Harvardmen accustomed to sneering at their sisters across the Common had better think twice this week, for the Radcliffe Idler is giving a performance which from every possible dramatic viewpoint dwarfs the HDC's recent efforts into supreme insignificance. Why J. M. Synge's "The Tinker's Wedding" had never been produced in the United States before Thursday night is a mystery not easily solved; but whatever the reasons, Idler is doing on outstanding job on a wonderfully amusing comedy by one of Ireland's greatest playwrights.

Into the two brief acts of the play Synge has packed all the gaiety and excitement and superstitious poetry of the Irish peasant, in the same way that has made his "Playboy" a modern classic. And the Idler cast's performances go completely beyond the amateur level. It is difficult to describe or choose between the interpretations of Seabury G. Quinn '47 as the venial priest, Miss Nora Millard as the tinker's sharp-witted bride-to-be, Miss Elaine Limpert as his philosophical, besotted mother, and Charles Raphael as the tinker himself.

The secret of Idler's success in this half of their double bill undoubtedly lies to some extent in its choice of a play within its acting means; failure to practice this preachment proves the undoing of the remainder of the program. The Yeats translation of "Oedipus" may be meat for Laurence Olivier and the Old Vie, but it is so far beyond the resources of Radcliffe College and associated institutions as to make any effort at producing it almost worthless.

The use of a female chorus would alone endanger such an attempt, especially one with accents and movements as weird as Idler's. The current performance collapses wholly in the sadly inadequate portrayals of most of the leading characters, especially that of Oedipus, which Henry P. Robbins exaggerates and destroys, despite good diction, with a stream of sculpturesque poses, haling deliveries, and indecorous tiltings of the head. Only William Whitman, a last-minute substitute in the role of Creon, approached the adequate. As Directress Mary Manning Howe said not quite inclusively enough in her program notes, "Purists and scholars will, no doubt, find much to shudder at in our production."

But "The Tinker's Wedding" more than makes up for the sins of its companion-piece. Loud huzzahs go to Mrs. Howe for one superb accomplishment and another brave try, and to Miss Lynn Baker for some amazingly imaginative and accomplished set and costume-designing.