Players offer a demanding evening ' s entertainment

* » by BARBARA WILSON W. H. Auden's For the Time Being is "A Christmas Oratorio," combining elements of the traditional Christmas pageant and the medieval miracle play with the oratorio form. It uses contemporary language and popular 6ong techniques to present a story of great scope that is uniquely historical as well as modern. Varying verse forms and meters are employed as the equivalent to musical effects while ancients and contemporaries attempt to understand the Incarnation intellectually, psychologically, and emotionally. As the speakers use only their voices to present the characters, who are both types and aspects of each individual, there is no dramatic action and very little opportunity for dramatic interchange or characterization. Because the work is difficult philosophically and theologically, it demands constant and intense attention from the audience. These are the problems confronting Neil Havens and the Rice Players in their presentation of For the Time Being December 1-4, 1971 at 8 pm in the Rice Chapel.