GREEK TRAGEDIES NOW READY

The Lillah McCarthy-Granville Barker management has completed its preparations for the performances of Gilbert Murray's translations of Euripides' "Ephigenia in Tauris" and "Trojan Women" to be given in the Stadium under the auspices of the English and Classical Departments next Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. The company has been rehearsing in armories in New York for the past few weeks, and on Monday the first out-door rehearsal was held in the Yale Bowl, in preparation for the opening performances to be given there on Saturday.

Mr. Claude Rains, Granville Barker's manager, who is handling the productions in the Stadium, when interviewed concerning the rehearsals, spoke very strongly of the difficult work involved. "In Mr. Barker's ideal school for acting," he said, "the actors would all be taught to fence, to ride, to wrestle, to run across country, to raise, lower, and modulate the voice for a period of at least four years. The feeling of colors, tones, and rhythms, melodies, harmonies, all that sort of thing would be developed in each student to the limit of his individual capacity. Physical perfection is, of course, essential to the actor."

In speaking further of the character of the plays, Mr. Rains said, "One of the most striking features of the plays is is that, though twenty-three centries old, they are essentially modern in their character--a fact brought out by "Trojan Women" which has been called the strongest plea against war ever written. It depicts the effect of war upon four women, Hecuba, Andromache, Helen, and Cassandra, who have had their homes destroyed and are being led away into captivity. The whole play is aimed as a protest against the conditions of strife in Greece due to the Peloponnesian War. It shows that Euripides and the other thinkers of his time could see the horror and misery of war behind its glamour and allurements, just as many men today are beginning to see. In other words the cycle of modern thought has swung around to where it was in Euripides' day."

Tickets for the productions ranging from fifty cents to $2 are on sale at Herrick's and the Columbia Graphaphone Company in Boston, and at the Co-operative. In case of rain on either of the days the performances will be postponed until the next fair day on which no performance is scheduled, and rain checks will be issued.