CREDITS STAGE SUCCESS TO COLLEGE EXPERIENCE

"The production of "The Taming of the Shrew' in modern dress offers a wonderful chance for experimentation on the stage," declared Ralph Bunker, yesterday to a CRIMSON reporter. Mr. Bunker was formerly instructor in voice technique and public speaking here, and now is playing the part of Winkle in "Pickwick" at the Majestic Theatre.

"Of all Shakespeare's plays," he continued, "The Taming of the Shrew,' with its broad comedy and somewhat coarse wit, should lend itself best to presentation in modern dress. With this alteration, however, the psychology of the actors must completely change, for instead of acting in sweeping gestures and self conscious style which is always necessary in costume plays the players will have to change to the modern style of repression in which their actions must be cloaked behind a carefully cultivated finesse."

Lauds Professor Winter

Mr. Bunker, who, in his career as an actor, has always played in farcical roles, went on to compare amateur and professional acting. In recalling the time when he played in the first Harvard Dramatic Club presentation "The Land of Promise," in which he took the part of a starving Russian, he said: "As I look back at that time when I was still a Freshman, I realize that my natural tendency was to overact, to keep moving constantly, thus detracting from my own effectiveness as well as that of others. This overacting, as compared with the repressed playing which is necesary in the usual modern stage productions, charactizes the differences between amateur and professional work. By this, however, I do not mean to cast a slur on college training, for I can say without reservations that any position I may hold in dramatic circles is due to my work under Professor I. L. Winter '86. For training in acting, voice technique, public speaking, and interpretation of literature, he is unrivaled."

Tone of Stage Rising

"The whole stage," Mr. Bunker continued, "has been completely altered in the last few years by the influx of college graduates. English producers have a large number of highly trained actors to oraw from who have completed their education before taking up the stage. It has not been thus in the United States, however, until recently, but the steadily rising number of college men and women who have chosen acting as their profession has raised the general tone of the American drama."