A Play Identification Quiz

Last week Sue Van Kirk, a good friend, budding author,  and former literature teacher challenged us  us to identify a list of  major novels based only on their first sentences. 

Here's Sue chowing down at her favorite Phoenix eatery.

She implied that the well read among us would have no trouble doing this and pronounced that it would take 13 out of the 15 to earn an “A” grade from her.   Surely, I thought, Ms. Van Kirk and her friends would also score well on identifying the following major works of dramatic literature based on their first lines. 

I have directed nine of them and have taught them all at some point in time.  Many are iconic works in the canon and should not push you too hard; others may stretch you a bit.  One final hint.  None are musicals, which is no surprise to anyone who knows me.   

1.       “Nothing to be done.”

2.      “If music be the food of love, play on.”

3.      “Yes, I have tricks in my pocket; I have things up my sleeve.”

4.      “Children, youngest brood of Cadmus the Old, why do you sit here with branches in your hand while the air is heavy with lament?”

5.       “The train’s in, thank God. What time is it?”

6.      “Willy?”

7.       “Who’s there?”

8.      “Is that you Petey?” 

9.      “Oh my word, I don’t think they are even up yet.”

10.   “I pray you all give your audience and hear this matter with reverence, by figure a moral play.”

11.    “Oh God for an end to this weary work; a year long I have watched here--head on arm.”

12.    “Jesus H. Christ!”

13.   “Now fair Hippolyta our nuptial hour draws on apace.”

14.   “With one particular horse, called Nugget, he embraces . . .”

15.   “Septimus, what is carnal embrace?”

 

No Peeking now until you have finished.

 

 

I’m an easier grader than Sue so My grading scale:  13-15 Right–  ”A” You are a dramaturgical scholar of the first order. Take a solo call in front of the curtain. 10-12 Right– “B” Almost at the top.  When I went to school this was still considered an excellent grade. Take a solo bow during the cast call.   9-11 Right  “C” You probably didn’t take my theatre history sequence but still a respectable showing. You're at least in the cast call.   7-8 Right– “D”  Not everyone sees or reads classic world drama. As Sue suggested you might try another field. We may still let you pull the curtain and put your name in the program.   Below 7 Right–”F” Your theatre chops are below par. Get thee back to a viewing and/or reading regimen before you try out for Jeopardy. .

Answers: 1 Samuel Beckett Waiting for Godot  2 Wiliam Shakespeare Twelfth Night 3 Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie 4 Sophocles Oedipus Rex 5 Anton Chekov The Cherry Orchard 6 Arthur Miller Death of a Salesman (If you missed this one your are truly in need of further instruction) 7 William Shakespeare Hamlet  8 Harold Pinter The Birthday Party 9 Henrik Ibsen Hedda Gabler  10  Everyman  11 Aeschylus Agamemnon  12 Edward Albee Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf  13  William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream  14  Peter Shaffer Equus  15  Tom Stoppard Arcadia

To the winner goes the balloon.

 

Where Were You Fifty Years Ago on That Fateful Day?

 

In the summer of 1963 my wife took this picture of me on a ferryboat in Switzerland. We were having the time of our lives and in the middle of a long traverse of Europe with two suitcases, rail  passes, a camera, and a tattered copy of "Europe on Five Dollars a Day."  We were as young and carefree as we were ever going to be.

One month later I took up a position as a speech and theatre instructor at Monmouth College in Illinois.  On Nov. 22nd 1963  I was driving a carload of Monmouth students down Highway 150 (No Interstate 74 in those days). It was a noisy and excited group as we headed for Peoria to compete in the Bradley University Speech Tournament. We stopped for gas at a tiny Standard Oil station in Brimfield, Il. To pay you had to go into the station and inside a radio was on and the voice sounded serious.  As the attendant was finishing my transaction, he said, "Didn't you hear? The President's been shot."   I can still see him standing behind that counter today. I can still hear his voice.

I returned to the car, slid back into the driver's seat, and said "I think we need to turn on the radio. President Kennedy may have been shot."   By the time we got to the Bradley Student Union there was no doubt. When we entered the building there was just an eerie deadly silence. The main lounge was packed with students and their teachers all sitting in stunned silence around the grainy image of a black and white television.  For the next day and a half we went about our competitions but always  returned catatonically to that lounge and that TV set to watch the sad story of  JFK's assassination unfold. To this day it was the most somber event I have ever been a part of.

Did it influence us?  Yes!  Camelot was a presence for us that is hard to communicate today even to young and idealistic Obamamites.  We had cast one of our first presidential ballots for Kennedy and he was going to take us to the moon and beyond.  It's not just an accident that the middle name of our son,  who was born in June of 1964,  is John.

 

We have probably made that Peoria trip hundreds of times in the past fifty years. My wife grew up there and her parents lived there then.  Ironically, just today my wife and I happened to make that same drive again to stock up on groceries at Sam's Club.  Brimfield is just a quick passing shadow on a bypass now, but every time we have cruised past since 1963 the memory of that little Standard Oil station and the students in our car surges back.

That's where I was when our president was killed.   That "one brief shining moment" was gone.

Peace.

 

Still traveling fifty years later this time with two cameras.  My wife took this one of me with our son David John De Young in Helsinki, Finland.

 

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

Monmouth College Illinois Homecoming 2013

Monmouth College celebrated its 2013 Homecoming this past weekend.  We attended the dedication of the Kieft wing of our new Science and Business Center and later Friday evening we deposited Doc's ashes under a new tree near the front door.  That was a sad event, but with each passing year I am moved by the joy that most returnees seem to feel when they come back to Monmouth.

Time chisels off the rough edges of past  experience, but it also exposes the erosion resistant core.  I heard again the stories of  how your education and your teachers shaped your lives for the better.  A resounding "Thank you" to each one of you who shared a bit of your story with me in the last two days. You made my weekend and I am sure the weekend of every professor you saw.

Here's to Big Red!

 

And our Pipers.

 

Hail the King and Queen!



Our first performers at the new Fushion Theatre show the promise of the next generation.

 

Craig Watson our Hatch Teacher of the Year and family.  Well deserved, old friend.

Here's some of my favorite people.  Brad Nahrstadt, Jeremy McNamara, and my wife at the parade.

Ralph and Martha Whiteman continue to show their support for the college every moment of every day.

 



And Prof. Doug Rankin continues to pass the parcel on to the next generation.
Love you man with all my heart!



Theatre Buff? Look at EXIT THE ACTRESS.

Exit the Actress is a first novel by Priya Parmar, a young woman with roots in English Literature and the Theatre. It recounts the life of the 17th century Restoration actress Nell (Ellen) Gynn via a sequence of fictional diary entries and a series of gossipy news items, letters from royalty, and even period recipes for food and medicines.  Nell is portrayed as an independent woman who will play by her own rules and not those of the men around her. She lives out her unmarried life as the mistress of three different Charles', but is faithful to each in his time. Above all she is adamant about not being kept and continues to insist on control of her living space and her professional life in the theatre.

 

The diary format tends to diminish the tension somewhat as the conflicts are narrated rather than dramatized, but the theatre buff will still be caught up in the Restoration ambiance and the treatment of familiar stage figures such as Thomas Killigrew, John Dryden, and the third Charles, King Charles II of England. At over 400 pages of smallish print, you will not be polishing this off in an afternoon at the beach, but I think you will find Ms. Parmar's take on Nell quite endearing and somewhat different from some of the more salacious takes on her life.

 

Bit and pieces post firecracker day

Blogging is tough to keep up.

Gee, nothing since Fathers Day.  What's been going on?  Not a whole lot and that's good at my age.  Surprises mean change and change requires energy. 

Did learn a thing or two in the last few days though.   For instance in a lovely program on Hampton Court, the royal residence just outside of London, I learned that those little figures peering down from overhead in the eaves of the great hall are the source of the word "evesdropping".

After that came the first episode of "Endeavor".  Yes, PBS is our channel of choice.  It is a Masterpiece Mystery prequel that takes us back to Inspector Morse's first days on the job as a smart but naive young investigator.  The portrayal of the young Morse seems too precious. He seems too willing to show off his observation skills, but perhaps this will mellow as the series progresses.  I also wonder why there is anyone left in Oxford after all these years of seemingly continuous multiple murders.   Is this series a setup for a pre-prequel that will give us the very young Morse making the decision to become a cop? 

Rain has once again put the golf on hold and may also put the library board picnic indoors tonite.

Working on an entry on the Ringling Estate in Sarasota.  Maybe tomorrow.   Meanwhile the grandsons play a mean game of baseball and the granddaughter is looking to start walking any day now.

The rich are not like the rest of us. Because, well, they're rich.

Some Post Fathers Day Notes

T'was a busy three day weekend of travel, observation, baseball, reading, and live theatre.

Off on Thursday to see the grandchildren play ball.  The team of the youngest didn't quite have the mustard this time.  The game of the oldest was forfeited when the opponents couldn't field a full team.  No runs, no hits, no errors, no player or fan broke a sweat,  and still a win.  So we were fifty fifty; can't beat that.

While looking at the Skogman Real Estate ad in the Cedar Rapids paper, I was intrigued to note that there were three full pages of pictures of their agents.   Not a single face of color visible.  Hmmmm!

More irony.  We were browsing the CR Barnes and Noble and came upon a display of books advertised as gifts for Dad on Fathers Day.  Every single volume on the table was about war or weapons.   HMMMMM!   The caps mean Hmmmm intensified.

Home on Saturday to do a two hour stint at our local history museum and then on Sunday up to the Quad City Music Guild's production  of Cabaret.  Playing Sally Bowles was former student Melissa Anderson-Clark.  I am most proud when those young people continue to do theatre after they leave college.  Art as a key part of life exemplfies the core of the liberal arts experience.  And in addition both of her children are active in performance.  To top if off her dad, a successful MD and also a Monmouth College grad, participates in theatre as well.   Kudos to a remarkable family giving back to the Quad Cities.

Need a read?    A challenging article in the May 20th New Yorker is titled "The Ivy League's Online Push."  It explores in some depth both the potential strengths and weaknesses of  formal internet education.    It moves us to consider once again the mystery of education.  Why do some students remember a moment in a classroom years before as a deciding path in their lives and some find difficulty in stopping the moment for even a second before it passes out of the other ear unfettered by thought or consideration?   Does the fact that Zuckerberg and Gates dropped out of college demonstrate that their  education was a success or a failure?   Check it out.  As the author, Nathan Heller, notes: ". . . the mechanism by which conveyed knowledge blooms into an education" may "either enrich teaching in this country or deplete it."  Now if we can just understand the mystery of the mechanism.

Need a longer and more theatrical read?  Try Priya Parmar's EXIT THE ACTRESS.  I guess I would call it bio-fiction.  It pretty accurately chronicles the life of famed Restoration actress Ellen "Nell" Gwyn, but it is couched in the form of a diary, which as far as we know, Nell never wrote. 

Now on to deeper things like the sand trap behind number two at Gibson Woods. 

 

A Little Breakfast Aubade from the Professorial Side of the Desk

This photo was taken by my grandson Mikel and is one of my favorites.

 

 

A Little Breakfast Aubade from the Professorial Side of the Desk

An aubade is an ancient French word meaning “dawn song” or a song composed to be sung in the morning.  You can be comforted that I will not sing to you this morning.  Instead I’ll simply say a few brief words about my love affair with Monmouth College and liberal arts education.   

I first heard the word “aubade” at Beloit College in 1950’s when my mentor and head of the theatre department, Kirk Denmark, used it in a talk he gave at a morning convocation. The second time I used the word was in a speech I gave to our student body in the 1980’s at our Spring Honors Convocation.  This is the third time. (It’s not a word you can find an excuse to use very often.)  And now former Speech 101 students, on to the body of the talk.

About two weeks ago a former student, now in a graduate program in Texas, wrote to me:  "If it weren’t for you, I most likely never would have discovered theatre. Thank you, Doc, for playing such a pivotal and supportive role in helping to shape my life. I look forward to sharing a Guinness with you when I add Dr. to my name. :)"

I mention this not to aggrandize myself but to remind all of us that there is always someone who came before.    

For me it was my parents and it was in their honor that I made my small gift to Monmouth. Neither of them had a college degree.  My mom graduated from high school and went directly to work.  My dad had a tougher task. He had to leave high school after two years in order to help support a family whose father was away fighting in WW I.

My mom with me and my sister in 1946

My dad with me in 1938

 

In later years, my parents were both determined that their children would get the educational opportunities that they never were able to have.  And both of their children became first generation college graduates just as did many Monmouth graduates over the years. 

My dad, my future wife, me, my mom, my future wife's mom and dad at the Beloit College graduation in 1959

 

As a matter of fact, our family could qualify as ACM (Associated Colleges of the Midwest) poster children.  I went to Beloit College because my uncle went there.  My wife and I graduated from Beloit. My sister and her husband graduated from Coe College and they lived in Ripon for a time while my brother-in-law taught there. My son graduated from Grinnell and my daughter has both a BA and Master of Arts in Teaching from Coe.  And of course I taught here at Monmouth for thirty nine years. We must clearly have seen some value in a liberal arts education.  

One of the most important things we learned in those years of attending or serving at small colleges was that giving back, in the measure you can afford, is a part of life.  For me “the give” was to the theatre program at Monmouth; for you no doubt, something else equally important.        

But whether your motivation was a discipline, a professor, or the liberal arts concept itself, it is all summed up beautifully in Alan Bennett’s remarkable play THE HISTORY BOYS. Hector, the elderly teacher says at the end:

“Pass the parcel. That’s sometimes all you can do. Take it, feel it, and pass it on. Not for me, not for you, but for someone, somewhere, one day. Pass it on, boys.  That’s the game I wanted you to learn. Pass it on.”

This was a brief talk delivered by Dr. Jim De Young. Professor Emeritus of Communication and Theatre Arts at the McMichael Heritage Society Breakfast on the Monmouth College Campus on June 8, 2013

The McMichael Heritage society honors people who have given substantial gifts in a year, made estate gifts, and employees with more than twenty-five years of service to the college.

The Wells Theatre was dedicated in 1990 and De Young Theatre Arts Education Fund honors
Dr. De Young's parents and will help fund guest theatre artists on campus and defray travel costs for current to off-campus theatre arts events. If you wish to add to this fund, contact Mr. Steve Bloomer, Director of Principal Gifts at Monmouth College, Monmouth, IL 61462 or email him at sbloomer@monmouthcollege.edu