The Experimental Theatre
Pioneer Work Started by Prof. E. Bradlee Watson '02, Twenty-Two Years Ago Has Borne Rich Creative Fruit
HE SAID, "If I could be an actor, if I could move an audience, if I could hear them applaud me, if I could live in the theatre, for the theatre, I'd give anything at all; I'd die happy."
He was a Dartmouth undergraduate then, and he said this to me many years ago. He was fat and far from handsome; he was clumsy in movement and bearingin fact, he looked like a bear. His voice was weak and not pleasant; his personality was agreeable but lacked fire. We both knew he could never be an actor. The last I heard of him he was a successful politician in his home state.
But before he left Dartmouth, he had been an actor; he had moved an audience and been applauded—and in a play he had written himself. Perhaps it was not a very great or important play; perhaps the audience was moved more by good will than by admiration; but it gave him his moment—the moment when his dream came true.
Even if the educators don't say so, colleges exist to make dreams come true, even the dreams of the stage-struck. This boy's dream came true through Dartmouth's Experimental Theatre.
This Theatre is itself a dream come true, the dream of Prof. E. Bradlee Watson '02. As teacher of the course in playwriting, he saw that the only way he could make what his students wrote come fully alive to them was by providing them with a theatre. Playwriting as a separate course began in 1926, and in December of that year Professor Watson sent a questionnaire to members of the faculty, townspeople, and selected undergraduates, asking whether they would support an Experimental Theatre. Support did not mean money-the Experimental Theatre has almost never charged admission fees. Support meant work for the Theatre, as by acting, or in the stage crew, or property crew, or light crew. If none of these was possible, support meant participation by helping the playwrights and production through attendance and criticism. The aim then, in 1926, was to make the Experimental Theatre a combined college-community undertaking, and to provide a testing-place for undergraduate plays at the same time.
Enough people responded enthusiastically to the questionnaire to justify Mr. Watson's launching the Theatre, and its first performance took place in February 1927. (Later that year Lindbergh flew the Atlantic, and still later most of the College dug White River Junction out from under the mud left by the worst flood in a century.) Plays by T. G. Schwartz '28 and R. B. Williams '27 were offered, along with a danced interpretation of the 143rd Psalm to music arranged for the occasion. The plays were quite different, one a smart comedy, the other in tragic mood. Every one felt that the Experimental Theatre was well launched. And when, the following June, three more undergraduatewritten plays were produced, by Thomas Donovan 'go, by Curtis Wright Jr. '27, and again by T. G. Schwartz '28, with the same success and the same appreciative response from the audience, the Experimental Theatre could be said to have established itself.
The criticism the invited audience was asked to write was helped by a form distributed at the performance. On this form such questions were asked as: Did you enjoy the show? Mention merits and defects of these works as plays. Comment on acting, on staging. Did the scene design contribute? This form had to be filled out and returned to the Experimental Theatre if the spectator wished to be retained as a member. This requirement for membership in the Experimental Theatre is retained to this day.
But other features of the Experimental Theatre have changed as the years have passed. In 1929 the course in play production, taught ever since by Warner Bentley, director of the Players, was set up. At that time Experimental Theatre production work became the responsibility of the members of that course, and members of the community no longer had to hunt up props or prepare costumes. But of course female acting parts were and are filled from among members of the community. That same year Mrs. Newton A. Frost of Hanover offered for the first time the Eleanor Frost Prizes for undergraduate playwriting. These amounted to $100 for the best, 525 for the second, and SlO for the third, , and by their generosity have provided great stimulus to undergraduate playwrights. They are awarded only after production.
But the Experimental Theatre has not confined itself to producing undergraduate plays. Since. it has always been exempt from the requirement the Dartmouth Players must try to meet, that their plays should draw a paying audience if possible, the Experimental Theatre has been able to present plays from dramatic literature which were not "box-office." For instance, in 1928 the Experimental Theatre presented for the first time in America ThePipe in the Fields, by T. C. Murray, the distinguished Irish playwright. Later that same year Professor Watson directed for the Experimental Theatre a memorable presentation in the Elizabethan manner of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.
In February 1932 the Experimental Theatre and the Players combined to sponsor the first of the Inter-fraternity Play Contests, which have since, except for the war years, been a regular feature of the winter theatrical season ~"in Hanover, though they are now sponsored by the Players exclusively. And in May 1932 the Players gave Part I of Shakespeare's KingHenry IV, with Professor Watson as FalstafE, a performance which no one who saw it will forget.
The great days of the Experimental Theatre came in the late thirties and until the war. In the fall of 1935 the Players offered their first subscription season, by the terms of which subscribers to the Players were automatically part of the Experimental Theatre audience. This enlarged that audience so much that Experimental Theatre performances had to be given as many as three evenings, though one had been the rule hitherto. Beginning in '938-1939, the Experimental Theatre and the Players combined to offer five Players' productions and five Experimental Theatre productions during the college year, in addition to the Interfraternity Play Contests. That first year were given: Nichols and Browne's Wings overEurope; Moliere's Les Precieuses Ridicules; Marlowe's Dr. Faustus; Tyler's TheContrast, the earliest American play, as well as the usual undergraduate plays for 'he Frost Prizes, all under the sponsorship of the Experimental Theatre. That same year the Players presented Brother Rat,Ah Wilderness, You Can't Take It withYou, Prologue to Glory, and The Night ofJanuary 16th. This was surely generous theatrical fare.
This elaborate and rich program continued until the war forced the suspension of the Experimental Theatre in the spring of 1942. During this period a directorate, headed by Professor Watson, on which undergraduates were represented, chose the Experimental Theatre plays. Theodore Packard supervised the productions. To prepare the audience for what it was to see, the directorate sent each member of the audience a letter in advance of performance, describing the play and showing its place in dramatic literature. These letters were gratefully received by the members, and helped their criticism. When the Experimental Theatre resumed in November 1946, extended program notes took the place of the letters. Henry Williams, longtime technical director of the Players, has supervised productions of the Experimental Theatre since resumption, and will continue as director.
Since resumption, the Experimental Theatre has offered: in 1946-1947, Moliere's Tartuffe, and a bill of one-acts by R. B. Sheridan, J. M. Morton, and Russell Graves; in 1947-1948, Prof. John Finch's The Wanhope Building, Shakespeare's Much Adoe, and Vets' Village, by R. C. MacLeod '46; this year Racine's Athaliah and Kotzebue's Chaos in Krawinkle, all in addition to the annual bill of undergraduate plays for the Frost Prizes.
Among the alumni now concerned with the arts whose undergraduate plays have been produced by the Experimental Theatre are: Robert Ryan '32, now a leading Hollywood actor; Carlos Baker '32, a professor at Princeton; Nicholas B. Jacobson '35, playwright; A. E. ICahn '34, author; Harold J. Kennedy '35, theatrical producer; Maurice Rapf '35, screenwriter; Harry Ackerman '35, radio producer; Richard E. Lauterbach '35, magazine editor; Budd Schulberg '36, novelist; Ralph Hill '39, author; John Hess '39, magazine editor; John Kelleher '39, professor at Harvard. No doubt the postwar group of undergraduate playwrights will be as distinguished.
What kind of plays do undergraduates write? The easy—and true—answer is all kinds. Gangsters have shot it out on Experimental Theatre stages, and hoboes, convicts, reform-school boys, and prostitutes have made the audience uneasy with their rough manners and language. In tenderer mood, , little brothers have triumphed over big brothers, or ma ever pa. Well-dressed and sophisticated people, with money in their pockets, have talked their brittle and glittering epigrams to amuse the Experimental Theatre audience. Death, usually played by a tall gentleman in black, has stalked the stage, or perhaps stood statuesquely and hollowly upstage center. Business men, professors, boarding-house keepers, or the movies have been savagely mocked and derided. The evolution has been preached, and deep—sometimes too deep—philosophies have been expounded. The story of Cinderella, the loves of Romeo and Juliet, the fall of Adam and Eve, have been disguised and rewritten. At one time it has been the fashion to imitate Noel Coward, at another Saroyan, at another George Kaufman or Clifford Odets. But even if derivative or imitative, all the plays have been actors, audience.
In the early days an undergraduate would rarely attempt, and even more rarely complete, a full-length play. But since the war full-length plays have often been submitted for the Frost Prizes. Dollar Diplomacy, by Paul Newman '4.5, was produced by the Players for Spring House Parties in 1947. And Vets' Village, by R. C. MacLeod '46, after being presented by the Experimental Theatre, was also given by the Players at Commencement in 1948. A full-length play by F. D. Gilroy '50 is scheduled for performance this spring. Such plays represent remarkable achievements, and it is to be hoped that the trend they indicate will continue.
The Experimental Theatre has broughtto the College not only stimulus to undergraduate creation but also enlightenment and enrichment to the community. It has a noble record. And like all institutions it is the lengthened shadow of a man. When Professor Watson retires at the end of this year, he can take not least pride in the Experimental Theatre among his many other achievements. It reflects his energy, his ripe taste, his rich culture, his gift of leadership. He has earned the gratitude and admiration of his colleagues, hundreds of undergraduates, and the College.
FOUNDER AND LONG-TIME DIRECTOR AS FALSTAFF: Prof. E. Bradlee Watson managed to be actor as well as director for the Experimental Theatre in its early years. Those who saw "King Henry IV" in 193 have not forgotten Falstaff (shown above) as played by the popular English professor who retires in June.
ONE OF THE BEST REMEMBERED PRODUCTIONS of the Experimental Theatre is Moliere's "Les Precieuses Ridicules," shown above as it was given during the unusually varied dramatic season of 1938-39.
A FULL-LENGTH, STUDENT-WRITTEN PLAY, something unknown on the campus until recent years, was "Dollar Diplomacy" by Paul Newman '45. It was produced by The Players during the spring of 1947.
PROF. HENRY B. WILLIAMS, for many years associated with The Players as technical director, is the present director of the Experimental Theatre.
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH
