Escurial and Les Precieuses Ridicules

The New Theatre Workshop, one of the most abiding of Harvard's drama groups, again provides an afternoon of provocative, if not always polished, entertainment.

The first play, Escurial, by the modern French playwright Michel de Ghelderode, is by far the better performed of the double bill, the other half of which is a Moliere farce, Les Precieuses Ridicules. Ghelderode's play is bitter, ambiguous at times to the point of obscurity, but a fearsome dramatic tension is maintained for the very reason that one is unsure of the details of the situation. It involves a pseudo-farcical biplay between a king waiting for the dying of his wife and his all-too-knowing clown, leading to a frightening and tragic revelation.

The two leading actors were nearly as good as student drama can produce. The enormous Shakespearean bluster and kingly extravagance that so rarely come across in a younger actor are perfectly mastered by Mark Mirsky as the king. He is able to convey this extravagant emotion with a quality of real virility and passion that does not fall short of excellence.

Roger Klein is fully his equal as the sensuous and sensitive clown and he also was called upon to make some very demanding dramatic transitions, between laughter and tears, gaiety and despair.

Director John Van Italie also deserves credit for handling his actors so that the play never descends to pathos and maintains an atmosphere, oscillating between lunacy and the most horrible of realities, that seems so necessary to the play. This is experimental theater at its best.

Moliere's Les Precieuses Ridicules is of another and quite as difficult genre, although its success was not nearly so marked. It is a charming comedy of manners, though lacking a bit in substance. Two young men send their footmen to deceive with graces two provincial young ladies bent on becoming women of fashion. The result is mildly amusing, although the performance seemed a bit forced at moments, generally over-directed and over-acted. But again it is difficult to draw the line where farce ceases to convince. Gail Jones and Phyllis Ferguson were the two ambitious young ladies, and they went through all the motions, but somehow left the impression that they did not believe in it themselves, and farce surely requires the talent to be earnestly absurd, rather than merely posturing. Misses Jones and Ferguson seemed a bit too liberal with gestures, but perhaps this was a fault of the direction. The whole performance gives the impression of too conscious movement.

John Hallowell as the more gallant of the gentlemen-footmen is a very amusing fop indeed, and Robert Gamble hits a perfect note as his bumbling companion. David Landon as the annoyed father is also most believable and amusing.

The HDC subsidiary's production of these two very different plays provides a very pleasant afternoon, and serves well its function of developing talent and exploiting relatively unknown dramatic material.