SOPHOMORES SET A PRECEDENT

Originality, enthusiastically appreciated, reigned supreme at the Sophomore Play and "German" dinner in the Union last evening, the first affair of the kind in the history of the College. It was distinctly "1916's" evening, and the unmistakable evidence of class spirit was not the least important feature of the evening. The Living Room and the balcony were crowded to the doors. All the way from the "Sardellen-Broetchen" (half-course, not open to Freshmen) to the last fall of the blue-lettered "1916" curtain, it was a "strictly Sophomore performance," and within the same limits it was the most enjoyable evening yet experienced by that class.

President Lowell, declaring "Tonight I am a Sophomore," said that the art of life consists in being the same age all the time. Class dinners have become more agreeable and pleasant with each succeeding year. "I hope you will all come back to be Sophomores thirty-nine years hence; but you won't be half as pleased as I am that you want me to be among you tonight."

Review of Play.

A real live stage, with real lights and real scenery, with a real company of actors, so far as the men, at least, were concerned, converted the Living Room of the Union into a theatre last night, when the Sophomore class held forth. The show was called "The High Fliers."

When all is said and done, the mere undertaking deserves credit. In the short time allowed for rehearsals, the cast and orchestra managed to give a creditable performance. And the play had its own merits, while the music was an achievement almost throughout.

The story of the play has the material of a first rate farce, if one will only grant that fairy tales and farces make no demands of credence. The uncle of one student and the aunt of another arrive in Harvard square to reprove their respective relatives for debt and other misdemeanors. The aunt brings with her Jasmine, to whom her nephew had been engaged before he came to college. He is now in the meshes of one Phyllis, whom he would marry. The aunt, uncle, roommates, fiancees, Dramatic Club candidates with a property baby, and various others get into the usual farcical mix-up.

If one is to make the mistake of taking a farce, and moreover, a farce written for a single performance, seriously, it might be said that the witty lines had not been attached securely enough to the humorous situations, that the play was stopped now and then for the introduction of fun, which should not have been necessary in a play that was by definition, fun itself. But for all that, Mr. Reniers has invented several funny situations and has written more than one witty line, even if the wit smacked at times of the taste of the Restoration. The songs, however, were all fairly clever, and they were vitally connected with their context in the play. The music was excellent,--it had lilt, melody, and originality.

H. F. Weston's reproduction of the neo-Cheoptic architecture of Harvard square was a remarkably good bit of scene painting.

But the things that could happen in the open daylight of that Harvard square! Perhaps Dickey initiations took the edge off the strangeness of these events. Anyhow, reference has been made to fairy tales,--and this play may be allowed even greater license. Was it not a farce