A Latin Play.

For a number of years the Latin Department has been contemplating the presentation of a Latin play, and arrangements have now been carried so far as to make it certain that we shall have one next year. The idea of those who have the matter in charge is not to make the production as elaborate as was that of the Greek play of a few years ago. In this, none but students will take part. The play which will be given is the Phormio of Terence. The plot is much more complicated than that of those plays usually attempted. It is modern however in its tone.

The matter of music for the play has offered the greatest difficulties thus far. The trouble has been to hit upon music of a form which will be appropriate and sufficiently exact for the play and which yet will not be ludicrous. After much discussion and many experiments, Professor F. D. Allen has made a scheme which is thought to be near enough to the ancient music and yet will not be too strange to our ears. For the Greek play a full chorus and unaccompanied dialogues answer well enough, but this is not true of the Latin play which has no chorus. Professor Allen will compose the accompaniments which the parts may require, the wood and wind instruments taking the part of the ancient tibiae.

The play will be given as nearly as possible in the manner in which such a play would be given in the time of Augustus, although probably no masks will be used. The effort will be made to make the presentation rather an illustration than a modern dramatic entertainment.

Although the cast of characters has not yet been fully made out, the work on the play has already begun under the direction of Professor Greenough. The parts will be learned before the end of this college year but the play will not be given until after the midyears next year. Those who remember the great interest which was taken in the Greek play of 1881, not only by the graduates of Harvard but also by classical students from all over the country, will be glad to hear that another attempt is to be made in the same line.