Boards On The Carpet

(Ed. Note-The Crimson does not necessarily endorse opinions expressed in printed communications. No attention will be paid to anonymous letters but under special conditions, at the request of the writer, names will be with held.)

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

In view of the sad demise of the Dramatic Club's last effort, the general decline of the standard of that organization, and the concern over their impending production. I would like to call the undergraduate attention to the following excerpts from a Dramatic periodical, in an issue-some years past:

"Harvard University has outstripped all others in the direction of original student composition. While its series of revivals has been less remarkable than those of several other universities, its playwriting activity, under the unusually able direction of Georgo Pierce Baker, has been unique. Professor Baker offers a two-year course in dramatic composition, the personnel of the class being decided by a competition of original play manuscripts. In connection with the study of the composition and , the actual writing of plays, there has developed the 'Forty-seven Workshop' (which takes it name from the number of the course), a dramatic laboratory in which the students' plays are staged, and their faults practically demonstrated. Plays which are this found worthy of public production may be staged again by the Harvard Dramatic Club, which each year-offers one long play and three one-act plays by student authors. The productions of the 'Workshop' have ranged from pure pantomime to the deepest psychological studies, and a single Dramatic Club bill may include a verse drama and a modern social play. To the student of practical play writing, the value of such an experimental theatre as the 'Forty-seven Workshop' is immense."

The article goes on to point out the extremely fine work done by the University of California, (especially its English Club productions in the Greek Theatre) and the other progressive developments in universities. But the trend of thought was to show how Harvard was a pioneer, and to speak of the high standard which had been at the basis of the work.

Is it not a sorrowful reflection that is cast on the Dramatic Club, and on the University as a whole, that these words which were once so unanimously the sincere praise of critics seem now like the bitterest irony? Granted, the Club may have openly changed its policy, but I think that Harvard still might expect from this organization the continuance of a tradition which played no small part in the making of Harvard University. Even if circumstances brought about the loss of Professor Baker and his guiding hand, the work which he inspired might better have been encouraged, rather than have been abandoned for the ugliest possible commercialism. Roger Wilson '31.