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Oedipus at Crawfordsville: Early Productions of Greek Tragedies in Indiana James Fisher” For three decades the presentation of classical plays has been a great factor in the effort to show the value of the “humanities” in our educational scheme. And we are compelled to prove this in this day and generation. . . . I would urge especially the presentation of Greek plays: their appeal is so universal that they bridge the chasm of the centuries and arouse interest, not merely as spectacles of past grandeur, but as living works of art, which move to sympathy and to tears as strongly as the work of the latest dramatist of the twentieth century.’ Daniel Dickey Hains Shortly after the beginning of the twentieth century, widespread interest in the classical dramas of ancient Greece emerged in college and universities throughout the United States. In Indiana, on a spot near what is now the front patio of Martindale Hall at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, production of a series of the plays of Sophocles and Euripides commenced with an outdoor performance of Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrunnus at 4:OO p. m. on June 16, 1908. Under the direction of Daniel Dickey Hains (1873-1937), Wabash College class of 1895 and head of its Department of Greek, this extraordinary series of productions were probably the first stagings of classical dramas in the twentieth century in the state of Indiana, and among the earliest on American campuses. Hains’s pioneering productions inspired an appreciation for the classics, along with an interest in producing them, throughout Indiana col*James Fisher is associate professor of theater, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana. He was recently named Six-Month Fellow (1992-1993) at The Newberry Library (Chicago) and Research Fellow (1992-1993) at the Theatre Museum (London) by The Society for Theatre Research. His most recent publication is The Theatre of Yesterday and Tomorrow: Commedia dell’arte on the Modern Stage (1992). Fisher wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Johanna Herring, Wabash College archivist, for her assistance in researching the article and Douglas P Calisch, associate professor of art, Wabash College, for making photographic prints of the illustrations accompanying the article. Daniel Dickey Hains, “The Presentation of Classical Plays: Part I,” Classical Journal, IX (February, 1914), 189-90. INDIANA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY, LXXXIX (March, 1993). 1993, Trustees of Indiana University. 2 Indiana Magazine of History leges, high schools, and dramatic clubs during the early twentieth century. In English-speaking professional theaters this enthusiastic revival of the classics aided modernist theatrical artists as they sought alternatives t o t h e overwhelming predominance of “kitchen-sink” realism on turn-of-the-century stages. Celebrated English actor/director Harley Granville-Barker (1877-1946) began a series of productions of the plays of Euripides, in translations by Gilbert Murray (1866-19571, with a staging of Hippolytus at the Lyric Theatre in London in 1903. His elaborate productions of the classics, presented with particular attention to the highly symbolic and ritualized performance traditions of ancient drama, were admired in England and, later, in presentations on several American college campuses where they ignited enthusiasm for the plays.2 Interest in the study of classical drama had always been at the center of classical studies on college and university campuses throughout the United States, but few actual productions of ancient Greek plays occurred in the nineteenth century. Oedipus Tyrannus, produced at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University on May 17, 1881, is generally considered to be the first classical play produced on an American ~ a m p u sThat . ~ same year Daniel Frohman’s production of the same play on the New York stage was the first known professional presentation of a classical play in A m e r i ~ aAs .~ early as 1906 productions of Greek dramas were presented outdoors in the Harvard S t a d i ~ m and, , ~ beginning in 1910 actress Margaret Anglin (1876-1958) produced a season of classical dramas during the summer months in the University of California at Berkeley’s impressive Greek Theatre, completed and opened in 1903 with funds supplied by William Randolph Hearst.6 2 Harley Granville-Barker presented Zphigenia Among the Taurians at the Yale Bowl on May 15, 1915. It was also performed a t Harvard Stadium (May 18, 1915), the Piping Rock Country Club (May 25, 1915), the College of the City of New York (May 31 and June 5, 1915), the University of Pennsylvania (June 8, 1915), and Princeton University (June 11, 1915). Granville-Barker also staged The Trojan Women a t Harvard Stadium on May 19, 1915. It was also performed at the College of the City of New York (May 29 and June 2, 1915), the University of Pennsylvania (June 9, 1915), and Princeton University (June 12, 1915). Dennis Kennedy, Granville Barker and the Dream of Theatre (Cambridge, England, 1985). 3 Among the spectators a t Harvard were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and William Dean Howells. The earliest known production of a n ancient comedy, Aristophanes’ Acharnians, was produced a t the University of Pennsylvania in 1886. Hains was also impressed with a 1903 University of Pennsylvania production of Zphigenia Among the Taurians. Productions of classical dramas became prevalent in Europe during this same era. Daniel Dickey Hains, “Greek Plays in America,” Classical Journal, VI (October, 1910), 2628. Zbid., 27. 5 Aeschylus’ Agamemnon was presented that year. Zbid. 6 The Greek Theatre, which seats in excess of eight thousand, presented Margaret Anglin’s versions of Sophocles’ Antigone and Electra, and Euripides’ Medea and Zphigenia in Aulis. Anglin also produced some of Shakespeare’s plays there. Zbid., 30, 36. Oedipus at Crawfordsville 3 All of these energies were felt on the campuses of Indiana’s colleges. Greek and Latin professors monitored the revivals of Greek drama with fascination, but none took the next step that would lead to an actual production until 1908. Despite the fact that the institution had been slow to make room for the arts, Wabash College was perhaps the first Indiana school to attempt production of the classics. Although some dramatic readings by college literary societies had been popular after the Civil War, little drama was seen at Wabash until after the turn of the century. In fact, the first reference to the theater at Wabash dates back to 1836, four years after the founding of the college, when the faculty passed a resolution banning “Thespian amusement^."^ Resistance to theatrical activity slowly eroded during the last decades of the century, paving the way for the productions that were the dream of young Professor Hains. He had noticed that student energies were divided at this time as new disciplines were introduced into the curriculum and a variety of extracurricular activities burgeoned. Hains became concerned about waning interest in the study of Greek and the classics in general, and he began to work aggressively to generate new interest in the study of the classics. He determined that an effective way of inspiring interest on the campus, and in the greater Indiana community, was to attempt to produce the finest of the Greek tragedies in a manner that closely approximated the staging traditions employed by the ancient Greeks themselves. Hains was also influenced by Anglin’s productions, which he felt were “magnificently staged and splendidly a ~ t e d , and ” ~ the productions at Harvard and the University of California. In fact, surviving photographic evidence suggests t h a t the reusable setting constructed at Wabash for the plays was modeled on the University of California’s Greek Theatre as much as on the surviving archaeological evidence of the actual ancient theaters. This setting appears to have been used for most of the productions Hains mounted, with slight modifications made depending on the needs of a particular play. The “Greek Plays,” as they became known at Wabash, insinuated themselves as an annual event through Hains’s remaining years at the college. All of them were produced under Hains’s supervision, and they included Oedipus Tyrannus (Sophocles)in 1908 James Insley Osborne and Theodore Gregory Gronert, Wubush College: The First Hundred Years (Crawfordsville, Ind., 1932), 74. Student John B. Powers was actually suspended from classes on January 16, 1837, for violating the rule. It seems Powers was committed to perform in a theatrical exhibition of the local “Thespian Society” in December, 1836, before the rule was passed. Later, the faculty decided that the penalty was perhaps too severe in light of the offender’s previous obligation to perform and his ignorance of the rule, so they were content to settle for a reading before the college of an admission of violation of college law. Hains, “The Presentation of Classical Plays: Part I,” 196. 4 Indiana Magazine of History and 1914, Antigone (Sophocles) in 1909, Alcestis (Euripides) in 1910, Iphigenia Among the Taurians (Euripides) in 1911, Electra (Sophocles) in 1912, Medea (Euripides) in 1913, and Hippolytus (Euripides) in 1915. The Wabash College Archives contain many impressive photographs of the productions along with contemporary newspaper accounts, letters, programs, and other materials that make it possible to reconstruct the performance^.^ By any standards the “Greek Plays” featured elaborate settings, costumes, and programs and were ably performed by the students of Wabash and some Crawfordsville citizens. Although Hains had initially considered presenting the plays in the original Greek, he finally opted for English translation: “I do not believe,” he wrote, “that the results would compensate for the additional labor involved, and I am sure that the spectators would not be moved so deeply by the power of the tragedy, were they compelled to follow the action by means of a libretto.”1° In reflecting on the productions, Hains stressed the difficulty of producing classical plays with amateurs. He faced the added problem of an all-male student body at Wabash, which meant that men would play women’s roles as had been done in the ancient productions although it was an unfamiliar convention to modern audiences. He felt this was appropriate, however, and in the casting of the women’s roles he noted, “in this case it is not merely a question of dramatic ability but also of face and figure-complexion makes no difference: the ‘make-up’ box will remedy deficiencies along that line-but it is essential that the actor who plays a feminine part shall have delicate features.”ll At Wabash competition for the roles intensified each year, and Hains noticed that students were taking classics courses, in part as a way of preparing themselves for the productions. Hain’s instinctive commonsense approach to preparing the plays would ultimately serve as a model for many Indiana schools and groups who would borrow his costumes, props, and, most importantly, his ideas. Rehearsals for each play began as much as four months before the actual performances with some aspect of the play dealt with everyday during that period. Hains worked with the leading actors first since they were burdened with the 9 Accounts of the performances of the “Greek Plays” at Wabash College appear in various college publications, especially the Bachelor, the Wabash College Record, the Wabush Bulletin, and the Wabash. Programs of the productions, including a pamphlet, “Why Study Greek?” produced by the Department of Classics during the era of the play performances, and photographs of productions of the plays, along with correspondence, notes, research materials belonging to Hains, and a notebook containing information on statewide and nationwide productions of classical plays are in the Wabash College Archives (Lilly Library, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana). lo Hains, “Greek Plays in America,” 31. Daniel Dickey Hains, “The Presentation of Classical Plays: Part 111,” Classical Journal, IX (May, 1914), 344. PROGRAM FOR WABASH COLLEGE PRODUCTION OF &CESTZS, 1910 Courtesy Ramsay Archival Center, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana. Courtesy Ramsay Archival Center,Wabash College, Crawfordaville,Indiana. ANTIGONE, 1909 C H O R U S OF W A B A S H C O L L E G E PRODUCTION OF SOPHOCLES’ TAURIANS, 1911 Courtesy Ramsay Archival Center, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana. CAST OF WABASH COLLEGE PRODUCTION OF IPHIGENIA AMONG THE 8 Indiana Magazine of History longest roles. Particular attention was paid to the work of the chorus members, many recruited from the Glee Club, who faced the most difficult task of performing in unison the complicated choral odes and having to project their voices over long distances outdoors (weather permitting, Hains held rehearsals outdoors as often as possible). Music composed for the Harvard and University of California productions accompanied the choral passages with piano, flute, clarinet, violin, cornet, and harp being used at various times as Hains experimented with the most effective combination. He found that in these days before microphones the cornet was “particularly valuable in carrying the air in the open; the piano can be heard but a short distance if there is any breeze stirring, and there is need of a strong lead to keep the singers together.”12 Although Hains had virtually no professional training as a theatrical director, he wisely endeavored to keep the staging simple and austere, carefully plotting entrances, exits, and “picturesque” stage compositions. He emphasized a close study of the text but felt that “almost as much can be done by the hands, face, and To this end he worked with the acbody as by vocal ex~ression.”’~ tors on their movements, beginning with the “use of the hands, not in set gestures, but to aid in the interpretation of the part. ‘To talk with the hands’ is quite an art and it can be mastered only after long practice, but it is very essential.’’ The goal for Hains was “to secure as accurate an interpretation as possible of each phrase, line, and scene.” Elaborately choreographed dances were often employed for the choral scenes in classical productions of the era, but Hains made “no attempt to introduce dancing; there are no girls at Wabash; we do not have a dancing master for the boys; and, besides, the choral music has taken so well that it has not seemed nece~sary.”’~ Hains was assisted in the mounting of these productions by his wife, Lulu Britton Hains (1873-1945), who, with minimal assistance from faculty wives and local women and modest financial support, designed and constructed the appropriate period costumes. For the costumes Hains advocated the use of “unbleached muslin, which costs about as much as the cheesecloth used in many places and drapes far better.”15 Under the guidance of a professional scenic artist, students constructed and painted the scenic elements, which were made of “regular ‘flats”’ fastened to a two-by-four framework. It all cost “seventy or eighty dollars, including material, labor, and the bill of a professional scene painter.”16 Hains l2 Ibid.,347. 1s Ibid.,345. I* Is I6 Zbid.,346. Ibid.,347. Ibid.. 351. 1911. Courtesy Ramsay Archival Center, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana. CAST OF IPHIGENIA AMONG THE TAURZANS REHEARSES IN THE WABASH COLLEGE &F3ORETUM, Indiana Magazine of History 10 vigorously supported the idea of giving the plays outdoors, feeling that Such a setting has many possibilities. When Alcestis, dying of her own free will to save her husband’s life, comes slowly from the palace, her words: “0 sun, 0 light of day, 0 eddying clouds that fly across the vaulted sky!” are far more impressive than they could be within the walls of a theatre; and Antigone’s last farewell to the sun and to her native land as she is led away to the vaulted tomb is peculiarly significant from the contrast between the brilliant sunlight and the gloomy chamber in which she is soon to end her life.” Critical reaction to all of the productions was uniformly positive, especially for Oedipus Tyrannus, which was produced by popular demand a second time in 1914. Audiences for the plays extended far beyond the Wabash campus and Crawfordsville community; college professors and high school teachers with groups of their students (for the 1908 Oedipus the Crawfordsville Journal reported that faculty from Earlham and Butler colleges were in attendanceis); and members of statewide drama clubs attended as evidenced by notes of congratulation to Hains and his cast in the Wabash College Archives. Of the first production of Oedipus Tyrannus in 1908 the Crawfordsville Journal reported that The day was a n ideal one for a n outdoor performance. Promptly at 4 o’clock the suppliants entered, clad in white robes, marching to the solemn strains of Greek music, . . . The scenery, the costumes, the altars, everything was according to the ancient Greek patterns. . . . As to the performers, where all did so well it seems difficult to mention particulars. The achievement of Mr. S. E. Fleming, who committed perfectly and recited with clearness and force nearly seven hundred lines of blank verse of Oedipus, was noGworthy, both as a feat of memory and as a n exhibition of dramatic power. . . . A large crowd witnessed the performance and Prof. Hains reports over $300 resulted from the sale of tickets, which amount will cover all expenses, with a very slight ba1an~e.I~ Of that first performance Hains himself later wrote of the emotional impact of the play’s final scene “when the audience sat in tense silence, every eye fixed on the stage, as the blind king, weighed down by the burden of the terrible revelation that had just come to him, bade a tender farewell to his two little daughters.”20 Hains also recalled that the young cast was excited by the audience’s reaction, as demonstrated by the the student playing Creon, who, upon exiting from the stage “danced up and down, and waved 17 I* Zbid. “Greek Play ‘Oedipus Tyrannus,’ ” Crawfordsville Journal, June 17, 1908, p. 4. 19Zbid.,1, 4. Hains, “The Presentation of Classical Plays: Part I,” 191. AUDIENCE AWAITS 1911 PRODUCTION OF IPHZGENZA AMONG THE Courtesy Ramsay Archival Center, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, TAURZANS ON EASTSIDE OF WABASH COLLEGE CAMPUS. 12 Indiana Magazine of History his scarlet robes in ecstasy about him, crying: ‘The whole gang’s weepin’! the whole gang’s weepin’!’ ”21 Although the same setting was revamped for subsequent plays, each production featured unique elements. A startling array of skulls adorned the top of the set for Zphigeniu Among the Tuurians, and an elaborate chariot was mounted on top of the setting for the deus ex machina of Medea. Local youngsters appeared as children of various characters in both productions of Oedipus Tyrannus as well as in Alcestis and Medea. The cast of the 1914 production of Oedipus Tyrunnus included Hains’s own young son, Daniel B., in the role of the Attendant to Teiresias. The performances enjoyed, in the words of the Wubush, an “almost country-wide reputation . . . pronounced by competent judges to be the equal of any of the Greek dramas ever presented at Harvard.”22At least two of the productions toured Indiana, playing a t high schools in South Bend and Muncie. Oedipus Tyrannus was presented a t Indiana Normal in Terre Haute, and additional performances were given in chautauqua tents. In 1912 two evening performances and one matinee of Sophocles’Electru were given in a chautauqua tent at Winona Lake. As Hains recalled: A chautauqua audience is a mixed one and is very fickle; if the entertainment does not please, the spectators leave the auditorium and sometimes there are only a few seats occupied at the end. Our audiences numbered from two to four thousand at each presentation. There was absolute quiet, even on the part of the children, throughout the hour and three quarters the play took, and the whole body, almost without exception, remained to the close.= Hains published four articles in the Classical Journal, a prestigious academic publication, during the years of the play produc21 Hains, “Greek Plays in America,” 25. This first production included among its cast two particularly distinguished Wabash men: Robert K. Winter (18861986), who played the Priest of Zeus, and J. Kenyon Nicholson (1894-1986), as one of the suppliants. Winter studied under Ezra Pound during Pound’s brief Wabash career and subsequently developed the first full-fledged English program in China at Qinghua University. He was one of the few scholars to remain in China after the start of the 1937 war with Japan. Shortly before his death at the age of one hundred, Winter received a n honorary degree from Wabash. He must have been particularly impressive as the priest, since he was cast in similar roles in Antigone (1909), Alcestis (19101, and Zphigeniu Among the Taurians (1911). Nicholson, Wabash class of 1917 and a Crawfordsville native, began a career in playwriting and teaching drama following service in World War I. After the production of several one-act plays Nicholson had a Broadway success with The Barker, starring Claudette Colbert in 1927. His other popular plays included Sailor, Beware! (1933), Apple of His Eye (1946), and Out West of Eighth (1951), along with collaborations with S. N. Behrman, John Golden, and Charles Robinson. He also authored books on drama while teaching playwriting at Columbia University (where, undoubtedly inspired by Hains, he encouraged production of the classics), and he contributed some screenplays to Columbia Pictures. aa Joseph J. Daniels, Jr., “The Great Drama in Wabash College,” Wabash, June, 1910, p. 259. 23 Hains, “The Presentation of Classical Plays: Part 111,” 352-53. Courtesy Ramsay Archival Center, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indians. ALCESTZS, 1910 THE PRIEST OF Z E U S I N THE WABASH COLLEGE PRODUCTION OF ROBERTK. WINTER(CENTER)AS Courtesy Ramsay Archival Center, Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana. SCENESHOWING THE D E U S E X M A C H I N AI N U S E I N W A B A S H C O L L E G E PRODUCTION O F MEDEA, 1913 Oedipus at Crawfordsville 15 ti on^.^^ In these essays he outlined the techniques he used in staging the tragedies and applauded other colleges and universities similarly attempting to revive the classics. He also raised several significant issues about the problems of staging ancient drama in the modern era. In a lecture he presented at the Sixth Annual Meeting of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South in Chicago on April 30, 1910, Hains wrote that his desire to produce the classic dramas stemmed from a “belief in the dramatic power” of the works and to “show a modern audience the masterpieces of a civilization which, though it passed from the stage long ago, has still a mighty influence on the life of the present.”25 Hains had carefully tracked productions of the classical plays throughout the United States, listing them in a small notebook that covered professional, college, and even high school productions. Sophocles’ Antigone was, by far, the most produced, with nearly two dozen productions listed between 1910 and 1915. In Indiana, Hains noted productions at Notre Dame University and Earlham College along with several high schools and little theater groups. Some groups, perhaps feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of the ancient dramas, produced smaller-scale Grecian pageants based on classical myths; these included titles such as Galatea (presented at Frankfort High School in 1914) and The Feast of Dido (staged at Terre Haute’s Wiley High School in 1908), among othMany of these Indiana productions profited directly from Hains’s experience; properties and costumes were borrowed repeatedly by many groups. The Wabash College Archives’ files on Hains’s work include a considerable collection of correspondence requesting advice as well as practical support. Samuel A. Eliot, Jr., director of the Indianapolis Little Theatre, wrote to Hains seeking advice about a production of Euripides’ Hecuba at the suggestion of Oliver Sayler, an Indianapolis reporter who later wrote several books on the modern Lena M. Foote, Latin instructor at LaGrange High School, also wrote several letters to Hains after reading his “very interesting and helpful article in the 1914 Classical Journal.” Foote borrowed costumes, armor and spears, san24 These articles are “Greek Plays in America,” VI (October, 1910), 24-39; “The Presentation of Classical Plays: Part I,” IX (February, 1914), 189-98; “The Presentation of Classical Plays: Part 11,” IX (March, 1914), 251-60; and “The Presentation of Classical Plays: Part 111,” IX (May, 1914), 344-53. 25 Hains, “Greek Plays in America,” 25. 26 Hains reported that by 1914 forty-nine colleges and universities, six secondary schools, and eight clubs had given performances of Greek plays (total number of play performances was 193). Latin plays had been given by twenty-nine colleges and universities and four secondary schools, with a total of forty-eight performances. He also noted that fifty-two institutions had presented dramatizations based on Greek and Latin sources. Hains notebook, collection of materials on the “Greek Plays,” Wabash College Archives. 27 Samuel A. Eliot, Jr., to Daniel Dickey Hains, October 2, [n.d], ibzd. 16 Indiana Magazine of History dals, and other props for a production of an original dramatization, Dido, The Phoenician For a 1915 pageant at the Indianapolis Young Women’s Christian Association, Hains loaned costumes for a Greek scene. Responding for the group, Jessica Brown, wife of Professor of Greek Demarchus Brown of Butler College, thanked Hains, noting “the richness of color” in the costumes and, realizing “the enormous amount of work that had gone into the conception and completion of those costumes . . . it came over me with a pang what a great thing I had asked you to do.”29Brown described their presentation in some detail, finding only the scene of “our wonderful Greece” to be an “artistic success”; the rest of the YWCA program, she felt, “resembled a Coney Island show far too much.”30The YWCA’s amateur cast members were, in the eyes of Brown, exquisite-those girls were simply inspired-it was charming to me to see how they threw themselves into it-they made beautiful pictures. . . . Our Hermes was a laundry girl-Niobe was a worker at a n overall factory-Our golden Caryatide was a department store girl-etc.-all of them utter strangers to Greek art or Greek thought-but they were so moved by it that they regretted it when they had to remove those lovely robes. . . . I said, “Girls, how would you like to go with me to Wabash in June to see the Greek play?”-and they were most enthusiastic about it.3I Hains’s influence was also directly felt in numerous productions outside of Indiana, including, among many others, a 1910 staging of Sophocles’Antigone at the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee; a 1914 production of Euripides’ Alcestis at Marshall College in West Virginia; a 1915 production of Antigone by the newly formed Classical Club of Jacksonville, Illinois, staged on the campus of Illinois Woman’s College; a 1915 production of Euripides’ Hippolytus at the Columbia College of Expression in Oak Park, Illinois; and a 1910 Antigone and some productions of Plautus’ ancient Roman comedies at Ottawa University in Kansas.32The reputation of the Wabash productions, and Hains’s work, reached as far as the professional theater in New York. On July 1, 1914, Hains received a wire from producer Charles Emerson Cook inviting him to work on an “outdoor production here of Antigone late in August with best available professional cast on receipt of your wire M. Foote to Hains, October 2, 1915,ibid. Jessica Brown to Hains, 1915,ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Zbid. 32 Hains also reported on productions at Randolph-Macon College for Women, the University of Iowa, the University of Cincinnati, Swarthmore, Marshall College, Bradley Polytechnic, Lawrence College, Syracuse University, Western College for Women, the University of Nebraska, Rochester University, St. Lawrence University, Iowa State University, Vassar, Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Drury, Washington University, and Smith. Hains notebook, ibid. zR Lena 29 Oedipus at Crawfordsuille 17 stating whether you can consider proposition. I shall write you all details and shall go west for personal interview. Please reply immediately care Lambs Hains declined the offer, but it was clear that he had exceeded his own expectations in contributing to a heightened interest in the classics. Hains resigned from the faculty of Wabash College in 1916 for a career in business (although he served as a member of the Wabash Board of Trustees from 1919 to 1924), but not before directing two more productions unrelated to the series of “Greek Plays.” These were John Galsworthy’s Pigeon and Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew for the Wabash College Dramatic Society, started by Professor Lucian Cary (1886-1971) of the Department of English. The society was dedicated to complementing Hains’s work by producing significant contemporary dramas (their first production was George Bernard Shaw’s comedy Arms and the Man, performed in the spring of 1909).34No classical play was produced at Wabash in 1916 (or for many years thereafter); instead, an elaborate all-college pageant was presented in celebration of the anniversary of Indiana statehood. In eight short years, however, Hains had far exceeded his professed goals. As early as 1910 he had written that performances of the Greek plays “have been given at forty-seven institutions and to the number of a hundred and one. . . . The increasing number of such performances augurs happily for the future of the classics in our schools and colleges.”35 Hains himself had contributed mightily to the bright future for the classics that he envisioned; certainly in Indiana he was responsible for an intensified interest in classical studies. Closer to home, he had established a permanent niche for drama, classical and contemporary, at Wabash College and undoubtedly throughout the state. In responding to a letter praising the emotional power of a chautauqua performance of one of the “Greek Plays,” Hains asked, “Can we not hope that this will be repeated many times in the future upon many audiences and that by this means many who now think of Greek as a ‘dead language’ may find their ideas decidedly in need of revision?”36 Charles Emerson Cook to Hains, July 1, 1914, telegram, ibid. 34Information about Hains and about the Dramatic Society can be found in various Wabash College publications, including the Bachelor and the Wubash, as well as from the Crawfordsville Journal. 35 Hains, “Greek Plays in America,” 39. 36 Hains, “The Presentation of Classical Plays: Part 111,” 353. 33