CONCERT SKETCH.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 238, 8 October 1935, Page 5

CONCERT SKETCH.

OFFENCE RESENTED.

SPIRITUALISTS' BELIEFS.

NOEL COWARD COMEDY.

Asking "Can this be the result of sheer ignorance on the part of the headmaster and those responsible for the programme or was it a deliberate attempt to belittle the religious convictions of spiritualists?'' Mr. S. Oldfield, president of the Quest Club of the Psychic Institute, has written to the "Auckland Star" a letter which contains an indignant protest against the presentation by the Mount Albert Grammar School boys at their annual concert of the Noel Coward two-act comedy, "Weatherwise." The theme of the play is that a number of people are experimenting with a planchette that writes several incoherent sentences, including remarks about the weather, interspersed with "bow wow." An elderly lady in the party goes into a trance, and when she awakes it is found that whenever "weather" is mentioned, she believes that she is a savage dog, and behaves accordingly. A psychoanalyst undertakes to cure her, and claims a complete success, but she eventually bites him to death. "Now I suppose we will have to destroy Rover," remarks the only male character — curtain. Legal Status as Church. "If it is ignorance, they cannot be held blameless, for surely they must know that this is the religion of millions of earnest people throughout the world today, and that communication with the other side of life by these methods is a definite proven fact," writes Mr. Oldfield. "Sir Oliver Lodge and flie noted French scientist, Prof. Camille I lammarion have not scorned to use these methods of securing evidence of survival. We would ask the headmaster, Mr, Gamble, and those responsible, if they

are not aware that in this country there are hundreds of home circles, which use these means of communicating with those who have passed on. If the promotors of this concert are aware of these facts and deliberately staged this burlesque, then we say at the least it was an exhibition of bad taste and demands a public apology. Perhaps, those concerned are not aware that spiritualists have as legal a status as any church in New Zealand by the Spiritualist Church Act, 1924. "If by any chance Mr. Gamble or other responsible masters disclaim the truths of spirit communication or the reality of after life," Mr. Oldfield concludes, "and deliberately staged this item to show their opposition, then I am prepared personally to debate publicly the question with them on any platform at any time." Headmaster Replies. "If our sketch offended anyone, l am, of course, ready to apologise but I did not see when I first read it and I do not see' now any reflection on spiritualists or spiritualism in it, stated Mr. F. W. Gamble, headmaster of Mount Albert Grammar School, this morning. "Your correspondent is, I think, 100^ n S for an excuse to publish something t a. will advertise him. As far as I remember neither of the w<srds ' spiritualism nor "spiritualist" occur in the skctcn. "To me, the skit appeared to be based mainly on the reputed powers of mental suggestion, acting, in this case, through the medium of a planchette —which Mr. Oldfield calls, if I read his writing correctly, an ouija board —011 the somewha unbalanced mind of an old lady so powerfully as to upset her mentality completely. But the planchette was a popular parlour toy, and, as such, was a subject for humorous and serious fiction long before the Spiritualist Church was founded. When I was a boy, every second home in Auckland had one, and skits were being written then on people who took such things seriously, just as sketches have been written more recently on the yo-yo. That the planchette was so seriously taken by modern spiritualists had never occurred to me, nor is there any indication of such an attitude in what I have read of spiritualism. In fact, I think that in making a fetish of the planchette, Mr. Oldfield betrays an ignorance of the modern spiritualist research, at least, as far as my knowledge goes. , - ,

" Too Absurd for Discussion." "At any rate, both the sketch and Mr. Oldfield's objections to it are too absurd for serious discussion. The play itself has been presented time and again without, as far as I know, incurring a single objection from anyone, either here or in England. Hitherto, apparently, spiritualists have never suggested that a farcical representation of a few idle folks playing with a planchette impugned the tenets of the Spiritualist Church." "While we are on the subject of the 6chool concert, I must .admit, however, that I should not . have been surprised to receive some objections to our wartime sketch, "One Goes Alone," both from pacifists and from religious people. The first might have objected to a war theme, the second could easily have taken exception to some of the language. To forestall criticism, I must explain that the original text was severely "trimmed down," but a few of the excisions were not noticed by the boys, whom, unfortunately, I did not hear rehearsing."