Principally a Policy

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

To the Editor of the CRIMSON:

The Harvard Dramatic Club has had the misfortune to be denied the right to a Policy by yesterday's CRIMSON. Hereafter it is to drift on the sea of available plays without a rudder, governed in its choice of a production now by its set-designers, now by its stage crew, chiefly by chance. Apparently it may have no lasting standards or continuity of purpose, but must be reborn for each performance.

The reason for this deprivation is based on the solid ground that novelty-chasing is an evil; but how this applies to the most recent achievements of the Club, plays by such conventional authors as John Galsworthy and A. A. Milne, is not explained. The CRIMSON further allows that "by avoiding musical comedy or the re-hashing of box-office successes, the Dramatic Club escapes the stigma" of producing "amateur theatricals;" at the same time, however, the editorial ventures that a "Liliom" would not be amiss. The conclusion would seem to be that principles are all very well, so long as nobody applies them: that the Dramatic Club may have principles, but that it must avoid a Policy

A more coherent view would be that the Club should govern its choice of plays by an aim to contribute to the Theater; that this end may be obtained by acting pieces never before produced in America; and that when no such plays of outstanding merit are to be had, a revival of a play of another century may often present to contemporary Drama a note which it sadly lacks. The Club may offer a play produced in another century, just as it undertakes plays produced in another country: in both cases American Drama may benefit by the experiment, and the Harvard Dramatic Club may justify its existence. Henry C. Friend '31.