COCTEAU PLAY IS DRAMATIC CLUB'S FIRST SELECTION

For its fall production this year, the Dramatic Club has selected "La Machine Infernale" by the French playwright, Jean Cocteau. The play which was produced in Paris for the first time last spring, will reach the Cambridge stage before Christmas, probably on the fifteenth and sixteenth of December.

Tryouts will be held in Phillips Brooks House tomorrow and Friday afternoons from two to five o'clock. They are open to all undergraduates. After they have been completed, rehearsals will get underway immediately.

The play, which is based on the tragedy "Oedipus the King" by Sophocles gains modernity from the Freudian influence which is dominant in its construction. In the Greek play, Oedipus was sent away from home because it was predicted that he would kill his father and commit incest. Returning unexpectedly, he kills his father in ignorance of his identify, and marries his mother to become king. The play concerns the discovery of his position, and the retribution which overtakes him and his bride, Iocasta.

The chief change in the script is the insertion of the Sphinx on the stage to talk with the characters. Played by a young girl, she predicts the course of the action.

The announcement of the production is in line with the Club's policy to make at least one experiment each year in the line of drama. Last year the choice was "A Bride for the Unicorn" by Denis Johnston, a production which attracted wide interest.

The other play, selected by the Club last year, was a comedy "Ever The Twain" by Lennox Robinson.