Baker Goes to Yale
After the original policy was rejected, Baker's influence began to wane. For years Baker had striven for the construction of a theater in which to house the productions of his Workshop and the HDC, but in vain. Plans had been drawn up in 1914 for a theater of advanced design, but this, despite the Harvard Alumni Bulletin's warning that "the need is pressing; the opportunity is unique," never amounted to anything. In 1924, Yale offered Baker the theater he wanted and the opportunity to teach nothing but playwriting--which he could not do at Harvard--and in that year the man with "a passion for the theater" left Cambridge forever.
The departure of Baker did not reduce the stature of the HDC, and it continued to add to its laurels. The year after he left the group produced The Moon Is a Gong, by John Dos Passos '16, who had written nothing worthy of production during his years as an undergraduate. In 1934 it put on Jean Cocteau's The Infernal Machine, the same year it presented the American premiere of A Bride for the Unicorn, by Denis Johnston, a noisy and risque comedy putting the story of the Golden Fleece in modern setting.
Censorship Troubles
The production of A Bride for the Unicorn was one of the few instances where the HDC was troubled by censorship. Theoretically, all the plays which it produced, until a few years ago, had to be approved by the group's faculty advisory committee. Normally this committee would decide which of a number of plays to produce. But in 1934, President Conant requested to read A Bride for the Unicorn and decide whether or not it was too risque to produce. The play squeaked through the committee, 3 to 2, but President Ada Decade of Apathy The censorship clause in the Club's constitution was completely removed shortly after World War II, at about the time when the Club was at the lowest ebb in its history. The decade of university apathy set had started the early '40's, and with the founding of a rival veterans' theater group--which later became the Harvard Theater Group--after the war, the Dramatic Club found itself unable to recover until the rival organization closed down in 1953 and turned its resources over to the HDC. Neil Smith, a former member of the Theater Group, became the president of the HDC, and gave the Club, which the previous year had produced only one play--Othello--a new vitality. In 1953-54 it produced four major shows, of which the biggest was T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. Back to Originals At the same time as the HDC is putting on a big show with Hamlet, it is interesting to note that the Club is also returning--in a small way still to be sure--to another of the founders' major objectives, namely the production of original scripts. Chapman's interest in this has played no small part in the movement, although at present it is restricted to the Workshop level. While it is nice to bring plays to Harvard which have been done at the St. James or the Globe, it is equally, if not more, valuable and exciting to produce original works. The HDC is realizing this at the Workshop level; someday it may accept it once again at the major production level as well, if enough good material turns up.