One Knight's Stand

"Oooh," squealed the girl behind me, "Is that Daria up there? She looks just like a monk!" Daria was onstage looking like a monk because she was dressed like a monk, and about fifty other girls surrounded her dressed like monks and witches and jesters and knights, and some were even dressed like girls. Down in the pit there were more girls, playing piano, flute and trumpet. Off in a corner, hiding behind a bass and a drum set, were the two lone boys in the production, vastly outnumbered and probably terrified. The Wellesley Junior Show, a combination of a female Hasty Pudding show and a summer camp skit, was going strong.

The Show is the way each year's Junior class asserts itself. Produced through the protective anonymity of committees, it can even dare to tell clean dirty jokes. Mostly it allows a lot of girls to run around a stage engagingly for two hours and amuse alumnae and dates.

This year's show had a medieval setting, hardly original but workable enough. One Knight's Stand concerned a schlemiel of a knight named Weritas (hmmph!), who was seeking the hand of fair Tupel' Aura. Her sisters advise against the union because of Weritas' ineptitude, and a group of witches object for totally obscure reasons. The plot was flimsy, but generally unobtrusive. In the second act however, the girls tried to interject a peace "message" concerning senseless bloodshed on the jousting field. They would have had to underplay it far more than they did for it not to seem out of place in an essentially frivolous show.

No one really bothered about the plot, though; it served mainly as an excuse for the gags and production numbers. There were two main types of gags--in-jokes and out-jokes. And there were two types of in-jokes--in-in-jokes and out-in-jokes. Now your average, knowledgeable Harvard man could get most of the out-in-jokes (those concerning "Operation Snatch," or the speed of "Prince Tun's tiger"), but with in-in-jokes he was at a loss.

Apparently, every Wellesley class has a class color, and a class motto, and a class racing shell (for use on Tree Day, but that's another story), and a class tree, and a class flower, and probably a class ice cream flavor. Everyone at Wellesley is expected to know these things, and a girl would probably be put on pro if she didn't collapse with laughter at the mention of lemon juice or larch bark. All of which is a bit puzzling to an outsider.

But there are ways to overcome the problem. Take the laughter of the audience. For a good out-joke ("Sure we have the right of free speech, we just don't have anything to say.") everyone laughs in unison. In-joke laughter is different. First there's a high peal of feminine laughter. Then that dies down while the girls turn to explain to their dates what's so funny. Finally a low grunt of masculine approval rings in and then everyone shuts up for the next joke.

Whenever the jokes, out and in, started wearing thin, a production number bounced onstage. The music was infectious, the staging deft, and the singing bearable. The Choreography Committee had a sense of humor. The tunes were surprisingly good, and even if some were stolen, they were stolen with taste, the same way Anthony Newly does it. Arrangements a la The Fantasticks and chord progressions from jazz standards can't be all bad.

Some of the production numbers were a bit hackneyed. Witches have swarmed around pots on summer camp stages for years. Rock 'n' roll numbers are sure-fire audience pleasers but are so cliched that my high school variety show gave them up last year, although the Pudding show didn't. There were more hits than misses in the Wellesley show (perhaps that should be rephrased), however, and a number called "Afternoon Party" was outstanding.

The production numbers featured colorful costumes, and played themselves against well-lit sets that, if slightly hectic, were attractive in design. I could have sworn they stole the tapestries and chandeliers for one scene from the Eliot House dining room, which says something for the authenticity of the show's medieval atmosphere.

The small orchestra had a jazzy instrumentation--trumpet, flutes, pianos and rhythm--and was by far the most satisfactory arrangement for a show of this kind that I've heard in a long time. During intermission they were swinging along marvelously though no one listened.

There is no acting in amateur variety shows, only showing off. But some people deserve to be shown off. Notable in this production for one reason or another were a twitchy witch named Tarantula (Betsy Gesmer) who moved better than she talked, a sweet young thing named Hollyhock played by Polly Gambrill, a Squire (Susan Levin) who thought she was Marryin' Sam, a Bard (Sue Harmon) who could sing, and a rock singer (and composer), Elaine Woo, who moved better than she sang.

When it was all over, and the reprises had all been sung, the cast yelled and the producer, the publicity manager, the chief choreographer, the director, and the chairman of the whole thing (Diane Sawyer), trooped onstage. The audience applauded, the cast cheered, and the four little old alumnae who had driven in from Lincoln and were sitting across the aisle from me began to cry.

You had to be a Wellesley girl to understand it all. Something like the Junior Show demands to be taken on its own terms. On its own terms it was pretty good. The Pudding Show should be so good. But of course, one must be fair. The Pudding people aren't Wellesley girls.