Hard Fact

Hard-headed Joseph Alsop has had his say on last week's teach-in. In a syndicated column datelined "Cambridge," which appeared yesterday in the Boston Globe under the headline "Harvard Teach-in Misguided," he labeled the participants "breast-beaters who had never been there [Viet Nam]" and chided them as Ivory Tower observers who "never bothered to inform themselves about grim little Ho Chi Minh's brilliant success as a cold-headed murder of his early resistance comrades." He concluded that "perhaps American progression [sic] needs to be returned to its former preoccupation with hard facts."

Perhaps Mr. Alsop could set American progressivism a better example. In only a few sentences he manages to grossly misrepresent the aims of the teach-in--to inform not denounce--and its effect--the presentation of an intelligent, knowledgeable, many-sided discussion by some of the areas most distinguished professors.

No doubt about it, Mr. Alsop's tough: he goes right to the front in Viet Nam to get the story. But how can we take his reports from South-East Asia seriously when he can't even get his facts right in Cambridge? attracted large followings, but which are ridiculed by other segments of the societies."

Under the direction of Nike Awoga and Femi Okuronmu, the cast seemed to enjoy themselves as completely as the audience did and they played their comic parts to the hilt, storming and shouting around the stage with enormous enthusiasm and exuberance. Amafume Onoge as the prophet Jeroboam delighted the house with abrupt switches from pompous ranting at his flock on stage, to sly soft-voiced asides to the audience explaining his true despicable motives. In the role of Chume, Akin Adewole '66 was as athletic and skilled at fighting with his wife as he was playing line-man for the Crimson soccer team this fall. And Cordelian Mbawuike was completely convincing as his ferocious spouse--especially in the scene in which she cried to bystanders, "He is going to kill me!" while she gave him a beating.

The play was the major event of an evening which included a display of African dress and a panel discussion of African and American Negro literature. A group of students, who seemed amused at their new roles as clothing models, came on stage nation by nation, wearing brilliantly colored and patterned garments. At one point, the audience learned that the two huge white buttons on the top-piece of one girl's garment were an innovation by missionaries who had been displeased with the previous more loose-fitting arrangement. (On the whole, Christianity took a fairly heavy beating last Saturday night.)

Hopefully, there will be further presentations of things African by this talented and able group.