In the Fall of '64, for the gargantuan sum of $8000, Mayer had mounted a dazzling production of Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia, Limited on the Loeb mainstage. He lost no time getting to the vital center of HDC politics.

Mayer's approach to HDC matters was a blend of fast talking and friends in high places. He made no attempt to hide personal likes and dislikes, which were legion. But he was always intelligent, almost always logical, and all to frequently right. Mayer might have been outclassed in the world of politics, but as a politician in the world of theatre, he was without peer.

HDC meetings took on a new character once the executive committee assumed the right to select plays. The membership-at-large still elected its own officers -- a president and two secretaries -- but these were, until recently, figurehead posts; the presidency was almost a consolation prize for not getting onto the executive committee. Regular meetings were devoted to electing officers, talking about the Coke machine, and arguing policy questions on which the executive committee had the real control.

It became increasingly difficult to assemble a quorum. As a result, meetings began with the absurdly unconstitutional process of an insufficient number of members deciding to suspend the quorum rule. Lack of authority spawned lack of interest, which in turn made it harder and harder for the HDC membership to decide anything.

The executive committee decided nearly everything. Under the tutelage of Mayer, the HDC was finally able to present a united front to the Faculty -- and the long-debated issue of faculty control, whether real or imaginary, seemed to have resolved itself in favor of the undergraduates.

The effects of the new system were less than staggering. Most shows approved by the executive committee would probably have been done, and done the same way, under the old done, and done the same way, under the old system. But no longer did undergraduate directors feel so obliged to propose uncontroversial plays or "recog- nized classics of the stage." It was tacitly acknowledged by both faculty and students that the HDC, in return for vesting its power in a non-elected executive committee, would be rewarded with a larger part in the administration of the Loeb.

In the first year under the new system, one defect became obvious. The same people who assigned mainstage slots were competing for them. Consequently any degree of critical detachment was impossible.

Maybe in recognition of this problem, the self-perpetuating committee began to choose more non-directors. Mayer, one of the original members, and Ascheim, who came on in the Fall of '65, were replaced last Spring by Peter Jaszi and Howard Cutler, both actors involved in tech and production work.

Institutions and Personalities

When the Loeb went into operation, nearly all of its doors were kept locked. And keys were hard to come by. Chapman, who hoped the Loeb would become a sort of meeting place for interested undergraduates, asked Buildings and Grounds for more keys, but he was repeatedly put off. The Loeb was run like any other university building, and it was more a meeting place for its countless janitors than for the students who occasionally worked there.

The practice rooms on the second floor are still unfurnished and unattractive. Chapman, Hamlin and Seltzer have reasonably comfortable office space, and the HDC office certainly has a lived-in look. But by and large the Loeb is immaculate and bare--or, as its detractors would put it, "cold and forbidding." Alongside this lack of warmth, directors complain about the proliferation of Loeb bureaucracy, which imposes all sorts of additional limitations.