United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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16 VOX Stunt Night A Study in Competency and Taste For audience and actors Stunt Night is usually a merry adventure among vagrant possibilities. Stunt Night might indeed be described as a method for releasing unexpected¬ ly, and exploiting passionately, ac¬ cumulated and potential resources. What a year-group has been, that it is very suddenly apt to be,—and to be that, deplorably or delight¬ fully, very publicly. The revela¬ tions are often interesting. Because Stunt Night makes sudden demands which must be speedily met, it is like an unanticipated classroom test; it ushers in an intense period of desperate exploration in the world of the unknown the results of which are fascinating if not val¬ uable. And sometimes they are valuable, as every instructor and judge of Stunt Night programs knows. The assay of the Stunt Night performance of the Session of 1928-29 has already been made by an audience and by a committee of judges. Findings have been re¬ ported in corridors and homes. If the verdicts do not agree, the fact is but a comment upon the variety in standards and taste that exists among us. Personally, we,—well, we think it a little difficult to judge the offerings of Stunt Night. Shall pleasing conventionality or blun¬ dering creativeness score high?; acting, individual or collective, or statuesque tableaux? costuming and color and melodrama, or at¬ tempts at pure drama? satire or solemnity? music and dance, or in¬ tellectual “body”? and so on. The alternatives as stated are neither final nor exhaustive. One thing there must be in the good stunt: the evidence of back¬ ground. A good stunt is some¬ body’s or some group’s competency and taste made available in vital demonstration. It seems to us that, speaking broadly, the criterion for stunts” may be stated as compe¬ tency and taste; the measure of the demonstration of that is the meas¬ ure of the stunt’s success. Associ¬ ated with the criterion as stated is the tricky one which involves the question: Is the particular stunt ex¬ cellent of its kind? Is its kind a challenging and high kind? One word for conclusion. On the above suggested basis it might not be necessary to give the laurel annually to the current Fourth Year! Fifth Year Honors or Sec¬ ond Year might conceivably merit it! As for the Third Year or Ma¬ triculation, if one may judge from this year’s performance, the former will be a dangerous contestant for premier honors next year and the latter,—must study to make them¬ selves accredited. That is perhaps just exactly as it should be in the institution whose justified existence .. depends very fundamentally on its power to develop “competency and taste.”—A.L.P. Here’s to my friend the Hindoo, He does the best he kindoo. He sticks to his caste from first to last, And for pants he makes the skindoo. Why did you give up the pipe organ lessons?” “I felt so bally foolish playing with my feet.”

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vox 15 Mrs. J. H. Ashdown Winnipeg lost an honored citi¬ zen, the United Church a devoted member and the needy a thoughtful friend when Mrs, J, H, Ashdown recently passed away. Leaving Bruce Mines, Ontario, about sixty years ago, when but a child of seven, she came with her parents to Manitoba and settled in Winnipeg. From childhood until the time of her death she was a consistent and faithful member first of the former Methodist Church and, later, of the United Church of Can¬ ada. She and her husband were intimately associated with the old Broadway congregation, and prac¬ tical supporters of Wesley College. In 18 77 she was married to James H. Ashdown, at that time a young merchant just entering upon a career to be marked by sig¬ nal success. Her thoughtful care, coupled with wise practical com¬ mon sense, did not a little to ensure and preserve the growing success of her husband. Her busy life has paralleled that of the City of Winnipeg. She saw it grow from a tiny, struggling village collected around the Hud¬ son’s Bay fort to its present place of strength and importance. Although she did not, like her husband, enter public life, Mrs. Ashdown did her part in the up¬ building of the life and growth of Winnipeg. Devotion to the home, simplicity in social relation, and wise charity marked her contribu¬ tion. Mrs. Ashdown possessed a fine and delicate taste in music, espe¬ cially the music of the church serv¬ ice. Among the last acts of her busy life was to instal a chime of bells in the former Broadway Church in memory of her honored husband. These chimes are not only a tribute to her husband, but now become a touching memorial of her own sweet and helpful life. Mrs. Ashdown was always thoughtful of the poor and needy, but in a quiet and unobtrusive way. She was not a noted philanthropist, but here and there with wise dis¬ crimination she ministred to human need. She shared her husband’s interest in Wesley College and often gave her time, thought and assist¬ ance in making that institution fit¬ ted to fill its important mission. We thus mark the passing of a friend of long standing; pay trib¬ ute to her worth and quiet good¬ ness, and extend our sincere sym¬ pathy to her bereaved family.

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vox 17 Greek Classic Drama: Its Origin and Development By George D. Vlassis Literature is the rich treasure of the past. It is the eternal reservoir of the dead. Through literature men know their contemporaries by knowing those who have passed, and learn about themselves by learning about the others. Rightly, then, the great linguist Marx Mul¬ ler said that the purpose of liter¬ ature, in its highest significance, is one only: to teach what man is, by teaching what man was. Among all the literature of the world the Greek literature is su¬ preme, and its knowledge has oc¬ cupied and still occupies the most prominent intellects of the human race. It was the Greek literature which dispersed the darkness of the Middle Ages, and for that not unjustly perhaps the great Greek scholar Buchios, a German profes¬ sor, speaking from his chair, de¬ clared that the ancient Greeks are the ancestors not only of the pres¬ ent-day Greeks, but the ancestors also of all civilized people. I do not mention the Latin literature because the Latin liter¬ ature was an imitation of the Greek, and the Romans were the pontifices” through whom the Greek civilization was transmitted. This is the explanation of the fact that the immortal monuments of the ancient Greeks are taught and studied, that the masterpieces of the Greek genius are not the cold reservoir of antiquated words, but the eternal teachers of the Beautiful, the True and the Good. And the Drama bears witness to that. Birth of Greek Drama The ancient Greek Poetry is divided into three great species: the Epic, the Lyric and the Drama. Of these the first, the Epic poetry, represents the exterior world, the Lyric poetry the inner world. The Epic poet on the one hand narrates the words and actions of acting persons, neither expressing his own sentiments nor moralizing upon the human lot. The Lyric poet on the other hand presupposes that he knows the outside world, makes known with pathos the re¬ action of the inner world towards the external. The Epic belongs to the past, the Lyric especially to the present and the future. From the union, the fusion of the Epic and the Lyric poetry, the Drama was born. In the Drama the dialogue belongs to the Epic, and the chorus to the Lyric poetry. But thi s union of the two poetical species came about without design, and in a natural way. The origin of the Greek Drama is very obscure. It seems, however, to have originated in the songs sung in honor of the wine god, Dionysus or Bachus. This song was the Dithyramb which was a kind of poetry cultivated among the Dorian Lyric poets and later by the Attic poets. Its principal theme was the birth of Bacchus. It was a song addressed to Diony¬ sus, and was inspired by wine. This Dithyramb was sung dur¬ ing the festival of Dionysus, the Lenaea or the Feast of the Wine¬ press, in January. This festival was kept in the country in the vil¬ lages of Attice. The Dithyramb was also sung at the city Dionysis.