Since its founding, Sophia University has engaged in language dramas or theatrical production performed in foreign languages. This stemmed from the belief that theater was the most effective means of learning languages and literature. According to the Sophia University History Archives, Volume 2, students were able to correctly learn foreign language pronunciation, intonation, timing, and emotional expression, including gestures, under the guidance of foreign professors. In other words, Sophia’s “language drama” was a learning method—acquiring language through wholehearted, expressive activity. This approach was rooted in the Jesuit tradition of emphasizing theatrical production in youth education.
Father Henri Boucher’s diary, one of Sophia University’s founders, records that a German-language play was performed in the red-brick building’s auditorium on February 19, 1915. While the specific play remains unknown, it indicates that language-based theatrical performances for language education were conducted from the university’s founding.
On November 3 and 4, 1921, Schiller’s Wallenstein was staged under the direction of Father Victor Gettelman, an avid theater enthusiast. The performers were students, including first-year undergraduates who had diligently studied German in the preparatory course before advancing to the undergraduate program. Initially, both German- and English-language plays were staged. German productions included Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, Hans Sachs’ ‘The Student from Paradise’, and original plays adapted from Grimm’s ‘Fairy Tales’ by theater enthusiast Father Heuvers. Meanwhile, English productions featured works such as Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’.