The problems of amateur theatricalism have never been demonstrated so effectively at Harvard in recent years as they were last night at the Rindge Technical High School auditorium. That Jerome Kilty and his budding Veterans Theater Workshop were able to rescue something from the tidal wave of difficulties which loomed over their opening venture was the most salutary observation to be gleaned from the world premiere of "I Was A King in Babylon."

Faced with an involved and drastically over-long play, the new dramatic group cut it to workable length, cast it faithfully, and struggled manfully to wring all the laughs possible from William Gerhardi's first attempt at playwriting. The essential fault that Kilty and Company failed to recognize, however, was their original choice of vehicle--an impossibly dramatic, wordy, technically cumbersome work.

Gerhardi billed his play as a "satire on reincarnation," equipping it with twentieth-century characters incarnated from every other reasonable period of history: Catherinc the Great, Genghis Khan, and others of their ilk. Perhaps his idea was worthwhile; at any rate his results were not.

Struggling against odds to reseue the production from Mr. Gerhardi were the two leads, Mendy Weisgal and Marie Heath. Weisgal raged eleverly on as Hector Rigoletto, male witch extraordinaire, Abelard, and Aristotle; but the real orchids must be saved for Mrs. Heath, who gave a delightfully British performance as Emma Seruple-Madison and brought the show to its humorous climax with a skillfully executed drunken laugh, spin, and fall.

Courage is the word for the Harvard Veterans Theater in its tackling of this experimental drama. Those who see "I Was A King in Babylon" during the remainder of the week will not fail to give that credit to this new College theatrical venture.