PLAYERS' AMBITIONS CONTINUE UPWARDS
DESPITE the serious setback suffered by Dartmouth drama over the summer, following that Hollywood incident, the Players have ambitious plans for making the 1939-1940 season as successful as the past season was. Warner Bentley is out to maintain the high standard set in production and box-office by the organization, and an extensive program is planned.
Graduation has taken many of the Players' best men, men like President Steve Bradley, Dick Shaw, Zeke Hill, Martin Howell, John Hess, Stan Beskind; and it seems not unlikely that this generation of Players members will speak of the class of '39 with admiration. The serious business of developing polished actors and talented technical men isn't much more important than the funny business of developing bellowing comics and pleasantly insane trolley-car-lovers to make the Players office, the Green Room and the rehearsal stage as happy places as they were last year. A whole new group of men must be found who can stride in shouting "GOOD morning!" who can imitate Professor Mecklin with such abandoned accuracy, who can ride such far-fetched fantasies along the perilous edge of silliness without falling over. Page Smith will still be here to be baited about his social-consciousness, Bud Hewitt is available as a butt for jovial insults, Al Eiseman's presidency hasn't made his sad eyes any the less sad, and Herbie Landsman will be back to bicker with Henry Williams after a year at the Sorbonne, so all comedy is not fled from the world.
As for the serious business, five major productions are planned, with modern and classical dramas to be mixed as much as possible. The proposed list in the current Players brochure issued to prospective season-subscribers has the usual run of light Broadway fluff-duff, but there is a leavening of good shows—thus you see The Philadelphia Story cheek-by-jowl with Sean O'Casey's The Plough and the Stars,Kiss the Boys Good-Bye listed above a Shakespearean play. Winterset, Idiot'sDelight, Anna Christie, What a Life, William Saroyan's My Heart's in the Highlands, Ibsen's The Master Builder, Stephen Vincent Benet's The Devil andDaniel Webster, Of Mice and Men,Golden Boy, Shaw's Captain Brassbound'sConversion, Our Town and Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard are all listed. As a matter of fact, the good shows are more than a leavening.
What with the war and all, though, there is a suspicion that people may not want to see very heavy drama, so the shows quite possibly may fall more on the light side than the list indicates. The Experimental Theatre plans five plays of distinction, with poetic and radical dramas such as The Ascent of F6 and Murder in theCathedral proposed.
Mr. Bentley told the reporter in some glee the other day that there are scads of women who can act in Hanover for this season, so one worry is eliminated. "We may have to do The Women," said Mr. Bentley, which would certainly establish some kind of a college record, anyway.
ALLIED ACTIVITIES
Don Cobleigh plans an active season with the Glee Club, including the annual vacation trips and concerts hereabouts; the Forensic Union, flushed from 25 or so debating victories last season, is prepared to out-talk anyone who happens by; the Handel Society, the Prokofieff Society, the College Band and all the others will begin functioning as soon as college opens.
From the English department comes word that Professor Pressey's script-writing course was highly successful in its first semester, culminating with the filming of a nine-minute silent quickie of dubious ancestry and petty budget whose highspot came when John Hess '39 (the villain) was tossed over Tuck Drive bridge after an arduous chase. An innovation this year will be a course in radio writing given by Professor Morse. The muse is going commercial.
