Babe makes another point against the committee system: it has made drama political: "Without a specific policy about the relative value of kinds of productions that can be done in the theatre, without a policy above the level of collected and iron-clad prejudices, the building seems to me like a facility, a thing to be used by anyone with the ingenuity or brains or persuasion to get control. That is not really a free theatre at all, since talented people not adept at polities are going to get out."
II--THE ADMINISTRATION
Harvard muddled into the theatre business when it was given a theatre. Under pressure from students who wanted as much autonomy as possible in the Loeb and from professors who dreaded the thought of credit drama courses, the University tried to leave its control as loose as possible. It appointed a director, Robert H. Chapman, and later two associate directors, but Chapman defines their role as merely "a magnified version of the Faculty advisers to the old Harvard Dramatic Club." Occasionally the Faculty advisers direct or act in a show. Otherwise, according to Chapman, they are there to let the students do what they want, and to assist them.
But it doesn't work. As Babe writes, "strange distances" grew up early between student directors and Faculty advisers, and they have not disappeared. The uneasiness is symbolized by the fact that while Chapman says he is available to help all students who ask, several student directors (who unanimously respect him as a man of the theatre) say they would have appreciated more help from him with their shows. Some undergraduates believe that the senior advisers have made it clear that they are uninterested in student theatre altogether, save for the shows they direct.
Under these circumstances, it is all but impossible for students and Faculty to work together cordially towards a better theatre in the Loeb. And there is much the Faculty could do.
III--THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE
Few students come to Harvard knowing very much about the theatre. They have not read many plays; if they are actors, they have little knowledge of technique. Here, the critics of student theatre say, is the limitation on such drama. You may have ideal circumstances for drama, but you have few resources.
But it is hard to take this idea very seriously, for it is also universally admitted that Harvard doesn't offer much to those undergraduates who do come with some background. A Dean Stolber, who has been acting continuously since he was eight, or a John Lithgow, who develops unusual technical abilities by the middle of his sophomore year, is not likely to meet with the direction or the suggestions to stretch his talent. If Harvard theatre can't help the incompetent and doesn't help the competent, there is some question just who it is there for.
Because the Loeb demands far more technical skill than, say, Agassiz, the problem of resources has become more acute since it was built. More technical ability than ever is needed, and what little there is is spread thinner than ever among a number of shows. But at least among the technical crews there is an informal process of education going on. Today's nail-pounder becomes tomorrow's technical director when he assimilates the jobs expected of him; expertise is not so easily passed along among actors and directors. Student directors do what they can to train their actors, but there is no formal system--and worse, there is little informal instruction--through which the Faculty offers help to directors and actors alike.
The question of acting raises the issue of courses in drama, and on this score, Harvard has done something of an about-face. Courses in the dramatic arts are not only accepted, they are downright welcome, as the official encouragement of Daniel Seltzer's experimental courses shows. The effect of this encouragement has been to leave the development of courses in drama entirely to Seltzer, a noble figure who has been trying to get Harvard to adopt courses concerned with theatre for years. If things continue at their present rate, the seed planting will no doubt some day grow small, but sound and carefully structured program in drama--but in the meantime dozens of generations of theatrically minded undergraduates may have graduated from Harvard with chaos going around them. Seltzer is falliable. His first effort at organized dramatic learning, the Shakespeare-Marlowe Festival, left graduates screaming when it filled the main stage for almost an entire term. This year students in the new Hum 4 were to staff ge production but the experiment was distinctly less than a success. The explanation was that the course became unwieldy when too many people were accepted.
Seltzer is trying the same idea on a smaller scale next year in Hum 103, but it is by no means certain that this will work, for even with too many people in the course, director George Hamlin had to reach outside Hum 4 for part of his cast.
In any event, Seltzer will be teaching no fewer than four courses next year in addition work at the Loeb; he should not be asked as well as an unofficial committee on the of drama at Harvard.
In fact, no agency presently at Harvard is suited to oversee this program. It has fallen willy-nilly to the care of the Committee on General Education, which has a great many other to worry about. The Faculty Committee on Drama was set up to approve the Loeb budget and to approve main stage shows after a disastrous attempt to veto the two most successfully of 1964, the committee has more or less given up blocking the production of plays it does sider suitable).
Only one person at Harvard can resolve the Loeb's problems, and that is the Dean Faculty, who is chairman of the Faculty mittee on Theatre. Dean Ford is a busy man and dislikes invading anyone else's area terest, but it is important that he consider vening in the Loeb.
If the dean were to decide that Harvard's goal in the theatre was a modest program of courses concerned with drama, and a theatre in which undergraduates would be free to their ambitions, it would not be difficult for him to bring it to pass. Babe and Seltzer both propose supplementing the present by bringing a respected actor, director, or designer to the Loeb for a term, to work on one show and to be available to undergraduates the rest of the time. Chapman also favors this plan. Its chances of adoption, now slight, could be certain by a helping hand from the Dean.
Another step might be to restrucure The accident last Monday at the intersection of Memorial Drive and Western Avenue resulted from a traffic hazard that ought to have been corrected long ago. Officials of the Metropolitan police have complain some time that the traffic signals at this corner and at the intersection of Memorial and River Street are located in a "blind Since the lights are raised only about feet above the ground, drivers approaching the corner cannot see whether the signal is red, green or yellow until they are on top of it. The Metropolitan District Commission, which is responsible for Memorial should install overhead signals to make the lights clearly visible at a safe distance the intersection. The cost of the improvement would be small in relation to the number of accidents it would prevent. Instead of cluttering the banks of the Charles with searchlights, the MDC should put new equipment where it is really needed.