Cheap Thrills

HAPPY HEARTS: On Saturday, April 19, the American Heart Association fires up its fifth-annual Festival de Salud. The gathering includes more than 50 cardiovascular-minded organizations dishing up healthcare tips, cholesterol and blood pressure tests.

Free event runs from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Kennedy Park Fiesta Area, 3700 S. Mission Road. For details, call 795-1403.

ENEMY WITHIN: It was conceived as a dark hit against the fervent anti-communism of the '50s, but could just as easily be used to attack America's current war on drugs, or any other cyclical hysteria gripping this society. Indeed, Arthur Miller himself claimed The Crucible was "more than a period piece."

Still, small minds during the post-war witch hunt failed to grasp the point, as Miller was dragged before the House Un-American Activities Committee by its chief psychopath, Senator Joseph McCarthy. Miller refused to testify, and paid for his irreverence by being officially labeled a pinko.

The Crucible supplants McCarthy with the Salem Witch Trials of 1692: As Reverend Parris prays over his sick daughter, Betty, his niece Abigail enters with another young girl, and haunting news that the doctor "cannot discover no medicine for it...he bid me tell you, that you might look to unnatural things for the cause of it."

The man's suspicions are thus piqued, but curiosity turns to serious paranoia when Abigail reports rumors of witchcraft in town, and then happens to mention a little episode of nude, adolescent writhing in yonder glade. Considering the growing crowd in his parlor, Parris ponders his dilemma. "What shall I say to them?" he snapped. "That my niece and my daughter I discovered dancing like heathens in the forest?"

Guess so, Abigail replies, adding that it was just a little hormonally enhanced "sport." And you know the rest of the story.

Students of the Desert Christian High School tackle such timeless human foibles with their production of The Crucible. Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, April 17 through 19, with a 2:30 Saturday matinee, in the TCC Leo Rich Theater, 260 S. Church Ave. Tickets are $8, $6 for the matinee, and available by calling 298-5817.

OLD TOWN: The UA keeps invading its surrounding environs like a merciless tumor run amok, and yet residents of the historic West University Neighborhood keep hanging on to their sense of community through gritty tenacity, hard-nosed politicking, and downright hard work. And they've more or less succeeded, a small army of pimple-faced frat boys notwithstanding.

This Sunday, they offer the rest of Tucson a peek into their world, as the neighbors open their quaint doors for the 17th-annual Historic Home Tour. The pilgrimage begins at the Historic YWCA, 738 N. Fifth Ave., and proceeds to more than a dozen old dwellings and buildings.

Tour runs from noon until 5 p.m. Sunday, April 20. Advance tickets are $5, available through many downtown-area merchants. Tickets are $6 the day of the tour. For details, call 624-9272. TW

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