Subject to Fetes

Dartmouth seldom lets a birthday go by without figurative ruffles and flourishes. (Deans even have had their nativity days heralded on Baker’s bells. And when some component of the College, say, for example, Tuck School, has a 60th anniversary, one usually can count on a weighty symposium to mark the event.) Last month, Hopkins Center, which is referred to elsewhere in this issue as constituting a revolution, turned 15, and there was, of course, a party. It was nicely low key.

With the Players’ opening performance of “Subject to Fits,” by Robert Montgomery ’6B, as a centerpiece, the Hopkins Center administration invited all of the alumni who, since the building opened in 1962, have gone on to professional careers in the theater. Choreographers, actors, directors, playwrights, designers, and administrators about 40 young alumni in all came from away to dine together, watch the play, and drink champagne afterward.

Another 30 theater people sent greetings in exchange for excused absences. Among them, David Feldshuh ’65, an actor and director at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, had to worry about opening a new show and taking three medical school exams. The members of the Pilobolus Dance Theater were in Japan and then, the next night, were scheduled to appear on the Johnny Carson Show. Daniel Chodos ’73, an actor, was taping an episode of “Welcome Back, Kotter.” Bruce Coughlin ’75, composer, had a show opening in New York the next evening. Michael Moriarty ’63, actor, was screen- ing applicants for Potter’s Field, his new theatrical venture in New York. David Carroll ’72, actor, had been called back for auditions in New York. Doug Goodman ’73, stage manager, had a show opening in New York. Peter Parnell ’74, New York playwright, was opening a show in Los Angeles.

As for the centerpiece, “Subject to Fits” has been described by its creator, Montgomery, as a response to Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot: “It is absolutely unfaithful to the novel; it uses the novel for its own selfish purposes; it does not hold the novel responsible. As such it is entirely original smacking of The Idiot, dream- ing of The Idiot, but mostly, taking off from where The Idiot drove it.” When the play opened in New York in 1971, the Times reviewer, Clive Barnes, said it was “mad, mad” and “a joy to encounter.” (Barnes also said he had realized for the first time that Dostoyevsky “must have been a very cold man.”) The Hopkins Center audience seemed delighted and a little puzzled by it all.

Montgomery ran into fits getting from New York to Hanover and missed the Hopkins Center opening of his own play. But he did arrive in time for the cham- pagne celebration.