FOR WOMEN ESSENCE OF THEATRE

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 284, 1 December 1942, Page 5

FOR WOMEN ESSENCE OF THEATRE

REPERTORY MOVEMENT

NGAIO MARSH'S TALK

Miss Ngaio Marsh, the New Zealand authoress, actress and producer, who is visiting Wellington in connection with the production of the Repertory Theatre's latest undertaking, Noel Coward's play "Blithe Spirit," spoke at the Pioneer Club on the hot-house growth of Repertory since the days when the talkie film first came Into being. The desolate sound of slamming stage doors could be heard, she said, throughout the land, and it looked as if the legitimate theatre was doomed. Actors, the most unadaptable people in the world, found themselves trying to earn a living by street singing, and it was a tragic time in the theatrical world.

But, suddenly, said Miss Marsh, there came a demand for flesh-and-blood shows. Why did this recrudescence take place? The Hollywood talkies were more lavishly, more realistically, and more lusciously produced than any production of the legitimate stage could ewr possibly

be. Repertory was more expensive. Seats were not so comfortable. There was very little gilt and very little show, and everything was on an impoverished scale, and yet Repertory continued to live and to progress. Miss Marsh gave it as her opinion that this was because there was something about the flesh-and-blood show that the talkie could not replace or give. People felt that they must have something in which they could also take part. There was a definite relationship between actors and audience. No two audiences were alike, and the actors played according to the mood of the audience, but the two-dimensional photographs on a screen were completely imperturbable as far as the audience was concerned. Shakespeare had understood the need for this sympathy between actor and audience. He revealed it the last scene of "Midsummer Nights Dream," when Puck turns to the audience and says, "Give me your hands if we be friends." This said Miss Marsh, was the essence of the theatre.