News
Amid Boston Overdose Crisis, a Pair of Harvard Students Are Bringing Narcan to the Red Line
News
At First Cambridge City Council Election Forum, Candidates Clash Over Building Emissions
News
Harvard’s Updated Sustainability Plan Garners Optimistic Responses from Student Climate Activists
News
‘Sunroof’ Singer Nicky Youre Lights Up Harvard Yard at Crimson Jam
News
‘The Architect of the Whole Plan’: Harvard Law Graduate Ken Chesebro’s Path to Jan. 6
Last night big business, that hungry monster without a soul, stalked his prey in the house of the Harvard Chapter of Delta Upsilon, in Bronson Howard's "The Henrietta."
This play, despite the social axe it has to grind, is pretty much of the famous old black-and-white melodrama. Wall Street is perhaps the real villain, and it is indicted for the murder of all its speculators and their souls. But the old veteran bull, Nicholas Vanalstyne, though he relishes smashing his enemies, wouldn't think of leaving an orphan or a widow dispossessed by him to suffer in penury. His son, heir, and namesake, however, is a rotter pure and simple. He has lived in sin, but he throws the odium of the crime on his innocent little brother Bertie. He owes all he has to his father, but he tries to crush the rugged old man and build his own fortune on the ruins. Thus in this play Howard seeks to show how Mammon rules supreme, and how even the highly respectable Protestant ministers are his priests, but at the same time he insists upon virtue triumphant in the grand, unblushing style, and pits two heroes, a stout old man and a simple, good-natured youth, against an unconscionable dastard.
The Delta U men have thus been able to continue in their tradition of lusty, unrestrained histrionics. There is nothing subtle about the play nor their interpretation. But they have thrown themselves into their parts with gusto, and the result is vigorous, unrefined, fairly exciting drama.
Want to keep up with breaking news? Subscribe to our email newsletter.