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University Daily Kansan
Friday, Feb.-24, 1961
A Week Ends ...
Brotherhood Week will be ending soon. . . and what will be the results of this emphasis on brotherhood. . . . at KU, in the Midwest, throughout the nation? Did it promote the possibility that somewhere men will stand straight and tall before other men? Or was it only a name for a week, . . . now what will next week be? There is a strong possibility...
Of both. In any event, the name of the week has been before us. . . . and we have had to think. Brotherhood. What does it mean? Brotherhood means oneness. Brotherhood means understanding. But these are only definitions. ..
OF A CHILD. YES, THEY ARE DEFINITIONS like those of a child. They are definitions of brotherhood that we had once . . . and have no more. . . . they are theoretical, they are not practical. A child would say that brotherhood is oneness and understanding. He would say this because he knows no better. He does not know the truth. . .
Of the world today. As children become men, they must do what other men do. . . in understanding that there are differences . . . and that these differences can hurt. The child alone makes no distinctions about others. . . but the child can never be alone. Each generation leaves behind a legacy of misunderstanding. . . for the successive one to inherit. And these are the mistakes. . .
OF MEN. FROM WITHIN COMES THE realization that this must end. . . but when? And who will end it? No man can take it upon himself. . . unless there remains in him something of the child. The goal for all should be... to be a race unafraid. . . and unashamed. But who can father this race. . . certainly not men. But there is one. "The child is father...
Of the man." Yes, these words are as true today. . . as they were when written so long ago. Those men in whom. . . remains something of the child. . . must help us to become children all. And the strange thing is that in each man. . . there remains something. . .
OF THE CHILD. ALL KNOW SOMETHING of brotherhood. But for most, this is a brotherhood for those across the sea . . . or at least far away. Only when we understand that understanding must be here . . . can brotherhood be won. And this brotherhood must not be desired only for our kind. . . . and all men of all colors who think the same. It must be a brotherhood. ..
Of all. From the South to the North, from the East to the West. . . there must be understanding. . . here at home. This can only come through appreciation. . . of all sides and problems. . . and a free mind towards all ideas. And when we understand ourselves. . . the battle is not won. It must be fought and won again. And then perhaps there will be but one race, which is. . .
Dan Felger
Of man.
The Theater Corner
By Bill Blundell
The story of Thomas Becket, scholar, politician and man of God, is a fascinating one, worthy of the pen of T. S. Eliot. His poetic drama, "Murder in the Cathedral," captures the character of this complex man and transfixes it like a fly in amber. The Experimental Theatre production of the play came almost that close to capturing Eliot.
THE PLAY WAS GIVEN IN the Trinity Lutheran Church, which is a poor substitute for Canterbury Cathedral, but the best that can be found in Lawrence. The discrepancies between the actual and the intended setting are compensated for by brilliant lighting, conceived by Mona Birner, and a masterful use of special effects.
The entire play takes place outside the Cathedral or within it. When the action is outside, the lighting is so harsh as to give the impression of stone walls rather than wood. When the players move into the sanctuary, soft light focused on the bottom of the altar brings out the rich wood tones and the stark simplicity of eight white tapers against the carved wood panels that embrace the altar. The light is localized, leaving the top and sides of the sanctuary dark and giving the illusion of great size.
MOVING WITHIN THIS RICH setting, the players spin out the drama of Thomas Becket, the Saint-to-be, who has placed his church and his God above the King who raised him high and now would cast him down again.
John Welz, who has performed so well as Ben Gant and John Brown in other productions, portrays Becket with full attention to the awesome morality of the man, a morality which brings him back to his own country after seven years of self-imposed exile to face what he considers to be certain death—but the death of a martyr. Welz is particularly effective when he reads the Archbishop's Christmas sermon to his parishers.
BECKET. A SCHOLAR AND A churchman, becomes high chancellor to Henry II and is instrumental in building a united England in which Norman and Saxon could join for the common good. For his work, Henry rewards him with the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Thomas becomes at one stroke the man who holds the key to heaven and hell.
He falls from the king's favor when he resigns his chancellorship and devotes himself to the church, placing it above the state. The Eliot play concerns the period between the Archbishop's return to Canterbury and his murder by four of the king's nobles. These noblemen interpreted Henry's hot words against Thomas as license to rid the country of this troublesome, "self-bound servant of a powerless Pope."
When Thomas returns to Canterbury, he is tested by temptations in human form. The first bids him break off the fight and return to the sensuous ways he followed before his elevation in the Church. The second urges him to grasp temporal power in his hands. The third bids him to join a coalition of nobles against the king. These three Thomas expects — and refuses. But the fourth raises a spectre that deeply disturbs Thomas. He equates martyrdom with temporal power, making of it a material, not a spiritual, act. Thomas cries out, "You offer only dreams for damnation!" But his refutation is weak.
HE ACTIVELY SEEKS martyrdom, and finds it on the Canterbury altar, where he is stabbed to death by the drunken, hate-filled nobles. Karen Pyles' costumes spoke worlds here. The nobles were dressed in dark suits, black shirts, and white ties — the uniform of the underworld.
Dailu Hansan
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In what is the most striking part of the play, they appeal to the audience after the crime, each one speaking briefly in defense of the murder. Their pleadings are almost wholly apologetic, sophisticated whinings disguised as reason; but the lingering ghost of one argument is never completely laid; was the Archbishop murdered, or were the nobles merely the instruments he used to achieve the martyrdom he so greatly desired? Certainly it was true that Thomas appeared eager to seek such a death.
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THE FOUR TEMPTERS AND the nobles are double cast, four actors playing the eight roles. Their performances were excellent, surpassing those of the women, whose lamentations were so consistently loud as to eventually rob them of much of their dramatic impact, and those of the three priests, who were adequate but not outstanding. Both the women and the priests either spoke their lines much too quickly or tended to slur them. They were often unintelligible to the listeners at the rear of the church. The tempter-nobles were played by Glenn Cochran, Larry Siegas, Robert Bettcher, and Paul Ackerman. It is hoped we can see more of these players in future productions.
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"BETTER GET A FLASHHITE AN GE WHAT'S GOING ON
BACK IN THE 'STACKS'."
From the Soapbox
'Ebbodeze God Codes'
By Frank Morgan
"No. Actually, you see, I'm going through a second stage of puberty."
"Your voice is so deep—do you have a cold?"
So it finally happened, just as every one said it would.
"IT'S THESE SUDDEN CHANGES IN THE TEMPERATURE that cause them," one classmate told me between sneezes. "It has something to do with the equilibrium of the body's chemicals that get disturbed by the warm and then the cold,weather."
I explained to him that this was an old-wives tale that had recently been debunked by medical science and that the drop from the 70's to the 30's last week only disturbed the surface of the body.
I had to inform her that it was pretty certain that colds and pneumonia were caused by viruses and that they would certainly have more sense than to be out in the deluge we stupid mortals had braved to see Mimi die of consumption.
"LISTEN, YOU'D BETTER GET OUT OF THOSE WET SHOES and dry your hair," said The Girl as we parted after tromping through the rain from the opera Friday night. "You'll catch your death of pneumonia."
FUMBLING THROUGH THE DRAWER FOR THE HANDkerchiefs and pumping the salivary glands for all they were worth, I thought back to the day before and what it could have been that could have caused this.
I assured him that my resistance and health were excellent, that I had had only one cold in my life and that in the sixth grade, and that just because he had succumbed was no reason that everyone else was going to.
"YOU'D BETTER GET SOME SLEEP," SAID THE ROOM-mate sniffing from his inhalator before retiring, "with all these colds going you'll need all the resistance you can muster."
Came the great grey frog.
Brow: feverish. Nostrils: clogged. Tongue: thick and cracked.
Mouth: arid. Head: swollen and throbbing. Eyes: watering. Senses: dead.
Came the great, grey dawn.
The roommate awoke.
"No, bud I god some apsurn; over there, in the cabined. Where'd you pig id.un?"
"Hey, man, you look terrible. Whadsa madder?"
"I musda cawd a code," I said, honking for emphasis, "and I doan hab anything forhead. You god any code pills?"
"I dunno," I queezed, "musda god it from a restrawnt somewhere. They doan wash dere dishes too good. Anyhowd, ebbodeze god em dis time a year."
"Yeah, ebbodeze god codes."
... the classroom experience must pose a threat. The student must be threatened; he must be driven outside himself; he must be compelled to question himself and his values and the values of those among whom he lives. The classroom should undermine the security he feels in family, church, fraternity, or whatever the group of which he is most vitally a part. This is not to say that the classroom should breed insecurity; it means that the student should be thrown into a state of creative tension in which the foundations for the only valid security can be laid, that security which rests on individual thought.N. F. Tennille