Triangle Club Founding

For some years previous to 1890, the histrionic talents of the Undergraduate body broke out spasmodically into plays, some serious, some gay in character, under a loose organization known as “The Princeton Dramatic Association.” In the fall of 1890, James Barnes, ’91, produced “Pochahontas,” the first of the musical comedies, and since that time, to the best of my knowledge, all the plays given by the Triangle Club have been of this character. The last play given by the Dramatic Association was in the spring of 1892 and was entitled “Catharine.”

The Faculty objected to Princeton’s name being connected with any theatrical venture, nor was the title “Princeton Dramatic Association” pleasing to the Undergraduates, so several of the men who had taken part in “Catharine,” notably Booth Tarkington, ’93, changed the name to “The Triangle Club.”

The first play was a musical extravaganza, a travesty on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The book was written by Post Wheeler, ’91, and Booth Tarkington, ’93; the music by J. M. Mayhew, ‘92. No out of town performance was given, although the Princeton Dramatic Association had given one of its plays at least in Trenton, if not elsewhere.

The music of “Julius Caesar” was musical and catchy, if slightly reminiscent; the book fairly clever for an Undergraduate production, but the staging was crude to the extreme. The club had no money: only two performances were given in Princeton to an audience limited in number, and a rapid calculation on the part of the managers showed conclusively after paying for the wigs, costumes, printing and a week’s drill from an expert, most of the scenery and all of the stage setting would have to be contributed. The result, which would have made Caesar cross another Rubicon, “went with the audience.” A scene in Caesar’s palace was made gorgeous by furnishings borrowed from various students’ rooms. A bright Navajo rug adorned a divan on which Caesar’s lordly frame reclined. A pewter mug borrowed from some dining-room held the Cyprian wine; square blocks of wood with ink spots for the pips made the dice with which the Roman soldiers gambled. A satin-lined chair, loaned by a member of the Faculty, did for the imperial Caesar’s throne, and all the other stage properties were equally simple and primitive. The members of the cast worked hard, however, and extracted lots of fun from the undertaking, and the audience was more tolerant and less critical than those of to-day.

Mr. H. G. Murray, ’89

(from the playbill for the 1915-16 show “The Evil Eye”)