1940
MAY 15, 1946
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN, LAWRENCE, KANSAS
PAGE FIVE
Parties,Sports--Oh Yes,Practice-On Music Camp Program
WHY WE SAY
by STAN J COLLINS & L. J SLAWSON
Vulgarity on This Side of Atlantic Is 'Good Clean Fun' in England
By FREDERICK C. OTHMAN
(United Press Staff Correspondent)
London. (UP) — The sun was shining at 6:30 p.m. when I elbowed into the New theater (built in 1903) for a highbrow British evening that locked nobody but one lowbrow Higgle when the comics went after American.
The ladies in the dress circle other with blunt swords. I gulped. It was funny, all right, but still I gulped. All I know is that the performance by Laurence Oliviers old Vic Theater company of "The Critic" would have crimsoned the face of sliding Billy Watson himself.
I had better tell you about it, because the 32 members of the troup comprising Britain's premier repertory company make aviation history Sunday by flying aboard a Pan American constellation to New York for a six week stand. If the boys use their swords on Broadway as they did on St. Martin's lane, my guess is that the joint'll be raided and the whole company hauled to the clink.
The evening was a wiedo one, beginning with the sundown curtain which started during the blitz and which the British decided they liked. So I had to pay the usherette in the white apron 10 cents for a program, make a deal with her to bring me a cup of coffee and cookie between the acts (because that is the custom) and try then to understand Olivier and company in Sophocles' tragedy, "Oedipus Rex."
It was the most tragic tragedy of all about the king who married his own mother and then put out his eyes. Never did I see a bloodier scene than that. The ladies who later giggled were weeping when the lights went on.
The next half hour of the program (after the coffee which could have been hotter) found the same actors performing in R. B. Sheridan's old comedy, "The Critic, or a Tragedy Rehearsed." They wore white wigs and satin knee breeches, and Olivier used a hatpin to keep on his tricorne. The dialogue was so brittle that it cracked before it reached me.
That probably was the fault of my ears. Everybody else thought it was hilarious. Came finally the climax, and hold onto your seat; the cardboard waves were bouncing across the stage, the plywood clouds were floating by, the British fleet was firing upon the Spanish armada, and the swordmen were doing their stuff at the footlights.
Somebody was shooting off guns, the New theater was filling rapidly with gunpowder smoke, and then according to the plot everything came unstuck. Olivier was snagged on a passing cloud and couldn't get off. Miss Nicoletta Bernard lost her white satin dress, while Sir Walter Raleigh and the Arl of Leicester, played by Michael Warre and Michael Ragnan, did things with those swords which simply aren't done in the American theater. Not if there are any cops around.
The curtain crashed down and the orchestra, including the lady violinist who'd knitted placidly through the whole performance, played God Save The King.
I left dazed. For what is vulgarity on one side of the Atlantic becomes good clean fun on the other. The thing that pains me now is that I was booked to fly home on the plane with the actors and Mrs. Vivien Leigh Olivier. I figured it would be all right to get chummy with Scarlett O'Hara and maybe pat her hand if the transatlantic movie got scary.
Concerts, sports, parties, and practice will be combined in the ninth Mid-western Music camp to be held in the campus June 24 through August 4.
The camp which is for high school students, will be sponsored by D. M. Swarthout, dean of the School of Fine Art. Russell L. Wiley, associate professor of band, and E. Thayer Gaston, associate professor of music education, will be directing.
Band, orchestra, and chorus organizations will be included in the camp, as well as classes in music theory, music appreciation, band and orchestra methods, ensemble, conducting, drum majoring, twirling, and private instrument lessons.
Concerts will be given every Sunday, at 4 p.m. by the orchestra and at 7 p.m. by the band. They will be played out-of-doors when the weather permits, on a stage to be erected north of Marvin hall.
A special week will begin July 29 for concentrated training in baton twirling and drum majoring directed by William Sears, a member of the University band drum majoring staff.
Parties will be held in various organized houses for the students and one or two will be held in the Union ballroom.
Guest conductors invited to attend the camp include Frank Simon, Cincinnati, Ohio; L. Bruce Jones, Baton Rouge, La.; T. Frank Coulter, Joplin, Mo.; James P. Robertson, Springfield, Mo.; C. J. McKee, Topeka; William G. Altimari, Atchinson, August San Romani, McPherson; and Oliver Hobbs. Lawrence.
Athletics will be directed by Charles Mills, athletic director at Topeka high school. All minor sports will be offered and tournaments will be held in softball, tennis, swimming, and croquet.
Students will live in University dormitories, fraternity and sorority houses, supervised by housemothers, supervisors, and boy and girl counselors.
Last year 175 students from 10 states attended the camp, the first held in two years.
The camp faculty will include Waldemar Geltch, Joe Weigand, Raymond Stuhl, Mrs. Laurel Everett Anderson, Jean Klussman, Shirley Sloan, Nevin Wassen, Frank Stalzer, E. Thayer Gaston, Leo Horacek, Elmer Pundmann, Gerald Carney, Rex Conner, Robert Briggs.
High School Students To Spend Month On Campus, Learning Theory, Methods
William Sears, Laurel Everett Anderson, Joseph Wilkins, Marie Wilkins, Alen Moncrief, Meribah Moore, Irene Peabody, D. M. Swarthout,
Allie Merle Conger, Joy Orecutt,
Alberta Stuhl, Joy Brown, Janet
Coulson, Jeannette Stough, and
Charles Mills.
Men's supervisor and student counselor will be Nevin Wassen. Women's supervisor will be Mrs. C. Barrett. Boys' counselors will be Donald Livingston, Mr. Sears, and Mr. Stalzer.
Counselors for girls will be Frances Sartori, Martha Long, Shirley Foster, Jean Scott, and Miss Klussman.
Kansas Newsmen To Wichita Golf Tourney
Wichita. (UP)—The first spring tournament of the Kansas Editorial Golf association since the war years will be held here May 31 and June 1, with all working newspapermen in the state eligible to compete. More than 150 are expected in the tournament.
Roy Bailey, Salina, editor of the Salina Journal and president of the Association, announced the dates today. He said a banquet will be held May 31. All visiting newspaperm will be guests of Wichita newspapers at a pre-tournament party May 30.
K-State Dean May Head Philippine Agricultural Mission
If Call accepts the post, he will leave Manhattan about the middle of June to spend six months in the islands. His offices said the group making up the mission was expected to include specialists in research, education, production, distribution, economics and sociology.
Manhattan. (UF) — Dean L. E.
Call of the School of Agriculture at
Kansas State college has been asked
to head an agricultural mission to the
Philippine islands for consultation in
agricultural readjustment there, it
was announced today.
Alaska lies in the same latitude as Sweden, Norway, and Finland.
Sports Equipment
Fishing Tackle
Bicycle Supplies
Games and Toys
Wheel Goods
Model Supplies
Admission $1.50, Stag or Drag
KIRKPATRICK
SPORT SHOP
715 MASS. PHONE 1016
Get Your Ticket Now at the Business Office
Leave Saturday Night Open
For the I.S.A.
SWEETHEART DANCE
9 to 12
BOTTLED UNDER AUTHORITY OF THE COCA-COLA COMPANY BY KANSAS CITY COCA-COLA BOTTLING CO.