RUSSIA OR ITALY? PI ETA CAN'T DECIDE

This year's Pi Eta show is to be a mystery play. At present, the chief mystery seems to be,--what is its plot? For although the play committee of the Pi Eta Society has two perfectly splendid plots in mind, they can't decide which one they really want to use.

First they decide to use one plot, then the other. Then it seemed a good idea to combine the two into one hybrid performance. Now they think they will fool every body and use neither of them. It is all very mysterious.

The scene of one play is laid in Italy, of the other in Russia. If the hybrid version is used, it will probably be in Asia Minor.

In the Italian plot, the hero is an ancient and defunct Roman who has fallen out of the basket which was hoisting him to Heaven after his so-jurn in Purgatory; in the other he is a Russian from Revere,--Dimitri Trestara Gudgodka.

As a mystery play, the Italian plot seems superior in 'several respects: it has three more revolver shots, four more screams, and 32 more embraces. To offset this, however, the lights go out five more times in the Russian play, and there is one "peal of insane laughter" offstage. There is, besides, an excellent seance scene in which the stage hands will be kept very busy giving ghostly raps to the scenery, blowing open the doors, and snapping up the window shades.

In only one respect are the two productions absolutely equal that is in the number of bootleggers in each production. The members of the play committee were particularly careful to explain that these unconstitutional characters had nothing to do with liquor. But some one had to step through sliding panels to steal the family silverware, and so the authors decided that it might just as well be bootleggers.

As regards a title for the play, the authors quite frankly admit that they are at a loss. To be sure, they have one excellent title, "Dr. Hyde and Mr. Seek". The only trouble is that it has nothing to do with any of the plots.

The authors think that they may use it anyway.