Give 'Em What They Want
Satisfying Popular Tastes Hinders Ann Arbor Theatre
By AL PHILLIPS

ANN ARBOR theatre as it now" The Drama Sedson, as it stands,
stands is exactly what the is a imety taiancea piugram win
people want. "iuazingiy goo taent. it, were
Let us name the suitors. &nown auw ar it is to use up
Number one: the Drama Season reaiy gooa actors, even in lairy
is placed in the number one spot oig motney wieatres, te respect
because it is about to start again. tsr te joot iese people ao wouia
What is Drama Season? With- mcrease greany.
Cut having read a charter, I would it is a proessional season, and
say from mere observation that it as sun cumsmeicial True, a lemon
is five weeks of spring stock, di- appears every once in a while. The
rected, managed, designed, and shows have a week to be designed,
acted by professional t h e a t r e rehearsed, and a week of preset-
people. Professional theatre people. tation. The law of averages says
This seems to upset some simple that you cannot luck out coin-
folk who say that the Drama Sea- pletely on that schedule. But a
son is nothing but a series of in-
ane comedies and "popular' hitsclinker every once in a while isa
of no visible merit. very minor thing to the generally
The first thing wrong with this high level the Drama Season
Is that it is not true. Comedy, cer- manages to achieve.
tainly, and inane ones too. That
is only one aspect of a pro-' PLAY PRODUCTION of the Uni-
ject which endeavors to cater to versity's Department of Speech
is in the number two spot, mainly
because it has just finished its
season. Play production's aims are
pristed on the inside of every
playbill. There you will find a
paragraph that says something
about variety, all kinds of plays,
and so on. Whether or not these
aims are followed is another mat-
ver, butvety is the chief factor
qx it' a University playbill alone with
teaching students something about
theatr e on as many levels as is
possible, which leads by indirec-
tion to two major points.
.. _,> They are rather conservative
over there, I've heard ople a.
Well they're rather conservative
because that's what people want.
p Myfrot season here, the players
.A put on "The God Woman of Set-
"THE TINKER'S WEDDING" zuan" by Berthold Brecht, which
...,Speech Department is definitely an experimental play,
and it drew fewer people than the
every taste, and sad or glad as it student original which is tradi-
may seem, depending, the demand 'tionally the season's lowest draw.
for comedies starring Don Ameche I don't know it it was a good
is as great, if not greater than the production even thoughI saw it,
demand for the average drama, because I don't know that much
about Brecht, but I do know that
BUT LOOK at the record over thse next summer we put on a pro-
the past few years: Fry, Miller, duetion of "The Lady's Not For
Shraw, McCullers, and this year, Burning" that was a reeker, and
Beckett and Shakespeare. Hardly drew on it anyway, because the
hollow dramatists, no matter the play was popular,
personal opinion,
-F A PLAY is popular, and that
Al Phillips, a speech major can be put in quotes or not,
at the University has appeared people will come no matter what
in Ann Arbor Civic Theatre the production. They simply were
and department of speech pro- not interested in Brecht-which
ductions. leads to another consideration.
How can you learn theatre if

The speech department's productions, which are generally good, must draw audiences to fulfill their
theatre-teaching purpose. Picture show a scene from "The Matchmaker" production last December.
there is no audience to give its tion is carefully broken down into Theatre is the number of shows
approval and to try things on? committees, and it is the job of they do.
The audience in a situation always 'these committees to come up with The receipts, judging from the
determines the type of plays that something pleasing to all the audience, do not yet show this,
are given. And the Speech Depart- members of the organization. Thus but too often, shows have been
ment bills are good. the results of the organization are thrown together and look it. This,
The campus audience is not pri- subservient to the organization it- I feel, will eventually harm them.
marily an audience with a metro- self. This is true, whether the Then too, in recent years, and
politan background: therefore, the group under discussion is a garden this is alvays fatal to a local
interest in classics is high, be- club or a little theatre. group, the same people (and I
cause for many people the oppor- It is this attitude that makes must here include myself) have
tunity to se classics a'ply Isn't the productions of little theatres tended to show up too many
there. take on the air of charades. No times, giving a closed air to pro-
So an audience is created, and civic theatre, not even the ones ductions. This is not good, and yet
from a production standpoint, with magnificently specialized fa- how it can be alleviated, I do not
what can be learned from a classic cilities, such as Kalamazoo, can know. Almost all the local organ-
show is invaluable. This year the escape the feeling of performing izations are faced with the prob-
bill ran from Wilder (and a fine for one's friends, lem of having to use the same
show that was too) to Ben Jonson people over and over, a wonderful
(for which I'll always be grateful) NOW, the local Civil Theatre experience for the actor, but
to Sophocles. The bill this summer has in the last few years done rather deadly for an audience,
looks gorgeous. The productions some fine things. "Tea and Sym-
so far have been good and the pathy" and "Bus Stop" leap in- OW TO the problem. Whenever
summer shows are almost always mediately to mind. The problems local theatre is discussed, the
g od. of the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre question arises: "Why can't Ann
A CIVIC THEATRE is a chance are more than usually difficult Arbor, with all its seeming interest
for a group of people with the because of the competition of the in theatre, support an experimen-
same interests to get together University group, and until re- tal repertory company?" The rea-
and put on a show. cently, from the Dramatic Arts sons are three, I believe.
Always the activities of the Center. First, the Ann Arbor audience
group are primary. The organiza- One thing I feel harms Civic (Cotinued on Next Page

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