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THE COLLEGE NEWS

by



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VOL. XLTH,-NO. 11 ARDMORE and BRYN MAWR, PA., WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1947





Copyright, Trustees of
Bryn Mawr College,1945

PRICE 10 CENTS



Haverford, B.M.
Present Annual
Carol Service

“Ceremony of Carols”
Sung with Delicacy,
Restraint
By Anne Greet, ’50

Last Sunday evening Goodhart
was crowded for the annual Christ-
mas Carol Service given by Bryn
Mawr and Haverford. It was a
pleasant performance but lacked
the Yuletide spirit of last year’s
caroling.

Britten’s Ceremony of Carols,
excellently accompanied by Edna
Phillips at the harp, was well-sung
from the first note of “Wolcum,
Yole, Wolcum!” to the last note of
“Deo Gracias,” the highlight of the
whole performance. Ellen Smith
bravely tackled a difficult solo. Her
voice is remarkably rich and mel-
low but at times she seemed un-
certain of the exact pitch. The
contrast of Nancy Dreher’s sweet,
pure soprano was partially nulli-
fied by the apparent strain she un-
derwent in singing sufficiently loud
and high. “I sing of a maiden,” a
lovely intermingling of voice and
. harp, was followed by the brisk
“This little babe” in which the
chorus coped exceedingly well with
the hasty dispatchment of such
lings as “his crib his trench, hay-
stalks his stakes.’”’ The Britten car-
ols were performed in a restrained,
delicate manner. The songs them-
selves are lovely and Mr. Goodale
and the Bryn Mawr Chorus did
them justice.

Orchestra Improved
The Orchestra, much improved
this year, played Handel’s Trio
Sonata in D Major. Both flute and
violin tended to stay on key and to
keep together, and, more than this,



Continued on Page 4

Wet Reporter Finds Lawrence
Not Awaiting College NEWS!

By Barbara Bettman, ’49

Armed confidently—if extremely
naively — with pen, notebook and
such questions as “Have you ever
wanted to play tragedy?”, “What
was your favorite role?”, “What
do YOU think of criticism?”, we
sallied forth into the rain to inter-
view Gertrude Lawrence, Monday
night, after the curtain on the last
of the current three plays in the
“Tonight at 8.30” series.

This is not to infer that Miss
Lawrence herself was in the rain.
She, completely unaware of us,
was ensconced in her dressing
room at the end of a small corri-

Maids, Porters
To Carol Tonight
In BMC Tradition

Tonight Bryn Mawr will once
again hear the strains of Louis’
“Joshua” and Al’s “Holy Night”,
as the Maids and Porters keep up
the yearly tradition of caroling
from-—hall-to—hall_ the Wednesday
before Christmas vacation. For
weeks now, the veteran carolers
and this year’s new recruits have
been practicing spirituals and
carols. Many of these are compli-
cated part songs, and at the night-
ly rehearsals Directors Kathy Geib
’49 and Betty-Bright Page ’49 have
been busily sorting out sopranos
from altos, tenors from basses.

Big plans are already underway
among the Maids and Porters for
a spring performance of the Gil-
bert and Sullivan operetta H.M.S.
Pinafore. A mass meeting will be
held in the Common Room .to go
over all the music before tryouts.
Classes in sports and knitting and
sewing, as well as in Academic
subjects, are being held regularly,
according to Jane Ettelson, Chair-
man of the Maids’ and Porters’
Committee.





Gallant Matador Tearfully Slays
Ferocious Bull With Tommy-gun

by Elisabeth Nelidow ’51

The arena was crowded with
brightly costumed ‘people at the
gay Spanish Club fiesta Monday
evening in Spanish House, where
the plebians, bourgeois and gran-
dees of the audience were separat-
ed on tiers of seats marked “Sol”,
“Sol y Sombra” and “Sombra” in
the appropriate manner.

High point of the fiesta was the
much advertised bull-fight. Re-
-~gplendent~in-red- satin and--velvet,
the matador stalked solemnly on,
followed by the banderillero and
the monosobios. Cervantes de Cal-
deron y Hartzenbusch y Gillet
proved too much of a mouthful for
anyone, so the matador was called
El Neppereto for short.

Reputed to weigh over two tons
and to be the biggest, blackest and
most ferocious beast on earth, the
bull lived up to all expectation.
Amid deafening roars he came
trotting on, with a glorious red
rose dangling fetchingly from the
corner of his mouth. Bowing to
all sides, he cavorted around, wav-
ing his tail. But the matador want-
ed a still wilder adversary.“So this
lovely animal was led away, and
another came charging on. He may
have been somewhat like the first
in appearance, but he was out to
kill,

A spectatular display of courage

| struggle continued.



{and skill ensued, as El Neppereto,

brandishing his scarlet cloak, foil-
ed the bull time and again. The
bull momentarily collapsed when
it was announced that he had re-
ceived a telegram, but soon the
In a supreme
gesture the matador turned his
back. The beast missed, and the
confident matador did it again.
This time he went down, to be sav-
ed only by the unbelievable’ cour-
age of the banderillero. The bull

‘was now tamed, and-he-and-El-Nep- |.

pereto ‘shook hands.

The matador wiped a tear from
his eye, before he finally killed it
in a blaze of sparks from his
tommy-gun. The tail was cut off
and thrown into the audience,
while El Neppereto fainted dead
away. The bull then staggered to
its feet, and while the back half
held a halo over its head, the front
half dragged the prostrate matador
from the arena. Meantime the
telegram was opened and found to
be felicitations from: Elsie!

Other features of this brilliant
fiesta were Spanish carols, with
lovely harmony, and several expert
dances, including a Mexican hat
dance. One dance was meant to
be performed on horseback, but,
the announcer informed us, seven
horses had been worn out at re-
hearsal, and the Philadelphia
S. P. C. A. had put its foot down.



dor backstage at the Forrest Thea-
tre. We are just now beginning to
wonder what magic we thought
the words “I’m from the Bryn
Mawr College News” was going to
effect, but it never occurred to us
that we would not be welcomed de-
lightedly and with instant recogni-
tion. Perhaps we hoped that our
disapproval of Judith Anderson
would have blazoned a’path for us,
but in any event we did not expect
to find ourselves, possessed more
of the Wet, or Hangdog, than the
New Look, crushed amidst a group
of our friends in the aforemention-
ed small corridor.
Last Monday’s Reception

A number of these friends who
had gone backstage themselves the
previous Monday had even been
given a return invitation. (We
had merely horned in the second
time.) Miss Lawrence, however,
was immersed in a party and we
stood in the afore-aforementioned
corridor with our friends, glared
upon by the manager and walked

on by various members of the cast,
Continued on Page 3

Varsity Players

Announce Plans

The spring dramatic schedule is
unusually full this year. On Feb-
ruary 14, four one-act origin
plays will be presented, under the
general title of “Playwright’s
Night.” This will be followed, on
March 19 and 20, by the Bryn
Mawr Varsity Players’ spring pro-
duction. Plans are already going
forward for Arts’ Night, to be held
this year on April 15. The Hav-
erford spring production will be
given on two successive evenings,
‘May 7 and 8.

It is still possible for those in-
terested to join the last hour of
Mr. .Thon’s play-writing course,
the “acting technique” classes
which meet from 4:30 to 6:00, on
Thursday afternoons, in the Skin-
ner workshop.

The Varsity Players Club an-
nounces a first-semester election of
new members:

Joan Gale, ’49

Kathie Harper, ’50
Nancy Kunhardt, ’48
Gale Minton, 49
Ann-Jane Rock, ’50
Margo Vorys, ’49
Geraldine Warburg, ’49
Shirley Winter, ’50



Calendar

Wednesday, December 17
Evening: Maids and Porters

Carol Singing.

‘Thursday, December 18
6:30 — Christmas parties in

all the halls.
Evening: Carol Singing.

Friday, December 19

12:45— Christmas vacation
begins.
Monday, January 5

9:00 — Christmas vacation
ends.
Wednesday, January 7

4:30—Vocational Tea, Art
and Archaeology, Common
Room.

8:00—Philosophy Club Lec-
ture; Mrs. Theodore de La-
guna, Common Room.
Friday, January 9

8:15—Program on
Energy, Goodhart.
Sunday, January 11

7:30—Chapel Service con-
ducted by the Reverend Harry
D. Meserve, Minister of the
First Unitarian Church, Buf-
falo, New York.

Atomic









Feature Turkey,

Variety of Plays

“Halls will be decked with
boughs of holly” Thursday night
when Bryn Mawr has its annual
Christmas Dinner _ celebration.
Turkey with all the fixings, and
strawberry sundaes will be served
in dining halls decorated with fit-
ting Sophomore sweat and strain.
The Faculty have been invited, and
a rare selection of speeches are in
the offing.

The high point of the evening
will be the various plays and pag-
eants planned by each hall. Never
has there been quite as much va-
riety in the choice of plays; every-
thing from an Old English Mum-
mers’ play to Winnie the Pooh.
Rockefeller is giving its annual

Christmas pageant, directed by
Eleanor Rubsam ’49. The pageant

is an Old English Mummers’ play
coming originally from Glouces-
ter; it is a tale of Prince George
and a Turkish Knight. St. George
is struck down by the Knight but
is revived after considerable horse-
-play between the doctor and his
assistant. England’s patron saint
is finally triumphant, and the play
ends on a note of joy as a certain
Beelzebub passes around the hat.
Rhoads has taken two. short
skits from A. A. Milne’s beloved
“Winnie the Pooh”. Rhoadesians

(new word) anxiously await the
Continued on Page 3

Post-Holiday Tea,
Lectures Planned

Vocational Tea

The History of Art and Archae- |

ology departments will sponsor the
second Vocational Tea of the year
on Wednesday, January 7, at 4:30,
in the Common Room. Dr. Car-
penter will speak, as well as one
or two alumnae. Tea will be serv-
ed at 4:30 and the speaking will
begin at 5:00 promptly. Everyone
is strongly urged to come and
hear the opportunities for work in
this field.
Philosophy Lecture

Mrs. Theodore de Laguna will
speak at the open meeting of the
Philosophy Club on Wednesday,
January 7; in the Common Room,
at 8:00.

Psychiatry Lecture

Dr. C. H. Branch, attending psy-
chiatrist for the college, will give
two talks ‘on phases of Modern
Psychiatry. January 8 and 15, at
8:80, in Goodhart, have been set as
tentative dates. As yet, the exact
topics of Dr. Branch’s talks are
undecided. ‘These lectures will be
open to the generdl public.

Atomic Energy Program

The League of Women Voters
of Lower Merion Township, in co-
operation with Haverford and Bryn
Mawr Colleges, will present a pro-
gram on Atomic Energy, Friday,
January 9, at 8:15, in Goodhart.
John M. Hancock, co-author of the
Baruch-Hancock Reconversion Re-
port, will discuss the problem of
“International Control of Atomic
Energy.” Mr. Hancock served as
general manager of the United
States delegation to the United
Nations Atomic Energy Commis-



sion.

Christmas Parties ~

‘King Lear’ Performance Superb;
Achieves Deep Tragic Intensity

Shakespeare, Harriman,
Lead Massive Cast
To Success

Specially contributed by
Richmond Lattimore

The Cap and Bells Club of Hav-
erford and the Varsity Players of
Bryn Mawr, acted King Lear last
Friday and Saturday nights. I was
there Saturday only, and have been
told by some that the Friday per-
formance was the better of the
two, but what was given Saturday
night was ‘certainly good enough
and more. It is better to keep
comparison with professional stan-
dards out of this; since those who
draw the contrast commonly as-
sume that professional acting is
more consistently excellent than,
in fact, it is, as if the standing of
“professional” carried in _ itself
some kind of transfiguring magic.
So, without using the qualification
“for an amateur production”, I
will simply say that this perform-
ance was superb.

Fast. Moving

In intention and in fact it was
deeply sincere, and therefore mov-
ing; mechanically, it was fast (on
a few occasions too fast) and sim-
ple. There was a minimum of
properties, there was no scenery
to be shifted, so that episode fol-
lowed episode without break, ex-
cept for a single interval in the
middle; the sequences of scenes
were articulated by lighting, which
was mostly well-handled. There
was no false_realism, and the act-
ors spoke the asides frankly, with-
out scuttling off in a corner and
pretending the other actors could
not hear.: There was no hamming,
no pretentiousness, no hogging of
scenes. A performance with these
virtues would have deserved re-
spect even if it had come far short
of its intentions; this performance
| was almost as good as it was meant
ito be.



Lucid: Presentation

As a result, the play was made
lucid in its entirety, the bewilder-
ing political background as clear
as it can be (which isn’t very
clear), the sometimes tedious sub-
plot not allowed to drag. The real
intrinsic humor, which isn’t comic
relief, was well brought out, and
when the audience laughed at the
wrong’times, that was strictly the
fault of the people who giggled.
There were a few fumbled lines, a
few words changed in the text that
might better have been left alone,
but technically this” performance
was good, and in spirit and. taste it
was beyond reproach,

Honors to Thon

For all this, the credit must be
divided among Director, Cast, and
Stage, so that I have purposely
put the chief emphasis on the pro-
duction as a whole. But this is
also a personal triumph for Fred-
erick Thon, who directed it. The
honor for having pulled such a pro-
duction together (in a little more
than three weeks!) goes particu-

larly to him. All credit, too, to the
Continued on Page 2





WORLD PREMIERE

The World Premiere of THE
MOVIE, “Bryn Mawr,” will be
given in Goodhart, on the eve-
ning of January 14th, Students
and alumnae are all invited, 80
keep this date open for the gala
event.