HERE is something to be learned from watching Shakespeare in a modern theater: there is no substitute for the wooden 0. Ile proscenium stage, like that of Phoenix's Little Theater where the Festival is held, inhibits rather than encourages the flow of action. The large acting area, corseted by an intractable frame, retreats from the audience and becomes static. The curtain is meant to close between scenes and acts, and Elizabethan plays, Shakespeare's most of all, are composed of action too swift and changing to put up with that threat in addition to the stranglehold of the proscenium. Furthermore, the modern stage lacks those nooks and crannies, the changes in heights and depths, that permit, on the Shakespearian stage, the necessary nuances of movement and grouping. The Elizabethans wrote their plays with their own stage in mind. To observe modern directors struggling to force Shakespeare's plays into another mold must elicit the sympathy of any audience. ITe directors of the three plays presented at Phoenix this year met the difficulties of the modern stage as best they could. Harold Chidnoff and Ralph J. Holly, directors of the Phoenix Little Neater's Hamlet and Arizona State College's Richard III, respectively, avoided all but token sets. Mr. Chidnoff was successful in keeping the action moving; Professor Holly was not. The time lapses between the scenes of Richard Ill were extremely tredious, and by the play's end a dull heaviness had settled over all. Professor James W. Yeater, who directed Arizona State University's Merchant of Venice, met the conditions in another way. Constructing an elaborate set of Venetian villas, set on pillars and flanking both sides of the stage, he managed to approximate the fluidity of the Elizabethan theater. Tle stationary set, serving all places from Venice to Belmont, gave the action a firm sense of location. In addition it created a freedom which encouraged the swift change of scenes and rapid exits and entrances. Sometimes Professor Yeater's technical efforts were almost too successful, as when he materialized a moving gondola at stage rear; or sent Shylock, just before the intermission, to ascend a raised platform and stand silhouetted against a blue background as the lights faded. This was a dramatic gesture which gave more assistance to Shakespeare in the humanizing of the Jew than was needed. There was something else to be learned from watching this last Phoenix Festival. When a series of plays is presented in festival style, a repertory company will usually be more successful in maintaining quality of performance than separate companies, especially when the players must give up most of their time to being businessmen, cleaning houses, and going to school. The participants in the Phoenix Festival made many sacrifices and devoted much effort to bring Shakespeare to Arizona. The ugly fact remains, however, that effort does