FINDS CAKES OF ICE IN OSSIFIED BOSTON

"Boston audiences are the world's worst!" said Mr. G. V. C. Lord, coach of this year's Pi Eta play, to a CRIMSON reporter on Saturday. When interviewed, Mr. Lord was in Notman's studio before the picture of the Pi Eta cast was taken, surrounded by a group of masculine chorus girls, who will make their first appearance in "Dr. Hyde and Mr. Seek" on January 4 in Cambridge. Aside from coaching numerous college theatricals at the University and at Dartmouth, Mr. Lord has long been associated with the Shuberts, both as an actor and as a manager, and in these capacities he has come in contact with audiences of every sort in every part of the country. Continuing his tirade, against Boston audiences, Mr. Lord declared:

Like Perambulatory Refrigators

"Acting before a Boston audience is like running up against a blank wall. The audience sit on their hands. They have cakes of ice in their pockets. They're awful! There aren't words enough in an actor's vocabulary to express his feelings about a Boston audience. At the start of a run in Boston, he says 'My God!' and at the end he says "Thank God." Then he leaves town and tries to forget about it as soon as possible.

"I've played before only one audience in my life that was more depressing than a Boston audience, and that was composed entirely of Pennsylvania Dutch who didn't understand English."

Turning to the subject of western audiences, Mr. Lord brightened considerably.

Out West They Know How To Do It

"Out West, it's different," he said, "There the people really rise to a play. If they like it, they let you know. There's none of the gentle laughter and faint clapping of a Boston audience. I've seen western audiences stand up and howl for minutes on end for encores.

"New York combines the two. New York audiences are more restrained than in the West, and less ossified than in New England. If a New York audience applauds, that's real praise; if they don't it's equally real condemnation. In either case they give the actors a chance. They don't freeze them out on general principle, as in Boston.

"Boston is enough to give the funniest comedian acute melancholia."