Bill Carter '65, a legendary techie who sometimes worked for Mayer, commented from the perspective of a three-and-a-half year absence that theatre provides "an association of people not completely defined by a glass of scotch. People become friendly by common experience, more than by academics. It isn't necessarily so, but since theatre is the largest single activity [at Harvard] it must do very well whatever activities do."
The attraction of people for people plays such a large part in threatre here that "girl power" is a major means of enticing people to get tech work done, especially the twenty people needed the two days before opening night.
IT'S INDISPUTABLY difficult to meet people and reach out to them while reading Veblen in a dorm room; how much better to take hammer in hand or pass the crescent wrench.
Given a number of people with common goals and common experiences, you get groups--"task-oriented groups," as the Soc. Rel. department would put it. There are few loners backstage in Harvard theatre--after all, it's a cooperative venture. The groups vary in size, elasticity and penetrability.
The Loeb has a reputation for cliquishness that persists year after year. The other day one Cliffe was overheard warning another who had just been cast in a mainstage production, "Just don't become a Loebie." And as a freshman I was warned against the evils of the "in-group," which supposedly would not let a newcomer rise above the level of 3rd assistant prop man.
Clique or not, that certainly was a terrifyingly impressive, distant and coherent group of people. It was the same Tim Mayer-Thomas Babe directed group that Howard Cutler worked with, and included comedian Stephen Kaplan '68, stage manager Victoria Traube '68, and producer and HDC president Honor Moore '67, Peter Jaszi '68, and Michael Boak '69, among others.
BUT AT LEAST there were advantages in that clique. It revolved around Mayer--he had charisma, "talent, flash, élan that brought people in, and a controlled theatrical madness." Scott Kirkpatrick, who built for the summer company for two seasons and produced Erie said they felt they were doing something good that wasn't in existence anyplace else around here. "We thought we did a good job, and that we could affect people."
As Cutler said, working with the group long enough allowed thing to be built on what had been done before. They developed a "vocabulary" for working with Agassiz' small stage--the false proscenium, thrusts and rakes--all of which have served heirs to the stage.
Of course, plenty of other good techies (and actors) worked with that group, but not exclusively. Lighting lady Sara Linnie Slocum, Kirkpatrick, and others were independents.
The Mayer-Babe group may be the archetypal theatre group, but it's far form the only one. Many directors work consistently with at least a few of the same techies. Techies work for their friends, and for directors they respect and like and have confidence in. Director Leland Moss, for example, can always count on Harvard's leading young man of the tech scene, George Lindsay, to tech direct for him. There are usually a few people Lindsay can call on--Ted Shortcliffe used to work with him, and Mike Madison and Jussi Helava have been helping out recently, along with Miss Ettling. Lindsay complains of problems in holding master electricians when he designs lights--these are the people who help set up lights and operate the control board during the show. ("They all turn out to be lighting designers the next week.")
Certainly Lawrence Senelick, who directed Flea in Her Ear and Women Beware Women, has his people, especially a dedicated and erudite stage manager, Dave Brownell.
THE DUNSTER House Dramatic Erection group, formed last year, rivalled the Mayer one for cohesion, although it had an altogether different approach. Instead of having a central figure and a one-Production-at-a-time commitment, it was a group made up only of techies who enjoyed working together and would run off to save any show that needed saving.
It all began when Patricia Pilz '71 was designing lights for Gypsy--and six days before opening had no set to light. She called up light man Al Symonds '68, of Bwana Bus and Lighting for help. He'd worked with Paul cooper '69 and a few other standbys from Dunster House, like Randy Darwall. The next day a sign appeared in the Dunster dining room, "Pat's up shit creek. Come and help."
One person had the keys to the Loeb, another to Grant-in-Aid storage, and they went around raiding flats for the set. Darwall came with paints; and after the set was done and lit, they formed the society. As the only girl present, Miss Pilz Couldn't vote.
The group has pretty much dissolved this year, because many members moved off campus and Miss Pilz decided "to see if there was something else in life" (other than building 18 shows, as she did freshman year).
