been on? -- shattered the mood with the comfort and help she had want- ithe ed to. smooth, matter-of-fact voice of bent over in actual spasms of grief on the mortuary steps. The mortuary was all a foggy grey to her, smelling the sickening smell of a florist’s shop. Soft organ music came from somewhere behind the announcer, totally unconcerned. “Utah’s highway deaths for 1964 rose to one hundred thirty-four today when three persons were fatally injured in a head-on collision near Highway 274 and Red Wood Road. Killed were Miss Diane a wood Peterson, for Carol. She couldn’t, would- n’t believe it. It was someone else. There were lots of Diane Peterson’s wern’t there? “Mama, did you hear that? Who did they say?” she pleaded. And then, because she could not disbelieve it any longer, the tears came and with them a horrible hopeless, empty feeling. It seemed her insides were hollow and black and writhing with pain. Over and over she screamed inside herself, “Oh, Diane, what will I do? What will I do?” But right beside the agony was a tiny laugh. An evil, nasty filthy laugh. Now she could have Bob. She had to be the first to tell him, panel. People were talking very quietly or crying with their hands over their faces. Carol had followed dumbly the group in to view the body. Was that Diane? Her face was all out of proportion, surely that wasn’t really her? The lips were so grotesquely big. The undertaker came over to her, and asked in his cringing, oversympathetic voice of practiced mourning and understanding, “Do you think she’s natural? You know that isn’t her real face, don’t you? Almost sixty percent plastic, she was banged up so. We had a real rough time with her. Are there any suggestions you'd make?” Carol hadn’t been to enough viewing to be appalled at his questions. “Well, yes, I think the lips are too big, and she never put on her lipstick to the top of her lips. She thought they were too full.” The ingratiating voice, the formless, grey face. “Oh, I see. Well, that’s very helpful, thank you. A beautiful girl, wasn’t she?” | “Oh, yes, quite beautiful’, she said in a faraway voice. She locked for the last time at the tiny brown monkey paws. Miss Kathy Romanson and Mrs. Jack Delany. The Peterson car was struck as it traveled east...” and the rest of the announcement faded out She couldn’t even lock at him, so she could comfort him and do ali the things she had always wanted to do. And he would grow to love her. People that shared pain grew to love each other didn’t they? Now he would hold her hand instead of the little brown monkey paw. Days later, though, she could not touch” him. At the viewing she could not touch him, could not give HAIKU Vicaek Through winter snow-topped Cohaten wind ake mountains left DIANE 28 like bea alone. NEEDLEMAN i aS Barta WY EL The average high school student searches for the place where the laughter of fun is found. He searches for the happiness and joy of life, not the sadness of life. Actually who doesn’t? So naturally he sees the comedy and is unaware of the serious drama. : The average high school student is seldom introduced to the many sides of drama. The first thing thrown at him when he enters his first year of high school is a Shakespearian drama, such as Julius Caesar or Macbeth. So when the word Ae Heiner A thick blanket of darkness covered the stage. The cast sat in their positions, their eyes trying to pierce the darkness that enveloped them. Three hours before they had been laughing at each other as they donned their masks of disguise. Now they were still, silently working on the tack of assuming characters. All that broke the silence was a low roar which came from the audience. Tonight was the night when they were to be rewarded for all'the time and hard work they had put into this drama. The cue was given, the curtains parted, the lights went on, the action started. The hot lights beat down on the actors and their make-up intensified the heat. As the cast uttered the first few words, the high school audience roared with laughter and broke the silence. The cast felt shocked. Their friends had laughed at this dramatic play they had worked so hard to prepare. In revenge the cast worked for the very soul of their part. The perspiration trickled through their hair and dripped down the sides of their faces. Their hands were cold and clamy as death itself. The audience’s laughter seared their eardrums like a hot iron. The first act over, drama is mentioned, he associates the word drama with Shakespeare, and the dialogues with the use of thee, thy and thou. When he confronts a modern drama, he thinks to himself. “Oh good, a play, not Shakespeare as I’ve been studying in school--so that means it’s probably funny, a comedy, a play I can like’. So even before the play starts he has the sub-concious urge to laugh, to find something funny Laugh he does, even if it is a dramatic play! | The incident related at the beginning actually happened at an average high school. Yet, the very same cast performed the play the very same way a second time in front of an audience made up of the parents of the students, and it produced a completely different response. This audience interpreted it as a serious play with a special message. The awareness of the sadness in life. They recognized the seriousness of the play presented and have the expected response. What will make high school students aware of the many different types of drama, comedy being only one of them? What will make high school students aware that they can enjoy the many phases of drama besides comedy? English teachers the cast seemed bewildered: some were swearing; some were dazed by disbelief. Second act, third act, all received the same audience reaction. The play was finally over. The actors left their characters on the black stage and went home puzzled asking, “why?” Why had their play failed? Why had the audience laughed at them? What had they done wrong? 29