Manchester High School - Somanhis Yearbook (Manchester, CT)

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24 SOMANHIS EVENTS times happiness and labor have been disassociated by man. Shakespeare says, “Tf all the vear were playing holidays To sport would be as tedious as to work.” Live with the thought that God has put us in this world to fulfill a cer- tain mission, and when we have discovered just what this task is, we should realize the responsibility and fulfill it happily for His sake. Hope is another essential, for if we have hope we have practically every- thing. lope in other words inspires us, gives us strength to go onward, and is it not true that the time we spend looking forward to something is often pleasanter than the thing itself? Friendship, sympathy, and sacrifice are still other assets of happiness, for how much a true friend’s sympathy soothes the soul in the time of grief. A friend who deems your troubles his troubles, and your joys his joys, is a true one. Music, art, literature, sports, good conversation, humor, and money all add to our happiness, but we must be careful that they are not overdone so that they become monotonous or a source of worship, for the rich man who idolizes his gold or ceases to wish for anything else in life is indeed to be pit- ied, Then, too, we think we can be happy and content when we have every- thing our own way, or are being amused, but the man worth while is he who can smile when the storm clouds are hanging the lowest. We are always on the lookout for happiness but so many of us travel far and wide in search of it, when if we did but know, it is waiting for us in all the simple joys and duties of our own homes. You older people may think that we are still very young, that we have not tried the hardships of this world and therefore, we have not felt the pangs of unhappiness. Now we are about to take, probably the first decisive step on this crusade of Life. We realize that there will be many obstacles, and we expect to stumble but—we are not going to FALL. We are going the truly optimistic way, for if we lead a clean, straight life, living up to the Golden Rule, with faith and hope, with sympathy and kindness for others, we will find that our Quest has not been in vain. Ruth Holmes ’24. THE LITTLE THEATER “What is a Little Theater?” is the question that has filled the newspap- ers. The Little Theater is a place where the players and audience are brought. together and where unusual non-commercial plays are given. It was estab- lished for love of drama and not love of gain. This movement started in Europe and was brought over to the United States as a protest against the Commercial Theater. Among one of the first theaters to be established as a protest against the current theatrical practices was the Irish National Theater. This theater was developed by office and shop workers who could not give much time to the work but practiced in their spare moments. Among the advisers for this thea- ter are Lady Gregory, a writer of one-act plays, and William Butler Yeats, who is a well-known figure in the Little Theater World. The Welsh National Theater, which is not a Little Theater, gives prizes every year for the best one-act play dealing with Welsh life. The Glasgow Literary Theater is national. It is used for the production of national char- acter plays written by Scotch men and women.

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SOMANHIS EVENTS 23 THE QUEST OF HAPPINESS Life truly is a great crusade which inyoives numerous and varied quests. There is the quest of gold, of fame, of knowledge, of truth, of goodness, and of God; but no matter which one we make our goal in life, we inevitably join with it the essential quest of Happiness. Marshall P. Wilder, an essayist, says that happiness is one of the most beautiful things in the world because it is purely unselfish. When people are happy they present a cheerful spirit, which finds reflection in every one they meet, for happiness is as contagious as a yawn. Some people, as the Puritans, for the sake of piety would put a ban on happiness; but when you go out on a beautiful spring morning and hear the robin calling to his mate, and feel the warm breeze fragrant with the smell of flowers just blossoming forth, the spirit of the morning thrills you and you think, “Oh, it is good to live!” God gave us such a beautiful morning, and through such a gift we cannot fail to see that he means for us to be happy here on this earth. Of course, it is easy to say that it is our duty to be happy, but we want to know how we can be so; and to know that, we must make a study of those things that make us happy and those things that make us unhappy. Newell Dwight Hillis, a distinguished clergyman, says that Worry, Hur- ry, and Debt are the chief enemies of Happiness. He likens worry to a moth that cuts the threads of thought and character. It is, to be sure, a deadly poison that very soon robs both body and mind of their ability. Much of the worry in this world can be avoided. Thomas Jefferson once said that most men spend their lives apprehending dangers that never come to pass. Prob- ably you have heard the proverb, “Better is a dinner of herbs with content- ment than a feast gained by worry.” “Hurry” is the second great enemy of happiness. Because this genera- tion has lost its sense of leisure, it is alSo in danger of losing its happiness In their strife for money and a place in the world, men sometimes fail to pay enough attention to their families; some in their rush do not even take time to eat or sleep. This, of course, leads to ill-health, fussiness, and irritability, with a loss of dignity. History tells us that Napoleon was overcome with sleep in the afternoon of the battie of Waterloo, that he gave contradictory orders, lost the victory and the throne. © For many vears he had been over- working, taking only a few hours’ sleep out of twenty-four. When he should have been successful, he failed. May his mistake be of profit to us. The third great enemy of happiness is “Debt”, because it brings discour- agement and despondeney, and destroys our pride. A) prominent English state sman once said that if strong drink has slain its thousands, debt has slain its tens of thousands. The best policy is “pay as you go”, and you will never fall into debt’s grasping clutches. There are many bumps that we must take in this world with a smile, for unless they are swept aside with an optimistic view, we are going to find our- selves very unhappy indeed. We must not forget that the troubles we have in our lives are the makers of our character. When we want particularly good ad- vice we go to the person who has bravely taken experience as a teacher and has conquered his troubles in life, not the person who has cowardly slunk away from hardships and left them to someone else. It is plain to see that we must have a rainy day once in a while to make the sunny ones scem brighter and more glorious, Considering the average person, we see then that to be happy one must first of all be healthy, and to be healthy, one must have a sound body and a strong mind ; however, there are exceptions, for those who are physically weak are sometimes among the happiest and cheeriest people the world has known. Work is the foundation of a lasting happiness. Unless a man is happy at his work, he can hardly be happy outside of it; however, from the earliest

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SOMANEHLS EVEN TS 2 or Most of the large cities in the United States have some Little Theaters. We find them housed in everything imaginable from a stable to a well-fur- nished building used only for theatrical purposes. Most of the Little Theaters in the United States have litthe money to spend, but they realize that beauty and wonder do not come from the money spent on materials but that the thought and efforts put into the work produce the effect they desire. Europe has professional players in their Little Theaters while in the Unit- ed States most of the actors are amateurs who work without pay. The Harvard 47 Workshop was established in 1912. In 1916 a summer course was opened because so many teachers and students who wished to at- tend this course had to work during the winter months. Professor Baker, who is in charge of this workshop, teaches the students all about stage set- ting, management, scenic designs, and costume designs. ‘Lhe students write plays and have a chance to try them out at this theater to which admission is gained only by invitation. Many of the students become so interested in playwriting and in the Little Theater that they open one in their own home town. The Theater Workshop opened in New York in 1916. This theater gives all actors an opportunity for practice and tryouts and to perform in parts adapted to their talents. Here the producer has his chance to experiment with his plays and many times he finds out what the public wants so that he can re- arrange the play to suit them. In almost every college we find some kind of dramatics. Most colleges have their College Dramatic Club and other smaller organizations for the same purpose. Many of these clubs were brought about by the war. The men in training camps needed some sort of entertainment and many times one-act plays were given by these clubs to cheer the men. In some communities, where traveling to a large city to see a show is al- most impossible, the Little Theater has reached its height of success. The cost of the trip and the time spent in travel make the people of such communities rejoice at the prospects of the Little Theater. These people would rather pay a small admission price or a yearly subscription rate to the Little Theater and have the money stay in their community than to spend it in the city. The cost of the upkeep of the theater in such places is not much. We sel- dom find them spending over five hundred dollars a year for lights, rent and scenery. Many times the players borrow costumes from the neighboring company and in this way save a great deal of expense, Among those noted for their work in the Little Theater World are Max Reinhard, a German, who has done much to improve the color schemes in play productions; Gordon Craig and Robert Edmond Jones who have made wonderful settings for the Little Theater. Stuart Walker is noted in this world for his Little Theater known as the l’ortmanteau Theater. The idea for such a theater came to Walker in 1914. He told Mrs. Coon- ley about it and she was so pleased that she sent him on a Western trip to sce how the people would respond to such a theater, Walker found that his theater would please the public so he started to work. His lighting effects and several other ideas came to him when he thought of a toy theater that he had had as a boy. In speaking of the Portmanteau Theater, Hiram Kelly Moderwell, au- thor of “The Theater of Today”, says that it is a complete stage, smaller than the ordinary one but large enough for any play that does not make a special demand for bigness. It can be set up in any room sixteen and one-half feet high, twenty-five feet wide, and forty feet long. The walls support them- selves by interlocking. The complete theater can be boxed and made ready for shipment in one and one-half hours. When boxed the complete equipment weighs only three thousand pounds. ‘The light is obtained from movable spot lights which reflect color.