"It's a little scary," says Susan J. Levine '90, who plays two minor roles in the play. "But it's not scarier than a regular show in a house. It's the same thing." Levine, who has never performed in a mainstage production before, says she is excited to perform in a proscenium.

And lighting expert Nicholas I. Martin '88 says he loves the freedom the mainstage gives him to create the proper atmosphere. The Loeb's more than 100 lighting instruments "mean that you can have more color, more isolated areas, more angles."

With all these resources to occupy his cast and crew, Director Hainsworth finds that his job is much easier than it would be for a house production. "The staff is so creative and good," he says, "that I have to try and unify instead of create.

That is not to say that there was no creation involved in the Ui production. Hainsworth has worked hard to create the atmosphere of Chicago in the roaring twenties. To bring the cast together and to help people get into the period, the director screened gangster movies and Third Reich documentaries in his room every week. And he worked closely with Raphael to get the actor to emulate Hitler's mannerisms.

Hainsworth commissioned Roland B. Tec '88 to compose the music for the play, which in true Brechtian fashion is not exactly atonal but has musical elements to it. Tec, who has worked with mainstage productions in the past and whose opera Stained Glass was produced at Harvard last year, says he researched Chicago jazz before write the music.

Hainsworth also incorporated Senior Lecturer in Social Studies Richard M. Hunt, who teaches a Core course on Weimar Germany, into the play's prologue. Hunt reads an introduction which puts the play in its historical context. "It's a great way to get to know student actors," Hunt says.

In two weeks, when the play's stint on the mainstage is over, the crew will return to life as normal. The producers and directors can return to their theses and Cibula can lay off the coffee until his next production.