The Brattle players were an ambitious arrogant group. They scorned outside actors who joined their casts, and tolerated cheering audiences. During the four bright years they stirred the theatrical world with their Shakespeare and Shaw, they were constantly pointing toward the bright lights of Broadway and, at the same time verbally damning its commercialism.

In 1949 director Albert Marre declared "The best hope for serious theatre in American lies in important plays being produced well, far away from the prohibitive and stifling costs of Broadway." Marre is now an assistant director at the New York City Center. The other members of the original Harvard Veterans Workshop, which formed the Brattle, have also left for the Broadways of New York, London, Chicago, and San Francisco.

While the Brattle players grumbled about their low salaries and fought each other for control of the company, the audience applauded and the visiting actors felt they were performing in a theatrical shrine. Cambridge puffed and boasted about them, and critics raved. But Brattle wanted more.

They were good, often superb. It is regrettable that the same people who breathed fire into the classics while on the stage were incompetent, when it came to managing a theatre. They became hopelessly entangled in personal feuds and private prejudices which slashed at both their efficiency and bank account. No one person held enough authority over this group of proud and often pig-headed individualists. As a result, the scenery or wardrobe departments might disregard their budgets for the sake of greater art, or an optimism based on ignorance might provide the spirit for a production which they could never afford. Always they sought to expand and reach farther; always they were badly in debt.

Veteran's Group

They began as the Harvard Veterans Workshop, disdaining the other College dramatic groups because these refused to give them the prestige and parts they wanted. Of course, they were better than the other groups, and they proved it.

All of them had been in the Army, and this accounts, in great part for their refusal to take secondary positions in collegiate organizations. They were older and more mature than were members of the other groups.

A short time after they organized, Albert Marre, who was at the law school, joined them, bringing his wife, Jan Farrand. During rehearsal for one of their first productions, "Henry IV Part I," the HVW almost lost its leading lady. One of the members of the cast, brandishing a sword, swung it around his head. The handle broke, and the sword flew out to the audience, at Miss Farand. Luckily for the Brattle, she was hit by the side of the sword, knocked cold but uninjured. Miss Farand recovered quickly and "Henry IV" was a huge success.

When college was over, they decided to go on professionally. A few members of the group were wealthy, and one, David Hersey, persuaded his father to buy the Brattle Theatre in 1948. The Brattle was a barn of a building, constructed in 1890 by the Cambridge Social Union to provide a social center for Harvard and Radcliffe and dances every Thursday. When Hersey bought it, the theatre was being rented for various fly-by-night productions, many of them College plays.

Money Troubles

That first year the company produced only during the summer, and lost $10,000. Hersey decided to get out, then, and six of the others bought his deed for $80,000.

As soon as the company moved in to stay, in the summer of 1949, there was friction between those who owned the theatre and those who only acted. The theatre lost money at the rate of $400 a week, and during the following four years it floated stock and bond issues totaling $35,000.

There were some plays that made money, but whenever one did the group and its board of directors would rejoice and schedule another turkey. The actors with money paid for some of the loss, but the others often went without meals. Salaries became a matter of pay according to need with a top of $65 a week.

One of the greatest expenses was the name performers they hired to stud their productions. When they had to fill up a cast they could usually find bit players who were eager to work for little or nothing, just to participate in their plays. But they usually overpaid their stars, and to have the glory of a top name on their program they would disregard their financial difficulties. Once the star was there, however, they resented his drawing the lion's share of the gate receipts.

In their casts they boasted William Devlin, Margare Webster, Eva LeGallience, John Carradine, Helmut Dantine, Philip Borneuf, Ruth Ford, Nancy Walker, Sarah Allgood, Betty Field, Claire Luce, Jessica Tandy, Hume Gronyn and many more. Sometimes their personalities clashed with those of the stars. In one play, Luise Rainer threw a glass of water at Bryant Haliday. Later, she told him "If I had six months I could teach you to make love." Yet often Brattle and its guests would get along quite well. The late Sarah Allgood stayed up all night with the cast, guzzling gin and singing Irish ballads.