He Knew what Played

What to write about Warner Bentley that he might subscribe to, given his low tolerance for sentiment no matter how sincere or well-intentioned?

Fresh from Yale Drama School, he was poised for a Broadway career when lured to Dartmouth in 1928 with the promise of a modern drama facility to be constructed imminently.

Imminently proved to be 1962, when the Hopkins Center opened with Warner as director—which position he held for nine years.

In the 34 years while dream inched toward reality, Warner, among numerous other activities, directed 200 major productions of the Dartmouth Players in both Robinson and Webster Halls.

Some of those other activites you'll find below. In trying to include them here I heard Warner say "Cut."

That was the essential thing about Warner. He knew what played. I'm not sure I ever heard him say it but by example he communicated the most basic theater tenet: No matter how lofty or trivial the subject, "Thou shalt not bore."

He was a theater person in the most visceral sense; his name conjures grease paint, costumes, settings, audience, and box office, rather than classroom and the printed page.

I can't speak of Warner without mentioning recently and dearly departed Henry Williams (my first director) and George Schoenhut. They were the triumverate who made Dartmouth an exciting theater place—for all its physical limitations and the absence of a full-fledged drama major.

And you can't speak of Warner without including Kit, his mate of almost 50 years who died in 1976. That Warner managed 12 years without her was no mean achievement.

I have often wondered what Warner's life might have been if he'd gone the Broadway route. I'm sure he wondered the same. "The road not taken . . ." et cetera. Commercial success could have been his but I suspect there was sea deeper need that Dartmouth fulfilled because Warner was a take-charge guy more subtly addicted to teaching than he knew.

In relation to the theater Warner was tough. Charming and merry when it suited, but essentially tough. I recall him as careful to the point of niggardly in his praise. And what a long-term blessing that was for young people so vulnerable to approval whose lives could be altered and possibly misdirected by flattery misplaced.

Warner never let you forget the world beyond Hanover.

Several years ago, my wife and I picked up Warner at his home in Norwich and went to the Hanover Inn for supper. It was a strained evening because we'd just been informed that due to growing infirmity Warner was moving the next day from his house (where he and Kit had lived for so very long) to the Norwich Inn, where his needs could be more easily attended.

We felt melancholy at this information, which we waited for Warner to confirm. Of course he never mentioned it. But during the meal, the last we would have with him, Warner waxed more personal than either of us could recall. He told how he met Kit, whose sister provided the funds for him to attend Yale Drama School when his own father would not support such a notion.

After dinner we drove him back to Norwich. We wanted to see him safely inside but he stood firm on the front lawn and waved us off.

What I wanted to do that night was hug him and say how much he meant to my life but refrained because (I told myself) it would have embarrassed him.

There it's done. And those words extend to Henry Williams, Bradlee Watson '02, and one who can still hear them, Professor Emeritus John Finch.

WARNER BENTLEY died on December 26 at his home in Claremont, Calif., following a long illness. He was 86.

He was founding director of the Hopkins Center, the performing arts complex for which he had been recruited by President Hopkins, though three decades passed before it was completed. During that time, and afterward, Warner Bentley's name was synonymous with theater at Dartmouth, but he was also a leading player on a wider stage, serving on the National Arts Council, National Theater Conference, American National Theater and Academy, American Educational Theater Association.

Born in Bradley, S.D., on December 3, 1901, he graduated from Pomona College in California in 1926 and from the Yale Drama School in 1928. He came to Hanover as an instructor in English and head of the theater program. In addition to teaching and directing, and planning for the Center, his other responsibilities included managing the Council on Student Organizations- overseeing all non-athletic extra-curricular activities at the College—and the Dartmouth College Concert Series. In the late sixties he conceived the summer festival ries known as the Congregation of the Arts. Warner even found time to act in a few productions—twice playing Grandpa in You Can't Take it With You, in 1939 and 1949.

Dartmouth awarded him an honorary master of arts in 1937, and when Hopkins Center opened named one of its theaters for him. Last year the Center established "Warner" awards, replicas of his bust in the Center, given once every three years to an individual or organization for outstanding achievement in the arts. The first went to The New Yorker.

Warner's wife, Katharine (Kit), died in 1976. He is survived by a brother and nephew in California, who suggest he be remembered by contributions to the Warner & Katharine Bentley Fund—which supports arts at Hopkins Center—care of Blunt Alumni Center, Hanover, NH 03755.

Warner is also survived by many friends and generations of students—both in and out of the arts—on whose lives he made a lasting impression.

R.H.N.