Masque presents “The Foreigner” by Troy Nielsen N ewspeak S ta ff At this fine institute for higher technical learning, what kind o f pro duction other than an M QP or IQP c«uld have a large num ber of students working in conjunction with their clubs, classes, and sufficiences to make a first-rate production. W h at’s that, you say? A student-run drama organization called Masque does a large-scale production like this every year? W here the hell have I been all of these years?! The Masque annual fall produc tion this year is a hilarious play en titled “The Foreigner" by Larry Shue. The play is directed by Professor Susan Vick and produced by Jon Lamkins. I think that a little background about Masque is definitely in order, since it is my belief that most o f the student body is not aware o f how involved in dram a this group is. Every year Masque produces three events, consisting o f a largescale fall production directed by Susan Vick, a student run winter
w orkshop, and the New Voices the atre festival in the spring. New Voices features a large num ber of student written, directed, and d e signed plays. The work in all o f the plays is not limited to the WPI school year, either. This past sum m er the group traveled to Scotland to perform in the Edinburgh Theatre festival in S c o tla n d . T he fa m o u s R oyal Shakespeare Com pany also perform s in this theatre festival. After the Ed inburgh Theatre festival appearance. Masque toured Great Britain with “ Short C ircuits,” a theatre program com posed o f original one-act plays with the New Voices concept in mind. Susan Vick has a done an incredible jo b of encouraging dram a at such a technical-minded school. And while stim ulating interest in drama on cam pus, Susan Vick has discovered many students with much dram a talent who now have an outlet for this talent in the M asque group. The turnout for Masque events is usually quite large, with most plays being a total sell-out. Hence, it is a good idea to get your tickets early. The basic storyline o f “The For
eigner” revolves around an English gentlem an nam ed C h arlie Baker (played by Harold M ackiernan) who finds him self in the deep “ redneck" South trying to cope with his fear of relating to a new class o f people. At first this plot may sound like a sto ryline for some cheesy Sunday night movie, but after C h arlie’s friend Froggy LeSeur (played by Bill Bul lard) starts to introduce Charlie as a foreigner who can ’t speak a word of English, the laughs begin to roll with ease. Prof. Vick describes “The For eigner" as “yo u rclasic good guys-bad guys melodram a were the good guys w in." “ The F o re ig n e r" fo llo w s M asque’s four-year cycle, which in sures that you w on’t see the same type of play twice in your WPI career. That is, o f course, assum ing that you d o n ’t choose to extend your stay at WPI by flunking a few key courses. The cycle consists of a classical/Shakespearean play, a contem porary dram a play, a political dram a, and a rip-roaring com edy. W hen asked about his role as Charlie Baker, actor Harold Mackier-
NEWSPEAK ST A FT PHOTO/OARY REtCRECiO
Bill Bullard and Jennifer Knudsen rehearse a scene from “The Foreigner”. nan described Charlie as a shy person who has trouble holding a conversa tion with the G eorgians. When Froggy lies about C harlie's language problem, Charlie has the opportunity to “get outside of him self and grow ."
So we can see that Harold is actually acting 2 roles. One role is the Charlie Baker who can speak English but can ’t converse with the natives, and see " M asque", page 4
The Student Newspaper of Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Volume 16, Number 24
Tuesday, November 15, 1988
Men’s Crew wins Regatta
PHOTO BY JACK HALEY
The M en's Crew team row s to victory in the Snake Regatta, held on Sunday, October 30.
Park groundbreaking undertaken (N ew s Release) State and City officials marked the beginning of a $1.2 million im provem ent project for Elm Park in W orcester with a ground breaking cerem ony on T hursday, N ovem ber 10th by the Newton Tennis courts. The M assachusetts D epartm ent of Environmental M anagem ent (DEM ) is funding the project through its O lmsted Historic Landscape Preser vation Program . D EM C o m m is sioner, Jam es Gutensohn was joined by Senator Thom as W hite, R epresen tative Kevin O ’Sullivan, City M an ager W illiam M ulford, and ViceM ayor John A nderson representing M ayor Jorday Levy along with other State and City officials. In addition to its historic signifi cance as an O lm sted site. Elm Park was also one o f the first parks in the country purchased by a m unicipality from private ow ners through the use of taxpayer’s money. The major com ponent o f the $1.2 million project will be the reconstruc tion o f the Newton Square area. The existing tennis and basketball courts
will be rebuilt on and repositioned to allow the construction at a new park e n tr a n c e p la z a . T h e e x is tin g V eteran’s M emorial will be rebuilt with City funds as the focal point of the landscaped plaza. Other im prove ments will include establishing wild flower m eadow s on Newton Hill, re setting the granite edges on the meres (ponds), rehabilitating the children’s play area, upgrading all lights and benches, and restoring the O lm sted planning plan for the Rogers-Kennedy M onument. This project m arks the continu ation of the effort to restore Elm Park. In 1986 DEM funded work which restored the historic trees in the older section o f the park. It’s also funded the recently com pleted Newton Hill clearing project which rem oved inva sive vegetation and restored the his toric veins from the top of Newton Hill. The construction contractor for the $1.2 million project is C aprera C o n s tr u c tio n C om pany fro m Boylston. The project started N ovem ber 1st and is expected to be co m pleted by August of 1989.
On Sunday, O ctober 30, the WPI m en’s crew team crushed rival Holy Cross and the rest o f the crew s partici pating in the Snake Regatta on Lake Q uinsigam ond in W orcester. WPI boats posted big wins over Holy Cross in both the varsity and Freshman races, as well s a strong second to Clark in the varsity four event. The results sent a strong message to Holy Cross that WPI will be the team to beat at the City Cham pionships in the Spring. The Snake Regatta w as the cap on a very fine fall season for m en's crew. Following a third place finish at the Textiles in Lowell, the varsity boat went on to place 11th out of 43 in the Head of the Connecticut, and pull out a top ten finish at the Head of the Charles. These two finishes were very prom ising considering the caliber of the crew s entered in the races and the team was very pleased with its results.
Combined with the results at the Snake Regatta, a very strong base has been provided for a very successful spring season. The V arsity crew team is now practicing every day at the gym. be ginning a long two terms of winter workouts, w hile the freshman team is preparing for one more race, the Frostbite in Philadelphia. The Spring season prom ises a great deal o f suc cess, with the team defending its freshmen and JV titles at the cities, as well as looking to strip Holy Cross of the Varsity title it lost last spring. Also, WPI looks to defend its New England title in the Varsity fours event and better its fourth place finish in the freshmen fours event at the New England C ham pionships at the end of the Spring season. The spring season could be one o f the best in recent history for W PI m en 's crew.
Virus attacks nation’s computers by Jeffrey S. G oldm eer _________ N ews E ditor _______ Veni, Vidi, Vici. This Latin phrase translates into “ I came, I saw, I conquered”, and this is what a small com puter program did last week. This program, called a com puter virus, attacked com puters all across the country. The virus was the creation of 23year-old Robert M orris. Morris is a graduate student at C ornell, m ajor ing in Com puter Science. The virus was spread along the Arpanet, which is a com puter network run by the Department o f D efense. The virus was spread to over six thousand co m p u ters. These in cluded the m ainfram es at MIT, RPI, and at NASA (National Aeronautics and Space A dm inistration) Re search Center. The virus itself was a program designed to spread itself from one
com puter to another, leaving one copy o f itself behind to infect other com puters. H owever, M orris made a programming error. Instead of m ak ing a single copy, the program began to duplicate itself an infinite number of times. Each com puter started spending more and more processor time trying to carry out the instructions of the virus. A result was that the com puters could not handle the amount of com puting necessary to carry out their instructions, and they had to be shut down. In some cases, com puters were ‘dow n’ for two days as a vaccine for the virus was created. WPI was not one o f the institu tions affected by the virus. The cam pus is not directly connected to the A rpanet, and thus the virus was not passed on to WPI. In an interview with Professor Kinicki, chairman of the Com puter Science Departm ent, he described
some of the problem s involved with computer and network security. He stated that the Unix operat ing system has a history of security problems. (U nix is used on the CCC Encore, and on many other college mainframes). He believes that those who adm inister com puter systems have the responsibility to watch their system s for abnormal behav ior. This will help in alleviating any m ajor problem s that do occur. However, it is also important to note that any actions taken by those cre ating viruses, and those trying to prevent the access by viruses are constrained by the operating system of the com puter, and the com m uni cation protocol between computer networks. Note: Information fo r this article was gathered from both the Novem ber 6, 1988 N ew York Times and the November 10. 1988 Episode o f Nightline.