Page 10
University Daily Kansan
Wednesday. May 15. 1963
University Theatre Limited in Scope
The University Theatre is serving the drama students, but failing the University as a whole, F. Cowles Strickland, visiting professor of speech and drama, said last night.
"The theatre does not reach the student in the (University) community," Strickland said in his speech at the Speech and Drama Honors Dinner in the Kansas Union.
He cited "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "The Cherry Orchard" as examples of failures to reach students outside the drama department. Romance language students should have been interested in "Cyrano," he said, "but only a very, very small number were interested enough to go."
PART OF THE FAILURE to interest other students, Strickland said, can be traced to the newspapers not making drama important enough to the students.
Strickland said that "not enough publicity" is a frequent comment heard in the drama department.
Strickland was critical of the specialization of professions and its tendency to cut into general education. Such specialization, he said, "is somehow failing to give students... the understanding and appreciation of many things that would be helpful to them all their lives."
CITING STATE MONEY spent for a recreational reservoir, he said. "It is apparently the opinion of the State Department that nobody can do anything with his leisure time except fishing or living down.
"They could, sometime, somewhere, take a book with them," he suggested. "I think you have that problem."
Although the University is substituting some specialized training for general education, it tells the student, "This is not professional training," said Strickland, "but the student doesn't realize this."
"Most of us are here getting training . . . screaming that it is not professional . . . but filling requirements to 'get the union card, in case',' he said. "We are trying to be safe . . . but you can't be safe in the theater department."
STRICKLAND CONTRASTED the academic, who studies what has been done, with the artist, who studies what is being done.
Wescoe to Wave Baton at Concert
Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe has accepted a new position... that of a guest conductor for the annual Pops concert.
Maestro Wescoe will be joined by several vice chancellors and other faculty and staff members at 3:30 p.m. Sunday in Hoch Auditorium to help the Concert Choir and the University Symphony with their program.
Chancellor Wescoe received a private lesson in baton waving Monday afternoon from Robert Baustian, associate professor of orchestra, and Clayton Krehbiel, associate professor of music education and choral music. After Maestro Wescoe conducts the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" Sunday, Prof. Baustian and Prof. Krehbiel will take over.
George Smith and Keith Lawton, vice chancellors, will play three vacuum cleaners and one floor polisher in an orchestral number, "Grand. Grand Overture."
Hoch auditorium will take on an informal air with tables set up so that persons may walk around during the concert.
The price for the afternoon "of good light music is $1 and all the root beer and pretzels you want," said Prof. Krehbiel.
The waiters and waitresses will be members of the faculty. Thomas Gorton, dean of the School of Fine Arts, will be head waiter.
The Pops Concert provides an opportunity for the 80-member chorus and the 70-member orchestra to do lighter music than they have been accustomed to doing during the year.
Door prizes will be given, so audience members are urged to save their ticket stubs.
He cited an early Harvard drama course covering good directors, and quoted from "New Republic": "It is all very well to 'cover' the different work of Appia, Craig, Reinhardt Jones, etc., as one of the courses promises to do. That is the academic way. The artist's way is to go from one to another of these men themselves."
Proceeds will go to a music scholarship fund.
The visiting professor called for a combination of the best of academic abilities with the best of artistic abilities.
SPEECH AND DRAMA departmental awards were presented to Thomas D. Beisecker, Topeka senior, and Judy C. Southard, Springfield, Mo., junior.
Beisecker received the award for excellence in scholarship. Miss Southard received the Allen Crafton Scholarship.
Daniel R. Crary, Lawrence senior, was named Forensics Man of the Year by the speech communication division of the department.
THEATER DIVISION awards went to Michael Muchenthal, Topeka junior, for make-up design; Burton E. Meisel, Lawrence graduate, for lighting design, and Richard E. Jamison, Quinter sophomore, for scene design.
Terry A. Kovac, Wichita junior, and Marilyn Miller Boyd, Lawrence senior, were named best actor and actress.
There is little chance of more than a mediocre novel of the Cuban revolution coming out of present-day Cuba, a professor of Romance languages said last night.
Censorship Limits NovelsAboutCuba
Speaking at a Humanities Forum, Prof. Seymour Menton said intense emotionalmour inside and outside Cuba imposes strict censorship on novelists.
He said one of the reasons few first-rate novels will be developed in Cuba is that young writers are being encouraged to write only of the favorable aspects of the revolution and the life it has produced.
PROF MENTON divided the Cuban revolutionary novel into two periods: 1959-1960 and 1961-1962.
During the first period, he said, novels dealt with romantic heroes and melodramatic situations, and gave no consideration to the social aspects. The novels were anti-Batista, he said.
The novels of the latter period were concerned with justice and the social aspects of modern Cuba, he said.
Mentioning several novelists of both periods, the professor listed similarities of the periods;
- Dominance of the urban scene.
- Anti-Batista sentiment.
- Middle or upper class whites as protagonists.
- No mention or concern over so-called "Yankee" exploitation.
In addition, he said, the periods show no anti-clerical feeling, communists are seen only occasionally, and there is more concern for the novel's plot than for its historic aspects.
Kansan Classified Ads Get Results!
STARTS SATURDAY -
We urge you to see "Sundays and Cybele" from the beginning
STUDENTS
Bring Your Car Repairs
to
DALE'S BODY SHOP
Where You Can Be Assured of Quality Work at Low Cost
VI 3-4732
704 VT.
When You're In Doubt, Try It Out—Kansan Classified
NOW SHOWING