Harvard Spearmen Win Met Fame As Supers in Aida Boiler Room Exodus

This is an expose. This what PM calls an eye-witness story, a scoop on the Truth About Opera written by One Who Knows.

Yes, it was hardly two weeks ago that I were playing a starring role in "Aida"; I was the fourth spearman in the second rank in the Red Battalion in the second scene in the second act. The notorious defection of the Boston papers in falling to mention my outstanding performance was due, I am convinced, to the lack of space caused by the sinking of three Malden men and a couple of tankers the day before by a Nazi submarine.

Red Battallon Crimson

There was quite a coterie of Harvard men lending their services to the Met that evening. Paul Jaretzki had some special drag somewhere and had been assigned the task of doing out supernumerary jobs to undergraduates here. Anyone who would buy him a beer or promise him a scotch could get a little card admitting him to the stage door of the Metropolitan Theatre on the evening of the performance.

New All Together

Three of us, Harry Newman, "Bung" Young, and I, applied at the same time, and Paul told us he would get us jobs together. Unfortunately, we boasted of our Three Marx Brothers ideas too widely and told several people of our intention to experiment with unusual sound vibrations by applying our spears to the sopranos. Someone must have tipped off the Met, because we were given different costumes and separated on the stage.

We arrived at the stage door an hour before curtain-time, as required. The Metropolitan Theater, designed as it was for movies, does not contain the ultimate in dressing rooms as far as mob scenes are concerned. With a crowd of other supers--all male--from B. U. and the Boston Conservatory of Music, we were herded into a basement room full of electric motors and gen- erators and told to strip. When we had reached suitable stages of deshabille we betook ourselves to the boiler room to receive our apparel.

Kept Their Memory Warm

We were all costumed as Egyptians, but the Opera's geographical notions must be hazy, for they dress their Egyptians in clothing that might well befit a Laplander. Our wait in the boiler room was far from comfortable.

I wore a pair of brown tights, as did all the supers (male), a green cloth headress of the Easter fashions of 3478 B. C., and a brilliant red tunic. I termed my group the Red soldiers. Harry was a soldier in what I called the Rainbow Division, evidently founded by the color-loving Joseph during his stay with the Pharaohs. His tunic was a thing of radiant beauty if viewed from after, and his helmet shimmered in the African glare of the kleig lights. Bung was a nobody, a gray sort of individual with no color at all in his makeup. We sneered at him as a useless character, but he was to get his revenge.

The other Harvard men had various costumes. Frank Pastorius was a Red soldier and Doug Brown and Thaxter Spencer were Rainbow soldiers. Edgar Knowlton was some sort of judge or court savant. We were a motley crew.

The Team Sweeps Goalward

We solved the boiler question by walking out of the room. As long as we were in costume nobody bothered us. We could go anywhere backstage and people ignored us. I guess they figured we were luminaries or were trying to catch an 8:40 cue. Anyhow, led by the adventursome Newman, who seems to be endowed with an inquisitive mind, the half dozen of us Harvard men paraded through the Maginot-like corridors of the Metropolitan backstage. Behind us trailed the three dozen supers from the other colleges, figuring, I suppose, that we knew where we were going. We walked a ways and climbed some stairs and all of a sudden there was a curain on one side of us and some scenery on the other and some people doing calisthenics (nasty word!) and ballet steps in front of us. We had stumbled on the stage. For the first time someone paid some attention to us and kicked us off. Three or four minutes later the band began to play the star-spangled banner. If we had delayed our March on Egypt (or Escape from the Boiler room) another ten minutes we might have made a new opera of "Aida"