Word: titcomb
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...supplement by Caldwell Titcomb in your recent issue is a valuable and convincing survey of Harvard theater written by one of the few people on the Cambridge scene able to be both knowledgeable and impartial concerning this confused subject...
Because I found this article so interesting, I thought it worth while pointing out one inaccuracy in it, which I am sure you too would wish to correct. Mr. Titcomb rightly comments upon the theatrical "coup" of obtaining the rights to Shaw's Pygmalion, but incorrectly assigns the credit for so doing to Mr. Jerome Kilty. Mr. Kilty, as local audiences well know, is an extremely talented and valuable member of our company, but it was Group 20's Managing-Director, Miss Alison Ridley, who was entirely responsible for obtaining the rights to the play, after six months of work...
...keenest interest and sympathy? So comprehensive a survey is bound to run the risk of error in a few details; and when a writer is so clearly devoted to his subject, he may be excused for allowing his private opinions to color his presentation occasionally. But since Mr. Titcomb stresses the importance of student-faculty relations within this sphere, please allow me to clarify the record at one small point...
...article--rightly, I think--sees no serious danger of what it calls "interference from above." However, it does cite a few rare "instances," the first of these involving the Theater Workshop's projected Hamlet of 1947. And Mr. Titcomb continues: "Under pressure from Professor Levin, who predicted it would be 'an artistic and financial failure,' the group gave up the project (Levin was more recently proven wrong on the first point but right on the second...
...also glad that Mr. Titcomb thought their production an artistic success. What I would question here is not his opinion but his logic. It does not follow that, if the same exacting play had been produced ten years before by a totally different group, it would have been equally successful. What it would have been like, for better or worse, we shall never know. But we may well regard the Theater Workshop's change of mind as a responsible act of self-criticism. Harry Levin, Professor of English and Comparative Literature...