Windham County Observer

Academy Students Give Outstanding Play Performance

A. Players Win Laurels For Well-Acted, Skillfully Produced Modern Social Drama, "La Femme Aux Yeux Fermes."

With its customary skill, the Put- Catholic Academy players presented "La Femme Aux Yeux Fermes," a modern French social drama, before a large and appreciative audience Sunday afternoon at the St. Louis Gonzague Auditorium. The production of a play entirely in French is an ambitious project for a student group, but it must be added without delay that the Academy's high standards are maintained in a neatly mounted and well-acted production.

The cast acted the play with confidence and positive emotional power. Lighting, scenic arrangements, and other technical details of staging add to the build-up of the exposition of the social implications of the story, and a great deal of the cumulative impact of the play comes from the acting, which is definitely some of the best that has come over the Academy footlights.

Students of French as well as those fortunate enough to possess a lifetime knowledge of the language were privileged to hear some of the finest French in a production outstanding for the cast's enunciation and clearcut emotional understanding of the roles.

The cast of characters was as follows: Roseline de Cressy, Claire Beaudreau; Mme Hughe, Florine Erard; Melanie, Rachel Gendreau; Miss Albrandt, Pauline Vanasse; Louis Hughe, Claire Morrissette; M. le Cure de St. Francois de Sales, Therese Morneau; M. Hughe, Marguerite Sauban; Celestin, Mireille Marie; Servante, Antoinette Maynard; Une Anglaise, Gladys Viens; Deux garde malades, Blanche Trudeau, Florence Sinard; Prologue, Rita Lepine; Angelus, Helene Rouleau; Gertrude Rouleau, Claire Rompre, Eleanor Marchesseault, Muriel Cote, Irene Cote; Dance Autrichienne, Klara Feiner, Ghislaine Lovell; Je suis une habitante, Rita Pominville.

The program was as follows: Overture, Soldier's Farewell, Orchestra; "La Femme aux Yeux Fermes," Act I: Waltz, A Morning Greeting, Orchestra; Danse Autrichienne; "La Femme aux Yeux Fermes," Act II; Simplicity, Marimba solo, Henrietta Talbot; L'Angelus, Chant; "La Femme aux Yeux Fermes," Act III, Premier Tableau: Je suis une habitante, Chant; "La Femme aux Yeux Fermes," Act III, Deuxieme Tableau: Petite Gavotte, Orchestra. "La Femme Aux Yeux Fermes" - Premier Act, La scene se passe a Auteuil, dans l'appartment des Hughe. Deuxieme Act, La scene se passe a Veules les-Bains, dans une salle quelconque de la villa Turlututu. Troiseme Act, Premier Tableau, Le scene a l'hotel des Alpes a Chamonix; Deuxieme Tableau, La scene dans une chambre d'hotel en Montenvers.

Members of the orchestra were: Piano, Imelda McCarthy; violins, Florine Erard, Anita Gaudette; saxophones, Elizabeth Smith, Claire Morrissette, Grace Martel; clarinets, Antoinette Maynard, Claire Rompre, Helen Rouleau, Marguerite Folay; marimba, Henrietta Talbot; trumpets, Francoise Robitaille, Murielle Gendreau; drums, Pauline Vanasse; conductor, Helen Marie Collins.