MR AGATE GOES TO THE THEATRE

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21324, 17 November 1934, Page 17

MR AGATE GOES TO THE THEATRE

First Nights. By James Agratc. Ivor Nicholson and Watson Ltd. 311 pp. (10/6 net.) Mr Agate is a grandfather, but there is nothing tremulous about his pen. He writes firmly and with spirit, jauntily and with eager tolerance. He delights in finding a new young man as warmly as he delights in recalling a traditional piece of Shakespearean business. He has the critic's two chief requirements: knowledge and principles. He does not quote so bewilderingly as the famous Mr Nathan, but his knowledge is never specious. He applies principles which professional and amateur film pundits would do well to adopt. Thus he condemns the celebrated "Dinner at Eight," the stage version, for the same reason as he would condemn the plays or films now infesting the globe, which exploit the floating population of hotels, liners, railway trains, Turkish baths, and other caravanserais. Such spectacles cannot be works of art unless some principle of selection is used. Mr Agate has sat before every type of play in the last four years, from Shakespeare to Shaw, from Czechoslovakia to Sweden. He has been dazzled and deafened by opera and musical comedy. He has recoiled before "art" plays and other stunts, but he has not lost poise though he has been the bland centre of several controversies. His knowledge of actors and acting is probably more remarkable than his knowledge of plays, for he likes human beings more than abstractions and standards.

He is always sensible. He deplores the waspishness of the small coterie of highbrows who had counterparts wherever the Union Jack flies and who sneered at "Cavalcade," belittling the memories it stirred and refusing to judge it by its writer's intentions. New Zealanders will do well to accept his leadership in watching for the work of Mr Ronald Mackenzie. They will not do ill to read this series of comments and essays, and use it as a guide-book to the modern stage. Whoever reads the first paragraph of his criticism of "Clive of India," page 264, will go merrily on from night to night.