A contingent of Princetonians led by Clark Gesner '60 (who penned the popular off-Broadway musical "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown") watched the revival of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1914 Triangle Production of "Fie! Fie! Fi Fi!" at Catholic University on Saturday, January 31, 1998.
As a former member of Triangle, I can tell you there is no doubt that the voices on Saturday were uniformly better throughout this cast than in any I was in. But no kickline!
Each year, Catholic University stages a revival of an old production. Ellwood Annaheim, the Stage Director, adhered closely to the original Triangle tenets. He and the entire cast should be congratulated on a captivating production in an intimate theater.
It was, as usual, difficult to pick the "stars" in a typical Triangle ensemble cast. "Clover Blossom," the homely spinster betrothed to "Freddie," the handsome and highly eligible bachelor in town, carried the tradition of the Triangle Femme Fatale by stealing every scene she/he was in! Celeste was given — through rewrites of the original script by the Triangle president (who then portrayed Celeste) — some of the best lines, including "Are you a larger fool than you look or do you look a larger fool than you are?"
Fitzgerald's script was timely and is timeless. It was surprising to hear lines referring to contemporaneous issues such as vivisection. Perhaps lab sciences were required in 1914 much like in the current curriculum.
It is particularly easy for a former Triangle to wax nostalgic about the production, which captured and probably exceeded the original production in consistent quality. But where oh where was the kickline?
—Tiny Morgan '66