From the very beginning, the drama issue of Signature could hope to be about as successful as a clambake on Mount Washington. There is nothing wrong with the idea of a specialized number of a college magazine, but his one just doesn't have the material. Its core, two one-act plays, never rises above the mediocre, while good or even indifferent dramatic criticism, which one would expect to find here if nowhere else, has somehow escaped the minds of Signature's ambitious editors. There isn't any. Instead we have articles on the drama at Harvard, Radcliffe, and in England, all of which deal with peripheral problems of that field. Signature has a nice cover.

This reviewer is sick to death of analyzing in detail every poor, juvenile story, play, or poem that is printed on each side of the Common every month. Suffice to say that Signature's four drama articles are competently written and quite interesting. Their major fault is that they form so important a part of an issue that has an obligation to tackle its chosen problem with greater scrutiny and directness. The two plays lack, any sort of individualism or vigor and, contrary to Signature's editorial, show no trends at all. One is an uninspired adaptation of a part of Kafka's "The Trial," while the other, in spite of some interesting devices, has no characters worth reading about and a trite situation without any real resolution. The one story is almost completely offensive in its adolescence and pretentiousness; its title is "The Uprooted," all the characters are writers, and the scene is a cocktail party. Figure the rest out for yourself.

The basic mistake of Signature's editors was to ignore better material just in order to have a drama issue. There is certainly a need for a magazine that will print the best student writing both at Harvard and at Radcliffe, but the more poor stuff is published, the fewer writers will contribute. It is up to Signature itself to break the vicious circle by campaigning for the material, and its new contest is an important step. But the editors' obvious fear of being called neurotic or esoteric, coupled with their desire to print trash on the assumption that it will appeal to the non-literary student, limits them to the banal and the unimaginative. They would do well to forget about drama and poetry issues, windy articles and superficial literary crusades ("Where is drama heading?") for the time being, and concentrate on putting out the best material they can buy, beg, borrow, or steal, judged completely on its intrinsic worth.