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THE GREATEST MUSICAL

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

Much as we hate to add to the expressions of rage that characterize our times, we feel that we must say something about Martin Kaplan's review of The Greatest Musical Ever Sung (CRIMSON, 11/19). Kaplan's review as well as Durang's play are among the most vulgar and offensive things to have come to our attention here at Harvard.

Both the musical and the review manifest a hip variety of neo-Know-Nothingism. Durang and Kaplan work in the same medium as the Nazi cartoonists of the Jews and the Amos 'n Andy caricaturists of black people. We wonder if Kaplan would have been equally delighted by a musical satire of the life and death of Malcolm X or a rollicking revue of the atrocities at Auschwitz?

Kaplan's advice for those not hip to this "House drama, produced at a Harvard House" is to "go to the Prudential or something." What snobbery! Only we saved few who are into the Harvard scene can appreciate the humor of spitting on sacred ground. As for you unwashed multitudes who "still take your eucharist seriously," you can all be damned!

As people who take eucharist very seriously as the celebration and praise of the Mystery that enfolds our living and dying, we would like to inform both Kaplan and Durang that they are trampling like pigs in a sanctuary. They are treading on our dreams.

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