Season's Opening

The report of faculty action on a new theatre is bound to raise some false expectations and stir up much speculation on what is a very complicated problem.

After Harvard lost its theatre group in 1925, all attempts by students to revive the study of drama ran into opposition from the University partly on the grounds that drama was too practical and technical a study for a college curriculum. That argument, however, has become less powerful in recent years, and the grates block to construction of a theatre became the common block--lack of money.

That block presumably still stands, and will need something far more drastic than a faculty committee investigation to remove it. Construction of a theatre is not near the top of the University's priority list of expensive projects, and the items above it--scholarships and General Education, for instance--are not ones to be easily displaced. Therefore the only way the theatre at Harvard can become a reality is for an interested group (of students or faculty) to stir up interest among theatrical alumni and get them to provide the money for a theatre.

Because of the unique and elaborate construction required for a theatre, it would be hard to merge the project with the construction of new classroom buildings. The General Education lecture hall, announced last fall, will be able to fulfill auditorium functions for visiting speakers, but does not solve the problem of local dramatic groups or classes.

Another problem to be reckoned with in the present situation is the Government ban on construction of recreation buildings. Even if it were possible to tie the theatre to educational purposes, and thus evade the ban, there would still remain the restrictions on use of copper tubing and other strategic materials, which are beginning to hold up all kinds of new construction.

Finally, there is the question of whether any new construction will be feasible, or even possible, for the University in the next few years. If the draft bites heavily into College enrollment over the summer, many projects will probably have to be reconsidered, and it is unlikely that a theatre could survive a general retrenchment. But whatever happens, drama enthusiasts here have little prospect of an early solution to their difficulties.