Harold Lenz

Dramatics in the German Club

THEATRE is probably the most irresistable form of advertising. If you doubt this, just examine the cases of political Germany, Italy, Russia, and the New Deal. In like manner the strongest favorable propaganda for the German language and literature can come through flesh and blood dramatic presentations. And I mean flesh and blood literally, in the form of live, colorful, three-dimensional human beings presented in their dramatic conflicts. That, accordingly, exludes from this discussion all such less effective dramatic means as pure recitations, shadow-plays, pantomimes, speaking choruses, dances, marionette and puppet shows. These all do have definite advantages and uses. They are generally much easier and cheaper to produce than regular plays and should serve excellently to create interest in very elementary stages of German Club development or later to help round out the Club activities. But the peak of all such activities, the one in which all students are willing and anxious to take part, in which all the human faculties are brought into play, which therefore reaches deep enough into the audience to create the interest we deserve and need to overcome the prejudice and ignorance that confront us, that activity is a flesh and blood dramatic performance. To it, therefore, and to the preparation of such a performance, this discussion is dedicated. For the above-mentioned secondary forms of dramatics consult the Interscholastic Federation of German Clubs, President: Dr. Werner Neuse, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt., and the German Service Bureau, Secretary: Miss Stella Hinz, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis., to whose reports, printed in the GERMAN QUARTERLY and the Monatshefte fiir deutschen Unterricht, the author is indebted for much of his material also. How, then, to give a good production of a play! For I refer here only to good productions, poor ones being worse than none at all. Probably the first essential is unquenchable enthusiasm on the part of the German teacher. He has to be the guiding spirit of the whole enterprise, has to check on all phases of the work, and has to fire the whole theatrical troupe with his own enthusiasm.