The Rare Aristocrat

Increasingly few among us can do exactly as we please and that is why movies are better than ever. Yet, flesh and blood, wandering loose through Harvard Square these days, is an oddly-shaped young man who, one gathers, finds few outward obstacles to the fulfillment of his whims and truly knows the freedom we see only on the silver screen.

His name is John Eyre, producer of the aesthetically if not financially sensible King Lear. Here he is living in an America of monthly payments, You-Auto-Buy-Now, Eisenhower and Lestoil, taking advantage of all that a middle-class world can offer, and, at the same time, maintaining fiercely the values and the pride of an upper class whose world has really ceased to exist.

Mr. Eyre, a senior who lives in a small single room in Lowell House, has emerged from an obscure early career at Harvard to present what is probably the most important theatrical production of the season. He did much the same thing last year when he presented Deathwatch. And he has spent the intervening time busily acquainting himself with the sundry persons and issues that etch the life of the college--with the consequence that he is one of the few undergraduates one can safely regard as a celebrity.

Born in London but always an American citizen, Mr. Eyre is often taken for an Englishman. His speech has a decided Belgravia drollery to it, and it is his habit to dress in British haberdashery. "My father has a curious theory that it is wrong not to live in one's country, yet that one must never identify oneself with it. Hence, I'm as British as possible, though, of course, his theory is all wrong."

An inquirer will find it difficult to associate Mr. Eyre with any nationality, for a light red, almost auburn, thatch of hair correctly betrays an Irish back-ground, and a large migration of his mother's Shropshire family traversed western Europe to Bavaria many centuries ago. "One of my family claims we are related to the Rainiers--the Monaco Rainiers--but I think the relationship is a dubious one, very dubious... Yet it is fun when Grace bears yet another child to remark that the family is getting larger all the time!"

Mr. Eyre's grandfather developed the South America trade for W.R. Grace and Company, and built up the Grace Line, which is to South America what the United Fruit Company is to Central America. "Me? I haven't the slightest inclination to go into the business. But if it came right down to it, of course I would if I could."

After an education at Portsmouth Priory ("I am a violent Roman Catholic"), Mr. Eyre came to Harvard as a freshman in 1953. He recalls he did nothing that year, other than attend class punctually. He lived on Brattle St., with two brothers who attended the Law School.

After this relatively inauspicious Harvard experience, Mr. Eyre decided to take a crack at Oxford. "It's even worse than this place," he observes with remorse. "Just a hateful place. Harvard is merely terribly tiresome.'

Back across the Atlantic once more, Mr. Eyre entered his sophomore year and became increasingly interested in the excellence of the theatre created by such well-remembered artists as Stephen Aaron, John Ratte, Colgate Salisbury, John Poppy and Harold Scott. One day in conversation Scott mentioned he would like to put on Deathwatch if he only had some money. "I took him up on it--as a joke...no, as a bet. It was great fun, and it made money, too."

"I don't think there is enough respect today for those Aaron-Ratte-Poppy days. They were professionals who knew what they were doing, not merely people who think they know."

Like Deathwatch, Lear has been great fun--but has lost money. That fact is the least of Mr. Eyre's worries: "I'm sorry it hasn't been such a popular success for the sake of the people who've worked on the show." He chalks it all up to experience, for he plans, right now at least, to go ahead on his own in the New York theatre after his graduation.

John Eyre's academic experience has been a mixed one. "I have great respect for the field of English, perhaps less so for the department. I threatened to resign from the university and go to Oxford when they reneged on permission to write a thesis." He changed his mind about doing honors but wrote a thesis anyway on Anglo-Saxon poetry, a taste he acquired at Oxford, where such matters are encouraged to the point of compulsion.

As he awaits graduation, Mr. Eyre paddles about the Square with a curious stagger, poking in and out of book shops and record stores, where he is known for his excellent taste and frequent purchases ("I wave a flag for Wagner and Richard Strauss."). During working hours, he has handy a large green bottle of ginger ale, which Frankie, a Boston cab driver who is often at his side, manages somehow to keep cold. Mr. Eyre seldom retires until past dawn and normally is not seen about until well past time for luncheon.

Part of the Eyre tradmark that one cannot miss is his constant use of colored glasses, fitted to his prescription. His dress could not be called fastidious, though he believes clothes are a significant facet of character. "I think one must dress for other people...one should dress according to one's class. That's an important thing with me, class. In America, class is determined by money. That is not right. It is true that in the United Kingdom many persons in the upper class have lost their money, but that doesn't matter It depends on family. The upper class is not doomed, because it is a necessity."