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CEREDIGION CYLCHGRAWN CYMDEITHAS HYNAFIAETHWYR CEREDIGION JOURNAL OF THE CEREDIGION ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY CYFROL (VOLUME) VIII 1976 RHIFYN (NUMBER) I THE COLLEGE THEATRE AT ABERYSTWYTH PART II. 1884-1918 Our second major group of plays is those performed at the Literary and Debating Society soirées until 1907. The soirées continued after 1907, but there was a change from short plays to a concert party type of entertainment. The Lit. and Deb. plays were usually short, one-act pieces or selections of scenes from longer plays, and were only part of an evening's entertainment. Many of them no doubt deserved Bernard Shaw's comments, and some are so obscure as not to be readily identifiable.141 Two productions anticipated full length Christmas plays scenes from The Heir at Law with music and tableaux vivants in 1897 and tableaux vivants from Cranford in 1899.142 Dramatizations of Dickens remained popular Bob Sawyer's Supper Party in 1889 was followed by Bardell-v-Pickwick in 1893, scenes from A Christmas Carol in 1901, and scenes from Martin Chuzzlewit in 1902.143 The programme for 1898 combined scenes from Alice in Wonderland, with all the charac- ters played by ladies, with T. J. Williams' farce, Ici on parlefranwis.144 A more serious linguistic effort was Professor Ethe's translation of a German comedy, The Wedding Trip, in 1895.145 Opportunities of seeing Shakespeare in the college were not limited to the Christmas plays, for scenes from Henry V and As You Like It were performed at the 1901 soiree and some more Henry V the following year.146 A farcical parody', Hamlet or Not Such a Fool as he Looks, performed in 1892 and 1903 seems to have gained a certain celebrity in Aberystwyth, largely be- cause of the earlier production with Brough as Hamlet and Ainsworth- Davis as Polonius.147 Perhaps the most interesting programme of all was that of 1900, when four scenes from A Doll's House shared the evening with Barbara by Jerome K. Jerome. This was the first time- eleven years after William Archer's translation was produced in