the doctor's house. But this enterprise. is a facet, a gleaming facet, of the social mores of Cherry Grove. "The show," as it is simply called, never pretends to be as ambitious as a seriously produced review or musical or to compete in any way with the expensive productions in New York. It only tries to entertain, and not to astound. dazzle or impress. The numbers and skits consist almost entirely of different versions of a "running gag," as it were. They are, in the overall effect, one continuous and humorous (i.e.. side-splitting) comment on the rest of the world. And so the show is actually a comment on its own world, the specialized world of its audience.

The program usually consists of a parody on the latest hit show on Broadway, some devestatingly literal interpretations of advertising slogans, current fads, or any other kind of cliché, and a few "blackouts"-the quick build-up, punchline and lightsout formula as well as continuous references, aspersions, and "exposés" of Cherry Grove itself. Unlike most amateur theatricals, wit usually carries the show instead of being an occasional item in the program. And it is funny, not smutty or desperately off-color. The whole tone of the show is amazingly successful in view of the lack of rehearsals and preparation and the primary reliance on talent, or, at the least, exuberance. This success, both financially and dramatically, may be because the people who contribute scripts, costumes, sets and who take roles are more often than not making a living in a field allied to some other aspect of public display not so terribly far removed from the theatre-art, advertising, clothing, design and the like.

The Cherry Grove show is a specialized production secure in its very unprofessionalism with a specialized audience delighting in the rare experience of being personally, privately

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and exclusively entertained, a situation that has not existed since Spenser wrote The Faerie Queene for Queen Elizabeth or since Bach sent off a masterpiece to fill up conversational gaps at Brandenburg.

Of course, the Cherry Grove shows do not contribute masterpieces to the cultural history of mankind. Not directly, anyway. But that is part of the definition of their function: to entertain in the most effervescent way, spontaneously, for the occasion and with no regard for permanence, or for opinion.

Would it hurt to extract a serious meaning from this odd phenomenon, the Cherry Grove Show? After all, any organized activity has to fit in some way into its civilization's philosophy, no matter how off-beat it may be. The obvious "meaning" of the parodies, the lampoons and satires is simply that nothing is, if you take a good look at it, so very sacred-except man's humanity, and that too, God help us, wavers. But humanism, like life itself, seems to survive best where its security is worried about least, and the foolhardiness of the comic is not so far removed from the more careful evaluations of the philosopher. The great comedians, like Chaplin and Emmett Kelly, know that. And a good laugh, which the Cherry Grove show is, always leaves a salutary effect with you the next day.

The old opera comique, the medieval minstrels, the Roman Circus and the Keystone Comedies are stuck on pins now, as a part of the lore of the theatre and of history. But the spirit of the Cherry Grove shows will dissipate, I think, into the rafters of the Community House. It will never be pulled back down, recorded on film or paper, or turned into a research thesis. Instead, like a family joke, and like the best part of history, it will be lost -and that, we think, with a reminiscent smile, is as it should be.

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