WHILE THERE IS LIFE--

While discussion over the form of the proposed war memorials is still in progress we may well call attention to another need of the University merely by way of suggestion. Harvard has absolutely no available adequate theatre, although it has within its walls four successful and active dramatic organizations.

Pi Eta and Hasty Pudding, it is true, have small stages of their own, but the Dramatic Club and the "47" Workshop lack theatres of any description. The Dramatic Club has carpenter shop quarters on the top floor of Sever: "47" has similar accommodations in a portion of Massachusetts Hall, where the company must rehearse, and make and store sets for the plays. When a play is to be staged, the Dramatic Club hires Brattle Hall, which is not only unavailable for many rehearsals and inconvenient for stage management, but also is expensive. Furthermore the floor is not properly pitched; the seating capacity is small; and the acoustics bad. "47", on the other hand, uses the Radcliffe stage at Agassiz. But for "47, to use Radcliffe's only auditorium for five weeks or more a year is obviously an imposition. Besides, the small size of the stage (20*12 ft.) renders "stage whispering", and the movement and disposition of characters, difficult and sometimes ludicrous. One writer of Workshop plays has said that the continued use of such a small stage will produce a group of playwrights with a "20*12" technique. As for Sanders Theatre, everyone will agree that it is impossible. Stage hand, actors, playwrights and producers are wasting energy on obstacles which never ought to exist.

Yale, on the other hand, not content with using the well-equipped Hyperion Theatre near at hand, is raising a fund for one in the college. The University of California has its Greek Theatre; while Michigan and North Carolina are building theatres to cost, on the average, approximately $175,000. Like the last swimming team, dramatics at Harvard must have proper facilities or lose out in the face of expansion at other universities.

Among the most important specifications of a Harvard theatre would be a roomy stage and extensive apparatus for lighting--the latter, especially, beings a sine the qua non to the fullest realization of the possibilities of modern stage affects. Since both the Dramatic Club and the Workshop would produce all their plays at the theatre, while Pi Eta and Hasty Pudding would also have an opportunity for larger public performances when they so desired, it should in no sense be a monumental ornament useful only once or twice a year. More over, in view of the decreased building costs, that expense of such a theatre would not be at all prohibitive.

Admittedly the University has many other needs. Some of them--new dormitories for example--may be more urgent. But whether as a war memorial or not, a Harvard theatre must be built sooner or later, if we are to keep alive here the interest in the stage and its literature.