books, $3.75 cloth, $1.00
paperback)

This small booklet gives a
brief overview of the life of a
rather remarkable Canadian
woman, Bella Hall Gauld. Born
in 1878 she came to maturity in
the stormy first years of this
century and lived to see the
world of the 1960s.

Growing up in. Brandon the
young Bella Hall. soon in life
discovered the problems of the
working class, and in the first
place, the immigrant workers.
A contemporary of J. S. Woods-
worth, she participated in pion-

Just as in olden times when
the social pace was a bit slow-
er, the social wit perhaps a
mite duller, and multi-philo-
sophies breaking through the
shell of ignorance, the “town
fool” or jester was a citizen
of considerable note.

His function was many-sid-
ed; to make adults and chil-
dren laugh — at themselves
and life around them; to give
audiences a draught of the dis-
tilled wit of the mass. To put
the “untouchables” of the day
—kings, prelates, politicians,
courtiers and kindred fry into
the public pillory of ridicule,
where their clowning could be
seen without their “dignified
robes” of office.

In general the town fool
had a man-sized job, doing all
that one man could to enrich
society by making it aware
of itself and its ingrained stu-
pidities — to the accompani-
ment of the happy laughter of
children.

As we know from our pri-
mary school books, the old
stuffed shirt Burghers of
Hamelin didn’t like tom-
foolery one little bit, but the
immortal “Pied Piper of Ha-
melin” (also the town fool) is
an imperishable reminder that
children did — and do. Even
grown-up children. Perhaps
the town fool with infinite
wisdom, had the idea that
when society gets to the point
of being able to laugh at it-
self — there is always a hope

- dt will change for the better,
especially when it can hear its
young people iaugh.

Anyhow Vancouver has a
town fool, self-appointed and
self-proclaimed, all complete
with : vari-colored coat, cap
and bells. And, most impor-
tant, the gift of an incisive

serves as a mirror for Vancou-
verites-to look at themselves
—and not always enjoy what
they see.

Around the courthouse area
Town Jester Joachim Foikis,
38-year-old university gradu-
ate in economics and theolo-
gy, has been working at the

’ job for some months now in
addition to his university
studies, and largely at his own
expense.

Some five months ago the
town fool made application to
City Council for an annual
grant of $4,000 to carry on
the job and meet his family
responsibilities. He has a wife
and two little children.

“What,” roared a bevy of
our high-salaried town fools
in chorus, “it’s preposterous.
Who ever heard of a civic ad-

| ministration squandering the

. stow a grant to town fool

wit and, philosophy _which-

taxpayers money to subsidizé
a fool?”

Who indeed? Probably at
every level of government in
Canada the average taxpaye!
could identify quite a number
of high-salaried political fools,
who even lack the gumption
to be funny. But Vancouver's |
“solid” citizenry, conditione
to regard all change not in
accord with their own arrest
ed development, as something
to be stamped on, gave out
with loud snort of approval
at city councils’ repudiation
of its town fool.

Then came the bombshell
which all but flattened Van-
couver’s affluent town jesters-
Just a few days ago the Can-
ada Council decision to be

Joachim Foikis to the extent
of $3,500 because he was mak-
ing“a serious contribution to
the self-awareness of the en-
tire community,” really blew
the lid. A local paper said
editorially that the Canada
Council“. . .might have done
better than $3,500, but that it
is better than the city coun
cil’s nothing.”

Never particularly famous”
for its choice of beneficiaries
upon which to lavish taxpay: |
ers dollars upon, when it doeS |
make a worthwhile choice the
Canada Council should put
away its cheese-paring knife
and:match its grant with its
decision on that which it de-
cides is worthwhile.

Our town fool, with his wife —
and two little children won't
get fat on $3,500 but he may
manage to provide that ima-
ginative mirror, so eloquently |
sought by Scotland’s ‘Bard in| _
order that we might “‘see our- ~
selves as others see us...”;
or.as Foikis puts it, “to de-
light children with rhymes | —
and ,riddles and to offend |
fools.” Needless to add we —
have plenty of both—grown
up ones.

Naturally the yowls of pro-
test anent the Canada Council
are loud and long. “The gov-
ernment has no money to
spend on people’s needs,”,
etc., etc., but plenty to spend
on fools. Excluding Vancou-
ver’s town fool from this
blanket disapproval, there’s
some truth in this protesting
blast. But revealed also is the
wide gap of misunderstand-
ing on the role of a town fool
by profession (ancient or mo-
dern) and those others, too
numerous to mention, whom
the accident of birth and so-
cial status mark as weisen-
heimers — but lack the phi-
losophical wisdom, merriment
and humanity of a town fool.

eer social welfare work.

She came east to become the
director of the first settlement
house, in Montreal. Then on to
New York where she studied at
the Rand School and had her
first taste of the working class
theories that she was to adopt
as her own.

Back to Montreal to found
along with others a Labor Col-
lege, become an activist in the
Communist Party and devote
her life to the fight to change
the world.

And her 83 years were ones
of intense activity. It is almost
impossible, obviously to span

working, class.

the space of 65 pages. As a re
sult there is a tendency to maké
Bella Hall Gauld a political sy™

bol, rather than the live, war™ |

humanist and communist that

she was. But there is no doub
that to those who knew her, this
booklet will bring a tear.

To those who did not it cal
such a long and fruitful life i
serve as a story (albeit abbre
viated and over simplified) of #
Canadian woman who made 4
rich and lasting contribution t0 .
her country and to the class —
with which she_ devoted hel
time, energy and talent, the

P.'