WORKSHOP SET SUGGESTS STERN LIFE OF DUTCH

"The single set used in Catskill Dutch' represents the interior of the 'stoop of a Catskill mountain farm house", stated Miss Eleanor Eustis in an interview with a CRIMSON reporter, speaking of the scenery which she has designed and painted for the play to be produced at the first public performance of the 47 Workshop on February 19.

"The 'stoop' is a large wooden 'lean to' built against the side of farm-house and supported by wooden beams", she continues. "But if it were removed the house would still be complete against wind and weather. The house of gray-white stone masonry, appears at the side of the stage to the left of the audience, showing a casement window and steps leading up to a "Dutch" door. The stoop swings around the corner of the house at the left and back of the stage, where an unseen window admits a flood of sunset light at the end of Act 1. The end of a table covered with white cloth appears between the back wall of the stoop and the house. A large window in the back wall of the stoop reveals a grape-vine trellis in the yard, with the Catskills beyond. A broad open door at right and back of the room shows a path leading off to the right. The right hand wall is broken by a short broad window upon the lowered shutter of which the farmer's wife suns her milk palls. Through this window appears the stone wall of a kitchen house. Under the window is a long bench, and an old fashioned clock stands on a shelf between the window and the proscenium.

"The stoop is used in the summer months as a living room and dining room" Miss Eustis explained, "where wool, peppers, onions, and corn are hung up about the room to dry. In the first act on a late September afternoon in 1820, before the marriage of Peetcha, Case Steenkoop's son; everything is in disorder. There are bits of dingy rag carpet on the floor; a single harness, cider jug, horse pall, and other things have been left carelessly about the room. By the second act, five years later, a woman has entered the house, the room is much neater, and a bright carpet has replaced the rags on the floor.

"The entire atmosphere of the set", she concluded, "Is intended to suggest the hard, stern life of the Catskill Dutch, and their isolation from the rest of the world. In its hardship their life resembled that of the Pilgrims, but continued over a much longer period of time. The costumes which were designed by Miss Pauline Hatfield, also reflect this isolation. The women continue to wear as gala dress the clothes which were in style at their marriages, and it has been said that an acute observer can in this way estimate the date of marriage of each one. The men wear the high white collars, colored vests, and boots of a period prior to that of the play."

"Catskill Dutch" was played on the night of February 9 before a very large audience at the M'Cullough Gymnasium of Middle bury College at Middlebury, Vermont.