An Open Letter to AlCapp

DEAR MR. CAPP:

My attention has been called to the letter of yours that Cyrus Durgin, drama and music critic of the Boston Globe, printed in last Sunday's newspaper. I was shocked to find a person of your eminence unleashing such an ill-timed and sloppily thought-out barrage against the Cambridge Drama Festival's tenancy this summer of the new, State-constructed Metropolitan Boston Arts Center (MeBAC); and I was surprised to see Mr. Durgin rising to your bait.

It is clear that you have chosen to act as apologist for Lee Falk's now defunct Boston Summer Theatre, and, more especially, for the Group 20 Players at Wellesley, now in their sixth season. I have no intention of taking one side or another in any conflict between the C.D.F. and Group 20; as a journalistic critic, I have been to see and/or review almost all the summer play productions in the area for a good number of years, and my admiration for the impressive roster of achievements by both these groups is strong. But your letter contains so many errors and distortions that there is no choice but to set the record straight on some of them.

(1) You claim that the Metropolitan District Commission has granted the C.D.F. "exclusive use ... of the new Art Center Theatre for the next several years and possibly long thereafter." This is mere conjecture on your part. The M.D.C. has not made any long-range commitments for the Theatre's use; so why do you want to stir up trouble before any has arisen?

(2) You twice refer to the C.D.F. as an "extinct" organization, and claim it "quit several years ago." This is an irresponsible falsehood. The C.D.F. only started in 1956, when it gave three productions: Henry V, a new version of The Beggar's Opera, and Saint Joan. It brought us Emlyn Williams and Marcel Marceau in 1957, two productions by the Theatre National Populaire in 1958, the Vieux-Colombier company and Gielgud's Ages of Man early this year, and is offering three shows this summer. Extinct? No; you, Mr. Capp, are the dodo.

(3) You assert that the C.D.F. is forcing the other local drama groups out of business. And you go on to cite the demise of Lee Falk's Boston Summer Theatre, which until three years ago you co-produced with him in New England Mutual Hall. Now the fact is that Mr. Falk, having lost money in recent summers, had already decided to forego a 1959 season and to sell all his theatrical property before the new MeBAC theatre was given the go-ahead.

You state, further, that Falk presented "the greatest American stars in the greatest plays for many, many years." This speaks very poorly indeed for your judgement and taste. For eleven years, Falk gave us seasons that each contained only one or two plays of stature amid a morass of mediocrity. As a matter of fact, Mr. Capp, it was only after you disassociated yourself from Falk that he offered us in 1957 a season0of nothing but good, plays: Jonson's Volpone, Anouilh's Thieves' Carnival, Fry's Venus Observed, Shaw's Back to Methuselah, Giraudoux's The Madwoman of Chaillot, and Graham Greene's The Potting Shed. He lost money; and last summer he lowered the quality of his choices somewhat, and still lost. So he threw in the towel.

Turning to Group 20, you say it "in the opinion of most is the best young theater group in America." Whether it is or not superior to, say, the five-year-old American Shakespeare Festival is a moot question; but we all recognize it to be a splendid company.

You go on to maintain that it "has so suffered from the competition of Mr. Hunt's company [William Morris Hunt's is executive producer of the C.D.F.]...that it is doubtful that it can continue." When Mr. Durgin asked Mrs. Alison Ridley Evans, Group 20's manager, she said she thought her business had suffered "to some extent," but added equivocally, "It is hard to estimate how much." Yet Group 20's fine current production of Shaw's Man and Superman has evidently done excellent business since it has had to be held over an extra week.

Then, Mr. Capp, you failed to mention at all that, although Falk's project has been discontinued, another new group under the aegis of the Boston Summer Playhouse is now offering its first season of shows at the Charles Playhouse in Boston. The Tufts Arena Theatre seems to be getting along as well as ever; and the several local music circuses are reportedly doing unprecedentedly good business.

Therefore, your claim that the MeBAC theatre is being "used as a weapon by one group to kill off all the others" is shown to be rash and unfounded.

(4) There runs through your letter the unfortunate implication that only a group that makes lots of money is to be considered a success. Having said that the C.D.F. "laid a considerable financial egg," you go on to deduce that it has "the least successful record of all." This is a crassly materialistic view. The C.D.F., in the stature of its offerings, has been a pronounced success. And in giving Shaw's Saint Joan with Siobhan McKenna it provided local theatregoers with as great a performance as the Boston area has ever witnessed.

Besides this, Group 20 has had seasons of high artistic success and still lost money. And Falk's finest season was the one that put him most in the red. So let's not drag in the bogus issue of profit and loss.

(5)Finally, in a frantic outburst, you claim that the M.D.C., "in an appalling example of un-Americanism,... handed over a quarter of a million dollars of tax-money (and plenty more to come) to a group of the socially prominent, and those who hope to achieve social prominence by fooling around in the theatre--at the city's expense." Not only is this statement unwarranted, but it is also patently libelous; and it would serve you right to have a defamation suit tossed in your lap. Neither the C.D.F., Group 20, nor any other local drama group is concerned with social prominence; they are all interested in serving the noblest of the arts to the best of their ability. And how dare you imply that the bringing to local stages of such luminous performers as Siobhan McKenna, Marcel Marceau, and Sir John Gielgud constitutes "fooling around in the theatre"?

I think you owe the community an apology for the uncalled-for ruckus you have stirred up. You may be wise in Dogpatch, Mr. Capp; but your letter has shown that you are not at all wise in Massachusetts. Yours,   CALDWELL TITCOMB