Talking sleepily, the students file in. The room fills; one boy jumps to a stage, calls out, "Let's go." Stiffly at first, the class waggles fingers, wrists, arms and spines in a ragged ballet of calisthenics, then switches to vocal knee-bends: OHO, OHO; AHA, AHA; ZZZZHH, ZZZZHH ; UMPAH, UMPAH; OOOOH, OOOOH. The personage in whose honor the morning rites are performed is abrupt, autocratic, rumpled Professor Paul Baker, 47, head of Baylor University's department of dramatics. In the judgment of Actor Charles Laughton, an old friend, Baker is "crude, arrogant, irritating, nuts...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In