American First

The 66th annual Shakespeare Festival opened in Stratford-on-Avon with one new wrinkle. For the first time in Festival history, the leading lady was an American: blonde, Syracuse-born Claire Luce./- The choice was a deliberate one, by way of saying thank you for U.S. support of last year's Festival, with its record-breaking attendance of 230,000. Besides playing Beatrice in the opening Much Ado About Nothing, Actress Luce will appear in Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, play Cleopatra in the birthday performance (April 23) of Antony & Cleopatra.

Sporadic Shakespeare Festivals at Stratford go back as far as 1769. Since becoming an annual tradition, they have not only given the Bard perhaps his fullest hearing anywhere, but have taxed the talents of actors such as Sarah Bernhardt (as Hamlet), Sir Johnston Forbes-Robertson, and Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree. And they have meant pageantry as well as playacting.

This year's is strictly a wartime Festival. It will have little tragedy in its repertory, no new trappings in its productions. It has maintained one traditional touch: the Mayor of Stratford (like Shakespeare's father when he was mayor) entertained the visiting players. For each of the 22 weeks, there will be about 50 specially invited Yanks in the audience. Some of these will probably bring friends--as other Yanks did last year, when a member of the cast remarked: "This is the first time that Birmingham tarts have shown any interest in Shakespeare."

/- First known on Broadway as a musicomedy dancer, last seen there as a dramatic actress in Of Mice and Men (1937). Not to be confused with Congresswoman-Playwright Clare Boothe Luce.

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