THE MICHTGAN DAT Y sATURDAY
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TED LL I THEATER
THE MEN B 0 0 K
WHO 3MAKE OUR
PRESIDENTS M U
After weeks of wandering about on
the campus, two of Rolls special cor-


S
SIC

respondents have returned with the
history of a thrilling drama, entitled:

TONIGHT: The Mimes present the -
final performance of "The Bad Man"
in their theater at 8:30 o'clock.
THE GIGLI CONCERT
A review, by Vincent Wall.
Walter Pritchard Eaton once made
himself a nice epigram to the effect
that a dood drama needs no critic. If
this might be extended to include
things musical, and if Gigli's whole
program had been like the "Vesti la
Giubba" and "La Donna E Mobile"-
or even like the "M'Appari"-there
would have been no excuse for my
writing this concert. In these arias
he was the Gigli you might hear at
the Metropolitan.
I was late for the "O Paradiso" and
his encore, but except for the impetus
they left, the first part of the concert
seemed slow. The Italian group was
faintly fatiguing, except for the "O
Del Mio Dolce Ardor"; and al-
though Edith Browning sang the rath-
er exhausting "Pleurez, Pleurez mes
Yeux" with a degree of flexibility and
grace, her other two songs were some-
thing less than mildly interesting.
But the last number before inter-
mission was the "M'Appari" from
"Martha"-and here the tone of
everything changed. Gigli's voice-
racy and glamorous, and full of rich
cadences-stood out in an hysteria of
quick emotion. It really matters lit-
tle if his colors were daubed on with
a trowel. They were there-brilliant
tones, some viciously florid, others
unrestrained pathos-all used with
effective blending of rich vulgarity
and delicate sentiment.
This spirit of dramatic energy and
power was felt again in the conclud-
ing numbers. Gigli has always been
rather famous for his Canio, and the
"Vesti la Giubba" is an adequate ex-
planation of the reason. His feeling
is superficial rather than profound,
but he catches a passionate utterance
into it that brought a realization of
feverish energy and a gesture of the
theater. He drags the pageant of his
bleeding heart into the alembic of mu-
sical expression and he makes an artis-
tic holiday. Neither in this nor in
"La Donna E Mobile" was their re-
straint or dignity. Instead he simulat-
ed the frenzy of human emotion. He
was here an incomparable artist-
and his program here left nothing
to be wished for.
* , *
PLAY PRODUCTION AND DIREC-
TION
"The Romantic Young Lady," by
Martinez Sierra, which was to have
been presented the first week in No-
vember by the "classes in Play Pro-
duction and Direction has been in-
definitely postponed.
"ROBERT FROST," by Gorham B.
Munson; New York: George H. Doran
company; 1927; $2.00.
A review by Marian L. Welles
"Shakespeare, Milton, Thackeray
and Frost." Such is the company
which Robert Frost keeps in the latest
contribution of George Munson to the
Murray Hill Biographies. It is not a
eulogy but it is a swiftly moving,
dramatic, biographical sketch full of
appreciation 'and praise.
The thesis of "Robert Frost" is ex-
plained in the subtitle: A Study in
Sensibility and Common Sense. "Com-
mon sense," observes Mr. Munson, "is
a community of judgments, intellect-
ual, emotional and practical upon life.
It is a gift." And abiding by this
principle, Robert Frost never over-
reaches himself. He stays in his
poetry as in his way of life, in "the
middle of the road."

In the first chapter, the various
members of the Frost family appear
as Puritans, Indian fighters, "the
flower of New England chivalry," mill
hands, feminists, and last of all, a
poet. There is evident in all of them,
a love of the soil, a tendency to settle
there and avoid the - extremes-the
common sense attitude again. "Com-
mon experience written in uncommon
expressions," is the formula for
strength in writing which Frost as a
teacher gave to young writers, and it
is a formula which he himself has
followed throughout his poetic career.
Mr. Munson has written a very
workable biography; his selection of
facts has been kindly and sympathetic,
and he leaves an interpretation of
Robert Frost which instills respect
and admiration. He has somehow
caught the homeliness, the fibrous
strength arising from the close prox-
imity to the soil, the firm maintenance
of the simple life, which characterizes
the poet. "What counts is the ideals
and those will bear some keeping still

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