Augsburg College - Augsburgian Yearbook (Minneapolis, MN)

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Right: A folksinger performs on the Augsburg open stage- Below: A group entertains Augs- burg students on organ and electric guitar in the College Center. Above: Mayor Hofstedc of Minneapolis speaks informally to Augs- burg students and faculty in the College Center. Left: Jane Fonda, Tom Hayden, and Jean Piere Debris, a former South Vietnamese prisoner, spoke in Si Melby as part of a national compaign to expose the conti- nuing crisis in Indochina . 21

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Concerts and Convos Reverberations Above: A group of students bom a Free School in South Minneapolis put on a Mexican play. Be- low: Four string musicians from the Augsburg orchestra give a preview of the scheduled Augs- burg-Hamline Orchestra Concert in the College Center. 20

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Fall Play Tom Thumb by Dr. David C. Wood When Director Michael Arndt casually asked me if I would take the part of Scriblerus Secundus in the Little Theatre's November production of THE TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES; OR, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF TOM THUMB, I cast aside all reserve and said Golly, gee! Wow! YES! I’d been a sucker for THUMB since the first time I'd read it as a beginning graduate student. I was so enthusiastic, in fact, that I wrote my dissertation on Hen- ry Fielding, author of this hilarious three-act farce. Between my chance meeting with Arndt and the first rehearsal, however, doubts flooded over me. I knew I couldn't act; but hadn't Mike assured me that I didn't have to act? I only had to play myself, my part being that of a boring old pedant who misunderstands the play he teaches and obnoxiously intrudes wherever and whenev- er he isn't wanted. I was typecast! So far,so good. Then I began to worry about how well the play would go over before a twentieth century, relevance-keyed au- dience. Who, I asked myself, on God's Green Earth (read Augsburg College), would appreciate an eighteenth century comedy which satirizes conventions of the seven- teenth century theatre? Furthermore, where is Arndt going to find student actors talented enough to pull off eighteenth century acting mannerisms so necessary to the success of a play like THUMB? And then how about Arndt himself, an unknown quantity. If he gets the ac- tors, will he have them out there in torn T-shirts, A LA Stanley Kowalski, and 'method' the audience to death? My worries were misplaced. I should have been wor- Above: Lord Grizzle (Jeff Nelson) and his comic servants, David Larson and Korstcn Roduik, prepare for an attack. Right: Dr. Wood, comical narrator of TOM THUMB, sweeps up rubbish before the onset of the three-act farce. ried about my stamina. The rehearsal schedule was crush- ing for a dissipated old futz like me. I'd always thought The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of the Crowd (or something like that) was what The Theatah was all about. Not so. The theatre is a demanding mistress, especially so when the director wants more than a so-so production. Rehearsals lasted from seven to one, night after night. No Pheasant under Glass, just a Big Mac wolfed down back- stage during set changes. Then individual rehearsals to smooth out the rough edges, while the rest of the cast sleeps fitfully, dreams about tomorrows Biology exam — or that stack of sophomore term papers that haven't been graded yet. I'm still not certain that I survived. Even if I haven't. I'm proud to have been part of a suc- cessful theatrical production. After several rehearsals I cast my earlier worries aside. For Arndt understood the play and never did violence to it. Sure, there's a scene with torn T-shirts, but many more scenes in which seventeenth, eighteenth, nine- teenth, and early twentieth century costumes provide a new dimension to the play. The actors? Aside from this humble recorder, they were masterful, running the stylistic gamut from Thomas Bet- terton through John Barrymore to Lee Strasburg's latest chesthair-pulling prodigy. The audience did its share, too. We performed to full houses every night and even had to trod the boards for an extra show — the frosting on the cake. Rather stunned at first, the audiences soon caught on to the fun we were obviously having and joined in. What an intimate theatre! It's so small that one can distinguish between which friend is laughing when. At the last performance, my knees stopped knocking when Richard Sargent let got with his first guffaw. Strokes in the night. No, I'm no actor, but I wouldn't trade my experience working with Arndt and Company for anything — except, perhaps, a conversation with old Henry Fielding himself. If