Further Mention

The Dartmouth Professor of English and Director of the Dartmouth Experimental Theatre, Henry B. Williams, has written the preface to The American Theatre: A Sum ofits Parts, a collection of 17 addresses expressly prepared for a symposium, "The American Theatre—A Cultural Process," at the first American College Theatre Festival held in Washington in 1969 and directed by Mr. Williams. The Symposium lasted five days. The 17 papers, concerned with the American Theatre from its beginnings to the present, were discussed not only by their authoritative authors and a corps of equally knowledgeable discussant-critics but also by the audience interjecting their own views, questions, and comments. As a result of such challenges the original papers underwent considerable revision before appearing at the office of the publisher, Samuel French, Inc.

The Symposium proved the truth of the ancient French proverb Plus ca change, plusc'est la tnetne chose. Mr. Williams spells it out, "The American Theatre does indeed remain much the same ... and Americans are Americans whether they were living in the 18th century of the Eastern seaboard colonies or are performing in our theatre today. Parallels recur throughout our theatrical history and, do what we will, we cannot avoid our national ways."

A 40-page essay "Repertory to Residuals: Acting, 1900-1969" was read by Alan Hewitt '34, the professional actor who has appeared on Broadway in Call Me Madam with Ethel Merman, Ondine with Audrey Hepburn, and two Pulitzer Prize plays, Idiot's Delight and Death of a Salesman. According to Mr. Hewitt, the 20's and the 30's offered the best theatre the United States has known and the most memorable acting because playwrights could produce a new play almost every season; some, two; three for Maxwell Anderson. He extols the brilliant actresses of those two decades: Lynn Fontanne, Ina Claire, Jane Cowl, Helen Hayes, Katherine Cornell, Ethel Barrymore, Pauline Lord, Grace George, Laurette Taylor, Judith Anderson, Alice Brady, Ruth Gordon, and the young Katherine Hepburn. And he gets a rise out of his friends by stating that the late 20's and early 30's had only three topnotch actors appearing regularly on the New York stage: Leslie Howard and Philip Merivale (both British trained) and Alfred Lunt.

Mr. Hewitt would have Dartmouth students thinking of a theatrical career talk to music and dance majors. Only after years of study in the basic vocabulary and techniques of music and dancing, only after daily practice, only after incessant attempts to mature and improve do they dare to hope for success.

"Mr. [Richard] Sheldon is to be commended for his skill in translating a work of remarkable interest and importance." Such was the praise of the National Book Awards Policy Committee citing "for singular distinction" the Dartmouth Associate Professor of Russian Language and Literature and Chairman of the Department. The book was Zoo Or Letters Not About Love by Viktor Shklovsky, an experimental novel, published originally in Berlin in 1923 when he was living there in exile. It has appeared in five Russian editions and been translated into French, German, and Italian. A writer and critic, Shklovsky, a pivotal figure in early twentieth-century Russian culture, fled to Berlin in 1923 to escape arrest for anti-Bolsheviki activities. Later, granted amnesty by the Soviet Government, he returned to Moscow where he still lives. A review of Zoo by Professor Sam Driver of Brown University was published in the May issue of the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine. The novel appeared under the auspices of the Cornell University Press, which also published Mr. Sheldon's earlier translation of A SentimentalJourney, also by Shklovsky.

In the summers of 1925, 1926, and 1927 Dartmouth Professor J. W. Goldthwait tramped the length of the St. Lawrence Valley to form a careful and penetrating analysis of the late-glacial events. He never published the results of his findings, incorporated in his own manuscript in 1933, because the Director of the Geological Survey of Canada wrote him, "I think that when we received your report 'Physiography of the St. Lawrence Region,' you were advised that publication would have to be deferred indefinitely. He concluded, "On the other hand, it holds information that should, if possible, be made available to geologists." Now nearly half a century later Professor Goldthwait's geological foresight and understanding of the glacial events of the St. Lawrence Lowland are being given prominence.

"... the observations and ideas expressed by Goldthwait have withstood well the challenges of more recent investigations and ... form a valuable contribution to our understanding of glacial and postglacial events," writes Y. O. Foster, Director of the Geological Survey of Canada. He points out that an interest in that region of Southern Quebec has existed from the early nineteenth century because late-glacial deposits strongly influenced the settlement and development of that region. "The current importance of information on water supply, foundation material, construction aggregates, and distribution of soils was the impetus behind a new detailed examination of the sediments and a reappraisal of older work in the light of more recent available data." And so under the auspices of the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, Canada, is printed Memoir 359 by J. R. Gadd '71, "Pleistocene Geology of the Central St. Lawrence Lowland with selected passages from an unpublished manuscript by J. W. Goldthwait." "In the thirty years since Goldthwait's day vastly improved detailed maps show better expression," writes his son, Professor Richard P. Goldthwait '33 of Ohio State University, in the introduction. "Techniques have changed so the advent of radiocarbon dating and pebble fabrics have solved some of the problems which perplexed my father. These events can now be fitted into a much more precise timetable of late-glacial chronology so that his contribution becomes even more significant."