EATING AND ACTING

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

The present synthesis of eating and acting which prevails in many houses means that the student is forced to eat his meals in specially crowded conditions surrounded by unpainted stages and ugly sets. The situation in Lowell House is, I believe, typical. Normally the House dining room can seat 235 people at a time. There ae 448 paying boarders in Lowell so that when one adds to this number the commuters, inter-house students and tutors who also eat in the House the dining room is quite crowded. The dining hall is now blessed with a large wooden stage, numerous sets, stage lights, and wires. These objects, laid down in preparation for the Lowell House opera-necessitate a reduction of from fifteen to twenty chairs and a squeezing together of the remaining tables and chairs. Finally, the Freshman are now visiting the House dining halls and Lowell has been the most frequented house.

Surely the crowded seating and ugly surroundings are a far cry from President Lowell's orginal vision of the house dining halls as centers of social and intellectual intercourse in an atmosphere of gracious living. Some would say that the lamentable condition in the house dining halls is a necessary sacrifice for the furthering of the house drama. A dining hall, however, is basically a place in which to eat. House drama groups should not be allowed to disrupt dining hall life except immediately before and during their performances. Better planning would lighten the load on the already severely taxed "gracious liver". William H. Nickerson '61