A great deal of talk has been going the rounds recently about a "renaissance" of theatre at Harvard. Now that the University has announced the imminent construction of a Loeb Drama Center, it would seem particularly appropriate to indulge in some stock-taking on the subject at this time.

World War II had an enormous impact on the University, of course. It drained off most of the civilian students and forced the suspension or modification of their normal undergraduate activities. The resumption of customary College life after the War seems, then, the logical jumping-off point for this article--especially since the history of Harvard theatre up to the War has been retold many times, while its course from the War to the present has not yet been chronicled.

On this occasion I propose (1) to summarize the post-War theatrical activity of the Harvard community, and call attention to a number of particular features; (2) to proffer comments on the raison d'etre of theatre in the University; (3) to recount the steps that led to the decision to build a Theatre; and (4) to discuss some of the questions raised and answered by the presence of a physical plant for drama.

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In order to carry out the first resolution, I must have recourse to many facts and statistics. Readers who are repelled by names, dates, places and numbers had better skip this section.

Idler

The only student theatrical organization that remained relatively unaffected by the War was Idler, the Radcliffe dramatic club, formed in 1907. Such civilian students as were here during the War used Idler as an outlet for their endeavors. Even after the War, Idler cast most of its male parts with Harvardians.

Idler's best efforts were its two 1951-52 productions: Ibsen's A Doll's House and Clare Booth Luce's The Women. But Idler was destined to inhabit the level of mediocrity: it rarely produced a poor show, but it never produced a really excellent one.

Finally Idler died in the spring of 1953. Henceforth Radcliffe's main theatrical energies were channeled through Harvard organizations.

HDC, VTW, HTW, HTG

In the first few post-War years, Harvard theatre was monopolized by a batch of initials--HDC, VTW, HTW, and HTG. With the active phase of the War over in 1945, the College began its slow transition to normalcy. That autumn, the student body increased; and some of them decided at once to revive the Harvard Dramatic Club (established in 1908) as an independent group. The HDC put on two plays that first year, but neither fared very well.

The fall of 1946 saw the College inundated with hordes of veterans. It was a great day for Harvard theatre when one of these veterans stepped up to the registration table--Jerome T. Kilty '49. Dissatisfied with the status of the HDC, Kilty lost no time in founding a new group, the Veterans Theatre Workshop, in which he was joined by two dozen other veterans, almost all of whom had, like himself, a considerable amount of theatre experience.

For its inaugural offering, the VTW presented the world premiere of William Gerhardi's first play, I Was a King in Babylon. Observers agreed that it was a good production of a bad work. So the VTW decided to let the student body at large guide its next choice. A poll showed that the students favored modern plays over classical ones by 5 to 1, and harbored a definite antipathy to student scripts. As to specific playwrights, the poll yielded the following, in order of preference: Shaw, Shakespeare, O'Neill, Coward, Ibsen, Wilde, Anderson, Odets, Chekhov, and Wilder.

The VTW willingly complied, and chose Shaw's Saint Joan. On hearing of the choice, Shaw cabled: "Delighted to hear St Joan being done at Harvard stop have always wanted to see Joan played by male." The choice was excellent; and the production, in Sanders Theatre, was magnificent. Typical of Kilty's directive imagination was the decision to perform the coronation scene in the transept of Memorial Hall. The audience moved out of Sanders and became the congregation; the scene was played on a specially constructed altar at the north end, while fire-department searchlights outdoors focussed on the stained-glass windows over-head. The consensus was reflected in the comment of one critic, "From every conceivable standpoint Saint Joan is a high-water mark in Harvard dramatics."

At the start of the academic year 1947-48, the VTW decided to accept non-veterans, and changed its name to the Harvard Theatre Workshop. No lowering of standards was countenanced. And the HTW proceeded to give a remarkable series of productions, including Shakespeare's Henry IV, 1 (with Kilty as Falstaff, a performance that no-one but Kilty himself has since equaled), Richard II (with a wardrobe of costumes costing $1600), Troilus and Cressida, and The Tempest.