Breaks From Tradition

Some English 70 veterans doubtless remember Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton's dark and dour New England novel whose poetry lies in the starkness of its prose and of the events that torture its three main characters. The same people might have looked askance at the posters that said Ethan Frome was going up at the Ex. How do you dramatize a book like that? "You do think of it as something to read, not see," allows producer Dorothea Hanson.

But Frome is going up this weekend, the first of the Ex's six shows. The adaptation (by Donald and Owen Davis) is little-known, though it was successful on Broadway in the 1930s and again on a rief tour in the '70s But while those productions demanded an elaborate naturalistic set--not the Ex's style, to be sure--director Bill Rausch is exploring the effects of gray paint and suspended bare trees (borrowed from the Harvard Forest) to create the "cold, stagnant environment where nothing ever changes"--the one usually associated with Wharton's spare style.

Though the plot centers entirely on Ethan (Jamie Hanes), his wife Zeena (Nela Wagman) and his beautiful young cousin Mattie (Jeannie Affelder), a swarm of extras descends for an occasional church social or village scene, relieving a set done entirely in shades of gray.

Playing New Roles

As the season advances, some long-standing patterns are about to be broken: the Hasty Pudding Theatricals will get serious, and the Gilbert and Sullivan Players, for the space of two performances, will go professional.

At the Pudding, the fall show (a fairly recent phenomenon in itself) is Winterspell. an original student-written musical based on the Nutcracker fable, and the first "straight" production the group has done in years.

Andrew Sellon, who wrote the book and lyrics for the show, and Micheal Scubert, who composed the music, are familiar as the composer-writer team of A Little Knife Music, the Pudding show of two years ago. They describe their current opus as a mix "of the Romantic and the fantastic," set in Victorian times, and contend that, though some humor keeps it from breaking entirely out of the Pudding mold, the show has "much more than that going for it."

The Theatricals, who are independent of the Hasty Pudding Club whose building they use, are untouched by the Club's financial worries. Winterspell has a $3500 budget and a staff anchored by professionals, including director Michael Percival, choreographer Hanet Canforth, and two Equity actors in lead roles.

Professional leads will join another Harvard chorus this weekend as the Harvard Gilbert and Sullivan Society sings as chorus to the London Savoyards, a prestigious G&S ensemble on tour from England. After a Friday night engagement in Worcester, the Savoyards will descend on Sanders Theater (or theatre, depending on your loyalties) to perform selections from eight different operettas.

Though "any good school chorus would have done," according to John Parker Murdoch, director of the tour-sponsoring International Artists Series, he expresses pleasure at Harvard's "strong Gilbert and Sullivan tradition." The Harvard G & S singers till now have performed only inside the college or for patrons; the Savoyard encounter will mark their first big public engagement, says a group member.

Odds and Ends

The musical "Purlie" is casting this week, joining "Slow Dance on the Killing Ground" as one of two shows co-sponsored by Leverett House and Black C.A.S.T.....Also joining the fall lineup is The Crucible. going up at South House.....The Loeb will be hawking its new season tichet--Threepenny Opera and Twelfth Night for $4.00--in House dining halls all this week.