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Page Two

THE COLLEGE NEWS





THE COLLEGE NEWS

FOUNDED IN 1914



Published weekly during the College Year (except during Thanks-
giving, Christmas and Easter holidays, and during examination weeks)
in the interest of Bryn Mawr College at the Ardmore Printing Company,
Ardmore, Pa., and Bryn Mawr College.



The College News is fully protected by copyright. Nothing that
appears in it may be reprinted either wholly or in part without per-
mission of the Editor-in-Chief.



Editorial Board
Harriet Warp, *48, Editor-in-Chief

BarBaRA BETTMAN, *49, Copy Betty-Bricnt Pace, 49, Makeup
Louise Ervin, *49 Emity TOWNSEND, ’50, Makeup
Jean Ets, ’49 Katrina THoMas, *49

Editorial Staff

Marian Epwarps, 50 Grorta WHITE, '48
Crcetia Maccase, ’50 Nina Cave ’50
GwyYNNE WILLIAMS, 50 IRINA NELIDow, ’50
ANNE GREET ’50 Pat NicHot, ’50
BLaikiE ForsyTH °51 HANNA Hoxzorn ’50
CATHERINE MERRITT 751 E.LisaABETH NELIpow, ’51

Photographer
ROSAMOND KANE 748

Business Board
Mary BEETLESIONE, 49, Business Manager
Garou Baker, 48, Advertising Manager
Joan Rossins, °49 Betty Mutcn, ’50
ELEANOR OtTTo ’51 Mary Lou Paice ’51
MaDELINE BiounrtT ’51

Subscription Board
Atty Lou Hackney, °49, Manager
Epre Mason Ham, ’50 Sue KELLEY, *49
ANNA-STINA ErRIcson ’48 EpyYTHE LAGRANDE, “49
Ivy Borow ’50 SALLY CATLIN ’50
BarBARA LIGHTFOOT, "50 BUNNY STADERMAN *51 9% }

“-~



Subscription, $2:75 Mailing price, $3.50
Subscriptions may begin at any time



Entered as second class matter at the Ardmore, Pa., Post Office
Under Act of Congress August 24, 1912







An Outstanding Achievement

We of the News feel that we speak for everyone who
saw “King Lear” last Friday or Saturday night, as well as
for ourselves, when-we say that the winter production of

the Haverford Cap and Bells Club and the Bryn Mawr Var-
sity Players was magnificent.

Mr. Thon did a brilliant job, showing his extraordinar-
ily beautiful taste as well as his expert direction. The group-
ing on the stage, especially, was natural and impressive, par-
ticularly when the final curtain opened repeatedly with a roll
of the drums to reveal the stark immobility of the tragic
scene.

The skeptics who came thinking that it was an im-
possible play to produce, “remained to cheer”—perhaps even
louder and longer than the rest of us. And there were no
dissenting voices.

In their two fall plays Varsity Players and Cap and Bells
have shown that they can successfully tackle two entirely
different types of plays, each one extremely difficult, and
present an understanding, stellar performance. Their work
is a credit to Bryn Mawr as well as to themselves and we lodk
forward to their next offering.

We feel that “congratulations” do not quite express
what we want to say. Rather we want to offer our gratitude
for the privilege of being allowed to see “King Lear”. We
will not soon forget it.

Merry Christmas

Midnight before Christmas when we’re far away

Gobbling turkeys and such, Taylor bell starts to play.

No student has rung it. The lantern man’s home.

Who, then, is waking the old Taylor gnome?

He springs from his belfry bed at the first clatter

And slides down the roof to see what is the matter.

“It’s Christmas, old goblin, you’ve slept through the year.
Wake up for Saint Nicholas soon will be here.”

From their quartos the ghosts of the Library crawl—
Prince Bulbo, the Bagman, the White Knight, and Wol.
The cloister pool troll, who’s far richer than I,

Tosses pennies and quarters about in the sky

For new Christmas stars. While from Pembroke and Rock,
Denbigh, Merion, Rhoads, pour forth a flock

Of ghosts of old hoopsticks and ancient stuffed bears.
“Ding-a-ding!” bellows Taylor. And someone declares,
“For wassail, plum pudding, and sizeable roasts,”

(‘Tis the voice of Miss Thomas), “To the Deanery, ghosts!”
As the last stroke of twelve echoes into the night

: She adds, “Merry Christmas, Bryn Mawr, and sleep tight.”

—A.G.

e e , @
BMT in Fiction.

by Katrina Thomas ’49

TRACY LORD

The red-headed heroine of Philip
Barry’s The Philadelphia Story is
Tracy Lord, “a strikingly lovely
girl of 24” who in the course of
the twenty-four hours preceding
her wedding, throws over her sec-
ond husband-to-be, and takes back
her first one. Mrs. Lord tells the
reporters that her daughter went
to Bryn Mawr, “till she got bounc-

ed out on her - - - ” (supplements
13-year-old Dinah). Tracy ‘° is
rightfully considered ‘a hellion”
by Mike, the reporter. Her father

tells her that she has “everything
it- takes to make a lovely woman
except the one essential... an un-
derstanding heart’, while George
Haven, the coal magnate whom she
is about to marry, considers her
“some marvelous, distant .. queen”
with a kind of “beautiful purity”
until she is carried in by Mike in
a bath-robe in a drunken stupor
after a midnight swim. Now Ha-
ven thinks her conduct so shocking
to his ideals of womanhood that
she is his queen no longer.

Dexter, who considers that dur-
ing his year of marriage to Tracy
he played the role of a high priest
to a virgin goddess, really lam-
bastes her: “You could be the
damnedest, finest woman on this
earth . . . you'll never be a first-
class woman, till you have learned
to have some small regard for hu-
man frailty. It’s a pity your own
foot can’t slip a little some time - -
but no... The goodness must and
shall remain intact... You’re a
special class of Aanaatiinn Female
now - - the Married Maidens. .
And of type Philadelphiaensis . .
Tracy is irate: ‘(Damn your soul,
Dext, if you say another - - !”
But, by the end of the play, Tracy
feels like neither a goddess nor a
hellion but a human being, as she
goes down the aisle to promise to
“love, honor and obey” Dexter and
to be “‘yare” now. «

”

Able Cast Supports
Leads in King Lear

Continued from Page 1
stage manager, Alan Levensohn,
and everyone behind him. For the
acting, I was especially impressed
by the depth of the cast which
massively supported several as-
tonishing individual performances.
Everyone, down to the one-or-two-
line persons and the last decora-
tive page, lady-in-waiting, or man-
at-arms, was alive and in the play.
Physically, the young cast both
looked and moved well, the three
daughters so differently lovely, the
men (especially Lear, Edmund,
Kent, and Cornwall) with their va-
ried suggestions of heroic stature.
Brilliant Performances

If I must single out several
performers individually, this is
done with all honor to the rest of
the cast, the best of them and
those who were not so successful,
for each played his part to the hilt.
Edward Shakespeare’s Lear was
magnificent; mighty in anger,
heart-breaking in weakness, never
melodramatic, and always (there-
in, the terror of the play) believ-
able. Ellen Harriman’s Goneril was
a piece of deadly intelligence, and
every last little gesture or ripple
of expression was absolutely and
finally right. She never intruded
on others, but you felt her pres-
ence even when she was in the
background or half-darkness. Joan
Gale’s Regan was masterly in mak-
ing somehow credible the transi-
tion from the pretty little bride
who cuddled Gloucester’s arm to
the spite and sex of her later
scenes. Lee Haring’s Oswald,
smirking, pert and obsequious by
turn, could hardly have been better.
And William Bishop, as Glouces-
ter, with his thin, rapid, always in-
telligible old man’s patter, achiev-
ed an extraordinary impersonation
of age.



These performances gilitaiea,





| Opinion

~

Benefit Preparation,
Publicity Cited
By Chairman
To the Editor:

We have been touched by the
concern shown by two of your con-
tributors over what they choose
to call the lack of consideration,
foresight, efficiency, and profes-
sional attitude applied to the Thea-
tre Benefit as run by the New
York alumnae. It is’ never a bad
idea to consider facts before
launching criticism, so even at this
late date we should like to sum up
for them briefly the steps taken,
as we feel that their letter showed
genuine interest in the manage-
ment of both college and alumnae
affairs and that, of course, is good.

We were not entirely satisfied
with the newspaper’ publicity
which, incidentally, is not necessar-
ily to be had for the asking. We
did, however, send out five releas-
es on the benefit alone, which were
placed in seven spots in six differ-
ent papers.

As to the mechanics regarding
the ticket sale, 2500 “Hold the
Date” cards went out on October
10 to our mailing list, i. e. those
who had been approached for our
benefit last year. On October 24
formal invitations for December
1 were sent to this same list, and
an additional 1000 names. (While
six or seven weeks leeway would
have been preferable to five, this
was not possible; as late as Octo-
ber 9 the opening date for Antony

.|and Cleopatra was advanced by

one month. The original date of
our benefit was December 30, and
our plans had been made accord-
ingly). The list of guests whom
the ‘Undergraduates wished to in-
vite was asked for in October, but
as no Undergraduate chairman
had been elected and therefore no
organization had been set up, this
request was not immediately put
through; it was only because Miss

-Stillman’s_help was called for at

the last moment that we received
a list on November 10. The invi-
tations carried, quite clearly, the
notice that all tickets would be
mailed on November 24; the pur-
pose of this decision, which should
be self-evident, was to make it
possible for those who wanted to
change the size of their party at
the eleventh hour to do so without
a rearrangement of the _ entire
seating chart.

The results of all this inadequate
preparation netted us a sale of 913
tickets and a profit to date of
$7,680. If this be detrimental,
make the most of it.

Ruth McAneny Loud ’23
Chairman, Benefit

(Editor’s Note—Mrs. Loud writes
in answer to a letter from two stu-
dents in the News of December 3,
who urged a “more professional
attitude” in the direction of Drive
activities, citing the New York
Benefit).



and I could go on and on, but I
would rather recall certain scenes
and moments not easily to be for-
gotten: the deep dignity and pa-
thos of Nancy Kunhardt’s Cordelia
before her father’s anger; Brooxs
Cooper’s Kent in the stocks, best
of all the beauty of his goodnight
to Fortune; Herbert Cheyette’s
Fool in the storm; Reagan’ and
David Rosenthal’s Cornwall terri-
fying as they turn on Gloucester;
the death of Oswald (most real of
the fights) where R. S. McKinley
was at his best as Edgar; Henry
Levinson’s Edmund, always good,
but magnificent taking up the
challenge of Edgar; E. B. Coale’s
Albany, initially unimpressive, ris-
ing to sudden stature and com-
mand at the close. These are high-
lights that reflect in special inten-
sity the passion and beauty of the
whole performance; for I find I
have dealt largely in superlatives,
but this was a time for enthusiasm.



Students Want Comfort
On Weary Way
To Learning
To the Editor:

Much as we hate to intrude upon
the jollity of this Yuletide season,
we have a gripe.

Some of the restrictions which
has seen fit to
establish in the library seem to us
unfortunate and unnecessary. It
is disheartening to walk in the
front door and be confronted by
row upon row of identical barren
cubicles reminiscent of the mediev-

the “new regime”

We can’t even sit on a
pillow any more or be cheered up

al cell.

by a mere picture as we plow our

weary way through the dim paths
of learning. We see no reason why
our individuality should be swamp-
ed and our harmless pleasures re-
moved for the sake of regimenta-
tion. Certainly a bit of decora-
tion does not appreciably detract
from the general niece of
the reading room.
Is this infringement necessary ?
Eleanor Rubsam, ’49.
Anne Henry, 748.
Carol Baker, 748.
Sally Darling, ’49.
Elizabeth Spalding, ’49.
Margaret E. Miller, ’48.

Current Events

Common Room, December 15. In
Molotov’s speech on the subject of
reparations, “the strength and
weaknesses at the same time of the
Russian casé come out very clear-
ly,” said Dr. Felix Gilbert, speak-
ing on “The Russian Attitude at
the London Conference”.

This speech, he continued, did ac_
tually express “a sensible point of
view”, though it said nothing at all
which has not been said. before.
Yet the American newspapers
seemed to think that the entire
conference, as shown by this talk
especially, was merely a duel of
conflicting opinions in which each
nation did a lot of talking and not
much more.

Papers. Distort Picture

The picture of the conference
presented in the newspapers is not
a fair one, declared Dr. Gilbert. For
the conference did have a definite
agenda which all nations agreed
on and which was followed faith-
fully. “Definite issues were taken
up for discussion.

Why then was such excitement
and furor shown over the Russian
attitude? Because the question of
reparations and its relation to the
economic organization of Germany
is the decisive issue before the
Great Powers. Dr. Gilbert em-
phasized that the Russian case is
strong. in two respects—in her de-
mand for reparations in order to
improve her own economic situa-
tion and in asking German unifi-
cation as a means toward econ-
omic recovery. The weakness of
the Russian case lies in its incon-
sistency, for while she expects the
nations to keep to the Potsdam
agreement, Russia demands rep-
arations delivered from Germany’s
current production, and repara-
tions made from current produc-
tion were excluded under that
agreement.

Ultimatum - Refused

Russia must take either one way
or the other, Dr. Gilbert continued.
At the Conference the Foreign
Ministers, irritated by Molotov’s
evasiveness in avoiding a definite
course of action and simply stating
the same old viewpoint, delivered
an ultimatum which was not ac-
cepted. It is through this failure
of the nations to make concessions
on the question of reparations that



the Conference has been broken
up. :