With the Players
CARNIVAL is now another memory, and with it go the memories of another Players' hit. "The Chocolate Soldier," our Carnival show was indeed a success. Upwards of two thousand people left Webster Hall well pleased by the performances and the singing of the actors and choruses, as well as delighted by the colorful settings and costumes.
To Blake Johnson '37 go our honors for this show. Monday before Carnival, Blake, still recovering from a broken foot with a paster cast not then removed, stepped into the part of Massakroff. In the remaining four days he rounded out the humorous characterization to a perfection which brought down the house both nights. The other principals deserve the greatest of praise but I could not confine it to the scope of this column.
However, "The Chocolate Soldier" books are closed, and the cast has been selected for the Players' next presentation which will be a double feature program in Robinson Hall on the second to the fourth of March. The program consists of Irwin Shaw's recent play Bury the Dead, and Thornton Wilder's Happy Journey. Warner Bentley is already rehearsing with the casts, and Henry Williams is trying to figure out just how he will bury the dead on the Little Theatre stage.
Bury the Dead, a thrilling anti-war play, ran successfully on Broadway last season. Six men who are dead refuse to lie down in their graves in this rather grim play. How they embarrass the army, the church, and the newspapers is told vividly and strongly by a huge cast for a one-act play of over 25 people. In direct contrast to Burythe Dead, A Happy Journey is light and funny. It is one of the best modern one- act plays taking a common incident for its theme. A family going for a drive from Trenton to Camden drive about the stage in a most amusing manner. The play is done in interesting fashion, four chairs are placed on the stage by the stage manager as the scenery, and the action is all pantomime.
Meanwhile, out in the Players' room others are holding sway with the interfraternity play contest. The contest this year promises to be the best yet, as well as one of the big events of the fraternity year. Backed strongly by the Interfraternity Council, and urged by the new adviser to fraternities, Davis Jackson, twenty houses have entered the contest and are beginning to cast their shows.
For any of you who might chance to be in Hanover during the next few months the Players will be able to offer plenty for your spare moments. Drop up and see us.
