BIRTHDAY WEEK FOR THE CASSON FAMILY

Press, Volume XCII, Issue 27801, 28 October 1955, Page 7

BIRTHDAY WEEK FOR THE CASSON FAMILY

It has been a week of birthdays for Sir Lewis Casson. Dame Sybil Thorndike. and their granddaughter, Laura Jane Casson, who arrived in Christchurch yesterday by air from Auckland. On Tuesday, while they were playing in Auckland. Sir Lewis Casson and Dame Sybil Thorndike held a joint birthday party—she was 73 the day before and he celebrated his eightieth birthday on Wednesday. “The staff gave us a wonderful dinner.” said Dame Sybil Thorndike last evening, “and they gave Lewis—what was it. dear?—a Maori temple?” “I think they said it was Rangi’s home.” said Sir Lewis Casson, smiling, “but anyway it was a lovely present?’ This conversation reminded Dame Sybil Thorndike that she had to send a cablegram. Today is the forty-sixth birthday of Jane Casson’s father, John Casson —“all my children are over 40” —who has now retired from the stage and is in business in Melbourne. Sir Lewis Casson, after playing hun-

dreds of parts in all manner of theatres in almost every Englishspeaking country, in Europe, and the Middle East, likes the friendly atmosphere of the New Zealand theatres They are not too large. Modern theatres today are huge arenas, quite unsuitable for the natural type of acting which has been developed this century,” he said. “Wherever a theatre has an apron we play on it as much ds possible—,lk» J? e . et close to ou r adience. A small theatre is obviously the most suitable for this.” When Sir Lewis Casson warns young players off the stage—as he warned them in Auckland this week—he is only repeating the advice given to him by Cyril Maude, when he was a s’oung man. he said. Dame Sybil Thorndike agreed. “If you say, ‘I want to go on the stage,’ chat is not enough. You have to feel that you must go on the stage, that your whole life depends on it. Then sou are ready to give of your best.”