Off The Cuff -:-

You find all sorts of interesting things if you keep your eyes open. That's what people say, but eagle-eyed as I am, I never once found anything interesting until Monday afternoon, When I noticed a piece of a certain Housemaster's' stationery in a gutter. It was note admonishing an undergraduate for parking a car in a reserved space. "I have been put to a good deal of trouble," the note began, "and some expense, arrange for this reserved parking space. It is for the convenience of my wife, my guests, and myself."

Then there was a postscript, written in hand: "I have just telephoned your room. You are not out. So Mrs.(name tactfully omitted) will have to walk extra distance in the rain, thanks to your lack of consideration."

It also appears from the letter that the parking space was on Cambridge property, not on Harvard property. This make a fellow curious to know what sort o "trouble" and "expense" got the Master his reserved space. But who am I to complain:-

I don't own a car. Beside the space keeps the Master's wife from getting damp in bad weather And I'm sure all Harvard men will join me in cheering this news.

When Dean Bender was still Counsellor for Veterans back in the spring of 1946-- he "academic foxholes." He was thinking mainly of those veterans who wanted to rear through college, "making up for lost time," and consequently putting everything but grades far to the side. The other day somebody made a remark which I would like to pass on to Dean Bender, in case he is still worrying, as evidence that the era of the "academic foxhole" is pretty much gone.

The remark was this : "I want to be the very best C-student in Harvard College." This credo strikes me as representing fairly accurately a growing attitude in Harvard today. A man wants to learn something, but not too much; he wants to learn something, but not to hard; he wants to be the least gentlemanly of the gentleman C boys, but may the good Lord keep him from becoming a grind.

Twenty-three years ago Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart wrote a light romantic song called "Mountain Greenery." It became their first hit. It was--and still is--a striking tune, and there is something about its rhythm and temp that is characteristic of the dance tunes of the Twenties. So when Rodgers wrote, for "Allegro," a number that spoofed the collegiate concept of dancing in the Twenties, he decided to use the music of "Mountain Greenery" as his theme. Consequently, one of last winter's more popular theatrical wisecracks said that "Mountain Greenery" was the best song in "Allegro."

All of which I bring up not because the crack is funny, which it isn't but, because it gets at what seems to be the basic, ghastly faults in "Allegro"--faults that take a lot of the kick out of the show's occasional very brilliant scenes. These faults are, roughly, the righteousness of the plot and the resulting humorlessness of the Big Scenes. They are bad enough in themselves. What is worse, they give Richard Rodgers situations which require all the major songs to be so heavy and and serious that people leave the theater wishing there had been more bright songs--such as "Mountain Greenery,"

All of which I bring upto support a theory of mine that Oscar Hammerstein II ("Allegro's" Creator and Lyricist) has always been bad when he tries to say something deep, and always good when he lets his sense of humor creep in. And in line with this theory, all the scenes that most people appear to like best in "Allegro" are the lighter ones.

All of which I bring up because I want to mention that these lighter scenes are not merely amusing. Some of them put music, dance, and chanting choruses together in 'ways that open up the entire musical comedy medium to new and stunning developments.

All of which I bring up to stay that if you see the show, I'm sure you'll get what I'm driving at. I ought to add that unless you are willing to spend more than $1.20, which I wasn't, you will find yourself in the Opera House's second balcony, which is about as far from the Opera House's stage as you can get and still be in New England. The altitude is stimulating to the lungs, but the distance is hard on the naked eye.