Listen Up

Our last photo quiz brought back many memories of a true Tufts legend. The professor is indeed Marston Stevens Balch (1901–1987), better known to generations of thespians simply as “Doc.” Balch helped establish the university’s Department of Drama and Speech and Tufts’ reputation in the dramatic arts, and the Marston S. Balch Arena Theatre is named in his honor. The year is 1951 and the event apparently a lecture on Greek theatre. Alumni were unstinting in their praise of Balch, who served as the department’s chairman, professor of Drama, and Fletcher Professor of Oratory for 26 years. Kalman A. Burnim, A50, Fletcher professor of Drama, emeritus, credited Balch as his mentor, colleague, and “lifelong cherished friend. I had the privilege of succeeding him as chair of the Drama Department and Fletcher Professor. He was a wonderful man and a great influence on generations of Tufts students and the American theatre.” He was, agreed Joe Golden, A51, “an incredible gentleman and outstanding scholar.” Bob Clark, A42, remembered Balch as a “meticulous dresser–trim mustache, carefully groomed hair, bow tie.” In fact, “slicked-back hair, bow tie, and breast-pocket foulard were his signatures,” said Robert Kent, A59, who added, “The Oresteia, at the heart of his drawn theatre-circle on the chalkboard, represents Balch’s traditional view of the theatre: drama as we know it begins with the tragedies of Aeschylus.” Jackie Zollo Brooks, J57, recalled: “This is a photo of our beloved Dr. Marston Balch giving his very thorough, very dreaded course in History of the Theatre. . . . Dr. Balch helped to launch my professional career in theatre when I graduated as one of only nine drama majors in 1957.” Laurence Senelick, the current Fletcher Professor of Drama and Oratory, elaborated that the blackboard “shows a diagram of an open-air Greek auditorium, on which the Tufts Arena was based. I assume the apparatus that resembles a satellite dish is a sound amplification device.” That microphone even stumped Tufts archivists. But Richard Knowles, A56, contributed a scholarly and thoughtful “wild guess”: “I would suppose that he was showing that the same physical shape that collects sound and focuses it on the mike in the center would also do the reverse, and take sound from the center and spread it outwards in all directions. That shape accounts for the astonishing acoustics in these ancient theatres, where someone speaking quietly at the center of the orchestra (the flat playing area where the chorus danced) can be heard audibly at the furthest seat at the outer circumference of the teatron, or seating area. The other two terms on the blackboard are the parodos, or ramp, whereby the actors entered and descended to the stage, and the skene, or tentlike backdrop to the stage, a word from which we get our modern ‘scene.’” Many thanks to others who also responded, including: Mark Freeman, A49, G51; Audrey Hale, H95, former provost; Kate Hurney, J58; Charlie Kepner, A56; Amy Conford Roth, J59; Judith Tarentino, J61; Dr. Howard Sawyer, E72; Jan Getchell Manzelli, J50; and Bill Regan, A60.