If the Hasty Pudding and Pi Eta Club shows are the parlor of Harvard dramatic entertainment, the various House plays are certainly the kitchen sink. In comparison, the House plays are poorly mounted, poorly drilled, and poorly east. But therein lies their beauty, the appeal of the dramatic ugly duckling. Somehow the joy of knowing the actors personally, and of watching them blow their lines makes for entertainment which a more professional show cannot offer.

In Winthrop Common Room last night a typical Harvard show was presented. It was written by undergraduates, and it was acted by undergraduate hams. It contained a dull first act, an hilarious second act, and a riotous third act, took a lot of stoking to get up steam, but the audience loved it anyhow.

"The Puritan's Progress" unfolds the plight of an "A" student who falls into the toils of a buxom Dorchester lass. To be blunt, and the play is, he has to marry her. To his rescue comes Uncle Joe Whipple, erstwhile Beacon Hill Harvardian who has spent his post-college life in the Yukon. Uncle Joe lays $50,000 in gold on the line if young Whipple gets kicked out and marries Dorchester's Polly Dugan. Whip tries hard, aided by his room-mates. But something always comes up to change the whole aspect of his misdemeanors.

Add to this phonograph records shattered over heads, beer cans galore, a bottle of potent Yukon "Cutchaw," and you have, as "The Puritan's Progress" had, material for any number of Harvard House plays. It is profane, original, and as modern as the Daily Record, in whose columns it might well run as a serial story. Which is just about what a good House play ought to be.