L
OCTOBER 22, 1973
THE TWIG
Page 3
Girls rehearse domesticity in Brewer home
By Allyn Vogel
There is a course on
campus that demands over 50
hours of work per week for 4
hours of credit. In the catalog
it is listed as Home
Management Residence, HE
493. 180+ hours. Why?
Thursday, October 11, the
students in the Home
Management House were
preparing for Friday
morning’s tea for Meredith’s
maid and maintenance staff.
An entertainment project is
only a small part of the home
management course. The six
girls presently living in the
house - Alice Winecoff, Beth
Kimbell, Melanie Shaffer,
Rosemary New, Robin
Byrington, and Brenda Craig -
are spending 18 days living in
the Brewer House practically
applying their classroom
theories. During their stay,
their tasks rotate; they spend
six days as housekeeper and
three days each in the roles of
manager, assistant cook,
planner and laundress. The
house has “all the
conveniences of home” to aid
them in these jobs except no
paper napkins - they launder
and iron white cloth napkins
and tablecloths.
Each of these jobs has a
distinct list of tasks attached
to it. The girls, however, see
the course as one in
cooperation, and help each
other when anyone is hassled
by too much to do. It was with
this spirit of “E Pluribus
Unum” that they were
decorating the dining room
with pumpkins and leaves for
the tea and discussing an
uncooperative tea ring.
Occasionally this fine
organization crumbles, the
decorative appointments can
be perfect, the cuisine superb,
the faculty advisor charming
as she sits down to a formal
dinner with her students. They
pick up their well-polished
silver and no plates!
Each girl is responsible
for seeing that the chores
associated with her job are
done well. The planner
organizes her menu for her
three days as cook. She must
stay within a budget of $1.75
per person, per day. She must
do the shopping and make a
work plan for herself and her
assistant cook to follow during
meal preparation. The
planner becomes manager for
her three days of cooking.The
two housekeepers are charged
with the general cleaning of
the living areas of the house.
The homemakers must
also fulfill a child care
requirement. Mrs. Harmon,
their supervisor, is donating
her baby, Katie, for a day for
them to approach with the
techniques they learned in
their Child Development and
Child Psychology courses.
The students are also
responsible for a home
improvement project during
which they apply their
Household Furnishings
Laboratory, their Interior
Design course, and their
miscellaneous sewing
courses. The present group is
redecorating the House’s
three bathrooms.
The home economics
students find that they
occasionally have to work
hard to destroy the
preconceived anti-home
economics major notions of
the people who meet them.
Ms. Winecoff had one date
who verbally expressed
amazement at her lack of
hoopskirt and vignette.
The students are enjoying
their stay and appreciating
the opportunities it has given
them to experiment with their
new found homemaking arts.
They prophesy that when they
get back to their dorms their
beds will remain unmade for a
week.
Mrs. Nellie Pennington enjoys the Home Management House tea
given by the girls in honor of Meredith’s domestic workers
Friday, October 12. Approximately 50 guests attended.
Theatre of the ahsurd. comes to Jfteredith
Meredith College’s
experience with drama will
take a new turn Tuesday,
October 30 and Wednesday,
October 31, with the first
production of its “laboratory
theatre.” Edward Albee’s
one-act play “The American
Dream” will be staged in the
Hut at 8:00 on the two
evenings, under the direction
of Drama Instructor Linda
Bamford and featuring
Meredith students Mil Long,
Susan Tew, and Jennie
Jenkins. Admission is free.
The production will
represent a departure from
the usual. The Meredith
community has been used to
seeing traditional two or three
act plays, either musicals
(The Sound of Music and
Carousel) or contemporary
serious dramas (The Glass
Menagerie and The Miracle
Worker), and has not been
exposed to the recent
experiments with the
theatrical art-form. The new
program is designed to fill
that gap.
Albee, best known for his
full-length work. Who’s Afraid
of Virginia Wolfe:, is
considered a pioneer in what
has come to be called “the
theatre of the absurd,” and is
ranked alongside France’s
Eugene Ionesco, England’s
Harold Pinter, and Ireland’s
Samuel Beckett as a major
explorer of the frontiers of the
theatre. And “The American
Dream” has already come to
be considered a paradigm of
theatrical absurdism.
Departure from Traditional
Absurdism in the theatre,
as its name suggests, is a
departure from the traditional
dramatic form. Story-line and
character-development, the
staples of traditional drama
and the criteria used to
distinguish good plays from
bad, are virtually ignored by
the absurdist; in their place,
he uses the comedy he finds in
every-day life, the “black
humor” that arises from
modern man’s mechanical
responses to the world around
him. We are told by
sociologists and philosophers
that traditional values and
institutions are inadequate to
handle modern technology
and its demands; the
absurdist exhibits such
inadequacies in his plays, and
the result is both comic and
insightful.
The Absurdist Playwright
The absurdists’
departures from the
traditional form have opened
them to criticism. But their
defenders note that the
absurdist playwright does not
really serve a different
function from his traditional
counterpart. All dramatists
attempt to speak to their
audiences in a way that will
show each audience-member
some truth about himself as a
human being or a member of
his particular society. The
absurdist, no less than the
traditionalist, strives to do
this. If his stories are
disjointed and his characters
one-dimensional, that is
because the real world is
sometimes out of joint and
real people sometimes
express themselves in cliches
and stereotyped roles that
have become meaningless and
empty. That is no less the
truth about people, the
absurdist is saying, than that
they are capable of nobility
and self-sacrifice. The good
dramatist should look deep
into the human soul, and
examine its roots; the
absurdist is doing that, even if
he is examining different
roots and exploring hitherto
darkened corners of the soul.
Like all absurdist
dramas, “The American
Dream” presents the
playgoer with a challenge. Is
he ready to see a gifted
playwright’s insights into his
psyche on stage? Is he ready
to laugh at the absurdities
created when deeply - held
values and ways of life break
down? On October 30 and 31,
some members of the
Meredith community will
have the opportunity to meet
that challenge.
♦lovcc Martin’s
BLACK PERSPECTIVE
Mr. Conan Allen, one of Meredith’s maintenance workers, views
the goodies prepared by the home economics majors for the
domestic workers tea. Entertaining is one project required of the
giris.
Students, faculty,
administration, and clerical
workers all play a major role
in college life. However, let us
not fail to remember the
importance of the domestic
workers and their role in the
beautification and upkeep of
our campus. There are the
people who work behind the
scenes to make sure every
event goes over smoothly and
that everything is “up to par.”
They keep the lawns and
shrubbery looking attractive,
keep the dorms neat, prepare
and serve our food, and keep
our classrooms looking
presentable.
In the Housekeeping
Department we salute:
Thelma Avery (who first
came to Meredith in 1953),
Louise Booker (who first
came to Meredith in 1939),
Nellie Pennington, Christine
Faison, Margie Davis, Doris
Clinton, Martha Warren,
Hazel Faison, Francis Gillis,
Sally BecWith, Mary
Elizabeth Bell, Mabel
Robinson, Pauline McCullers,
Curlie Fuller, and Novella
Duns tan.
In the Maintenance
Department we salute:Lou
Avent, Bernice Thompson,
Conan Allen, William Crumel,
William Fench, Arce Jackson,
Arthur Jones, James Jeffries,
Willie King, James
McDonald, George
McFadden, Jack Mims,
Johnny Patterson, William
Stewart, and Eddie Turner.
In the cafeteria we salute:
Mamie Sanders, Alice
Sanders, Alice Wilson, Daniel
Harrison, Cleo Young,
Josephine Herring, Allen
McNeely, Thelma Person, J.
C. Sanders, Hubert Merritt,
Irene McCullers, Peggy
Seaborne, Molly Cotten,
Lucille Sanders, Charlie
Cannon, Jr., Fannie Madison,
Mary Massenburg, Alivia
Partin, Ernestine Gupton,
Benjamin Morgan, Christine
Harris, Martin Moody, John
White, Phillip Goss, Eula
Ethridge, Hazel Bullock, and
Clinton Stroman.
Also we commend:
Charlie Cannon, Louise
Dandy, Doris Barber, Sandra
Brown, Margaret Kieth,
Virginia Robertson, Lewis
Utley, Annie O’Neal, Mark
Hudson, Tutti Sastrosumarta,
Winnie Harris, Barbara
Powers (Snack Bar), Leathia
M. Holder, Margaret Sanders,
Louise Silver, Diane
McCullers, Mary McCullers,
Willie Williams, Ella M.
Losten, and Bryan Crook.
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