Poets' Theatre Will Produce Two MacLeish Verse Plays

Cantabrigians will have an opportunity to see two one-act plays by poet Archibald MacLeish when the Poets' Theatre presents his "The Trojan Horse" and "This Music Crept by Me Upon the Waters" on October 21-24. The two plays, on the same program, will be presented in modern dress at the Agassiz Theatre.

Both plays are in verse. MacLeish, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory, wrote "The Trojan Horse" originally for radio production on the B.B.C. Its action takes place outside the walls of ancient Troy. The horse of the Greeks is seen, but few Trojans allow themselves to believe that the wooden animal 'is a ruse. The only person who clearly perceives the imminent danger is a blind poet, who will be played by Edward Finnegan. Finnegan is a director in the George Gersh win Workshop at Boston University.

Connaught O'Connor, a Radcliffe graduate with much experience in local dramatic circles, will play Helen. Other important roles will be played by Michael Laurence, who read the title part in last winter's "Agamemnon," 16-year-old Susan Howe, daughter of Mark DeWolff Howe '28, professor of Law, and Donald Mork '52. Mork has designed the settings for both the MacLeish plays. Director of "The Trojan Horse" is Amanda Steele, who plays the female lead in the second play.

The title of "This Music Crept By Me Upon the Waters" is taken from Act I of Shakespeare's "The Tempest." It is, as MacLeish says, "a play about a moment in time," and is set on the tropical island of Bahama. It tells of two people, a dissatisfied wife and a disconsolate stranger, finding a moment of understanding under the spell of the moonlit waters. Besides Amanda Steele, the cast includes Michael Laurence, Mr. and Mrs. Neil Towell, William M. Hunt, and Clive Parry. Directing will be Mrs. Mark DeWolff Howe.

MacLeish made no changes in the original radio script of "The Trojan Horse." This presents a major directing problem. "Voices can describe action on the radio," MacLeish said, "but when both are present together on a stage, they sometimes detract from each other". This problem has been solved by the Poets group, he added.

Four-Beat Verse

"The Trojan Horse" is largely in four-beat; unrhyming verse, with some passages of three-beat and five-beat lines. "This Music" is entirely in four-beat lines. MacLeish explained that he used four-beat because "it gives you a machine by which you can reproduce the beat of modern speech." Thus, because "This Music" depicts modern people, it is four-beat throughout. The three-beat and five-beat passages in "The Trojan Horse" help to remove a sense of time.

MacLeish denied that he wrote "The Trojan Horse" with reference to any specific modern situation. Its theme, the irrationality of men when they will not believe what they are afraid to believe, is univarsal, he said.