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Victoria University College. Annual Extravaganza: Pep. 1924.

Foreword

page 3

Foreword.

Rosalind says that good plays prove the better by the help or good epilogues. Like the fair maid of Arden we cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play, and therefore offer this foreword in explanation of our theme. Our song is of Youth, a fitting subject for a students' revel, and our setting is frivolous, as our first object is to amuse. In our bushel of chaff, however, we have attempted to hide this grain of reason.

We ask you, Sirs, to give Youth its chance. Take a walk through our streets on a Saturday evening and watch the number of boys selling your evening paper, often until close on midnight. Go to our schools—you will find every teacher acquainted with the problem of the child who earns a living when his day's work should be over. Still better, go to the country—you will find that the sacrifice of Youth to the Golden Calf is a painful reality.

Nor would we confine the term to only the very young. That joyous enthusiasm, that zest for life which the legends of ancient Greece embody (and hence our first scene) is too easily lost in the people of to-day. Keenness for a living crushes keenness for life. And that enthusiasm and rest is one of the driving forces in the path of progress, which in the past has only too often been achieved by its sacrifice. Hence our second scene, centred in the figure of the girl, Charlotte Corday. Those familiar with "R.U.R.," the splendid play by the Brothers Capek, will readily understand the allegory of our Robots supposed mechanical beings, created only to work, and hence our third.

As, Sirs, we realise that the virtues of Youth may be counterbalanced by its indiscretions, we ask you to pardon us, and any indiscretions in our play, though we hasard that were it lacking in indiscretions, it might soon be lacking an audience.

N.A.B.