Kenyon College - Reveille Yearbook (Gambier, OH)

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DEPARTMENT OF SPEECH AND DRAMATICS JAMES E. MICHAEL It will surprise no one who has spent any Time in the Speech Building, or the Hill Theatro, or who has given the structure even a sidelong look as he passed it while returning from lunch to Leonard Hall, to learn that a number of activities, not specifically mentioned in the catalogue statement of the Department of Drama, go on there. Nearly all of them are implied by that statement, however, and particularly by that section of it which says that some of man’s most revealing and significant statements about himself have been mado in his dramatic writings, in his plays; and that a play is to be understood in relation to the theatre. It is with the pleasant task of understanding plays of all sorts, particularly the better sort, and their connection with the theatre and with the theatre's audience, that the Department is principally concerned. Its time, energies and talent are divided in about equal shares between the Curriculum and the Extracurriculum. Between these, its two natures, thoro are differences that anyone can recognize, but both aro parts ot the educational process, and both place tho Play at the center of things where it can reveal itself and the principal object of its scrutiny, that is to say: Man himself. In course, the play is discussed; in production it is re-created. In the classroom, the student is a critic; on tho stage, an object JAMES E. MICHAEL Profossor of Speech end Dramatic of criticism. The class is made up of individuals whose paths tend to parallel one another; the cast of a play, of individuals whoso paths seem to lead in many different directions, but finally convorge. The member of the class wants to learn, to develop himself, and to get his reward (a grade and a sense of accomplishment); the member of the company, to learn, to develop himself and to get his reward (a sense of accomplishment and applause). But both activities, and the points of view they represent, are important in a college community, and both — the theory of the classroom and the practice of the theatre — come together at many points and in many individuals. In both its characters, the Department does a good deal of begging, borrowing and stealing from other departments in the college. And it is one of the necessary conditions of its existence that it do this, that it bring together, from a groat variety of sources, bits and bodies of knowledge, points of view, theories, techniques and insights, and put them to its own particular uses. In return, it trios to keep accounts balanced by returning to the main stream its own bits of knowledge, points of view, theories, techniques and insights, happily supported in this by the great playwrights of the world. Paq Thirty-on

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many other of the more serious tower residents have shown us that beauty and form arc created by the individual, not by the ethnic group. We must thank Mrs. Philip B. Rice for this lesson, for her patience in enduring the tourists, and for her attempts to en-courage the gifted. KATHRYN C. RICE Visiting Instructor of Art Mr. H. L. Moncken felt that the American psyche embodied a definite libido for the ugly. The urge to create monstrosities, to surround onoself in discomfort, drabness, and stark horror, he felt, was deeply rooted in the American personality. The works displayed this year and in the past in Phil Hall have offered in some cases striking confirmation of this theory. But others convince us either that the groat iconoclast was speaking too generally or else that there are many foreigners among us. Surely wo have looked at much rubbish by clowns looking for a rest cure course by whiling away the hours in the Chase ivory tower. But just as surely men like Hans Gescll, Jack Brown, Ron Kuchta, Tommy Thompson, Phil and Brock Cole, and

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The 1956-57 reason started with Lillian Heilman's Tho Littie Foxes.” It was greeted with mixed reviews and small houses. Ellen Darling, Mrs. Wolsh, and John Stanley dominated the cast with Dick Haudo and Nadja Hudson sniping an occasional scone out from under thorn. Things (and ticket sales) would have gono much bettor if Miss Heilman had written a better p,‘L sale of tho full house on Wednesday night to tho Exchange Club of Mt. Vernon got the wintor production off to a good start. Previously things had looked bad. The set was finished on time, lights were done early, and costumes prosented .little problem. A bad dross rehearsal brightened the outlook a bit. Mrs. Ritcheson and Marge Johnson did a magnificent job in Fry's A Phoenix too Fre-quont. A Collegian reporter accused Cascio of failing to mako his knees properly sympathetic. Androcles and tho Lion” was another kettle of fish. Instead of three there was a cast of thousands including two— count them — two oxen (ox heads by Knight) and a lion. The cast camo to tho conclusion that Shaw had writton better plays, but the audience Paq® Thirty-two