The following history of the Harvard Dramatic Club was written especially for the Crimson by a member of the club, on the occasion of its twenty-fifth anniversary, which will be celebrated in 1933.
The career of the club began in 1907-08, when David Carb, Edward Sheldon, R. E. Rogers and a group of men from the renowned "47 Workshop" went to work to found an organization devoted to producing plays by Harvard undergraduates or recent graduates. This idea of encouraging playwriting in the University gave the Club an original and advanced position among college dramatic societies.
"The Promised Land" by Allen Davis, the first production, would have made even a more mature organization hesitate. Not only the subject matter which concerned the very controversial question of the Zionist movement, but also the four big sets of scenery, the enormous cast, and the mobs of extras threatened to overwhelm the club in its first serious attempt. The organization, still in its swaddling clothes, proved itself a child prodigy. In January, 1909, the Harvard Monthly records that "people who came curious or indifferent, went away impressed and thoughtful. The Club has made a remarkable beginning in its chosen work . . . it cannot but prosper." The fears of whether the play would be too serious or too specialized were unwarranted. Directed by Professor Baker, assisted by Radcliffe girls, and with a specially written overture by Philip G. Clapp, played by the Pierian Sodality, "The Promised Land," far from making a bad start, gave promise of a brilliant future. It was indeed a spectacle, a genuine success.
Old-timers will recall with a smile the production of the following fall. Percy MacKaye's "The Scarecrow." Based on a tale of Hawthorne, it was a fantasy of a scarecrow who could be made to come to life and who could be kept alive by continually smoking a pipe. James Savery was ideally fitted for the part of the scarecrow in every respect except one; he was made deathly sick by smoking. The ever-resourceful technicians, never thwarted, finally evolved the scheme of filling Savery's pipe with punk. In the excitement of the performance, Savery would invariably inhale once or twice, instead of blowing at his punk. The scarecrow who had to smoke to live, almost died from smoking.
The ensuing years proved that the Harvard Monthly had hit the right note in saying that H. D. C. could not but prosper. After two sad years of inactivity, due to the war, the club resumed its work in 1919, but the old order had changed. The club now took for its policy the production of plays by notable foreign and American authors, not previously produced in America. The Dramatic Club, of this time, along with the rest of the country, was enjoying the healthy post-war prosperity. One of the peaks of this period was reached in the New York trip of 1923. Delighted by the ovation given "Beranger," and "Life of Man," which had played to standing room houses in Brattle Hall, H. D. C. decided to revive these plays and take them to New York. Here, in the Comedy Theatre, as in 1914 at the Garrick, with "Peter, Peter. Pumpkin Eater," the club enjoyed a successful week on Broadway.
In the spring of 1925, the club produced "Brown of Harvard," an old play, long regarded as a true picture of Harvard life by everyone except Harvard students. Newspaper clippings record that at the first performance of this play in Boston, twenty years before, "The college showed very tangible disapproval." Vegetables were probably the order of the day. H. D. C. decided to revamp the production. Under satirical treatment, "Brown of Harvard" responded nobly. With due melodrama the hero thwarted those who would tread on his good name and arrived in the nick of time to lead his crew to victory over Oxford. Harvard cheered loud and lustily, and seemed fully to catch the spirit of the thing.
In the hey-day of its career, and somewhat overcome by the exuberance of adolescence, for the club was in its twentieth year, H. D. C. produced Michael Gold's "Fiesta," a really excellent tale of Mexican provincial life. In spite of the unusual acclaim it received in Cambridge, the censors declared the play unfit for presentation in Boston, and the show was closed before it had run its allotted number of performances. This came as a great surprise to all those connected with the production, and earnest pleas were made for a reconsideration of the censorship of a play which dramatic critics had considered a really superb bit of playwriting. The club decided to let the matter drop, however, and to carry on as before.
Encouraged by the pronounced success of last year's production, "Napoleon Intrades," which had to be held over for an extra performance, and by the marked revival of University interest in its productions, as in the early twenties, H. D. C. offers this fall "Circumstantial Evidence." This play, by Otto Bastion, is not the usual courtroom melodrama, but rather a poignant presentation of a problem that is more and more becoming of vital interest.
The scene of the play, being laid in England, presents the procedure followed in the law courts of that country. The judge and attorneys, according to the tradition, wear the customary black robes and white wigs.
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