Great Enthusiasm For Amateur Acting

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29368, 22 November 1960, Page 2

Great Enthusiasm For Amateur Acting

“Amateur companies should realise their limits, such as lack of experience or organisation,” said Mrs Jacqueline Newman, wife of the producer of the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society (Mr Frank Newman), in Christchurch yesterday. “Amateur actors need to acquire an understanding of themselves and their capabilities. They must approach* the whole aspect of theatre genuinely through humility, without which they cannot develop a part, and they must place the accent on teamwork.”

Mrs Newman considered, however, that there was tremendous enthusiasm in Christchurch for amateur acting and that on the whole, it was of a very high standard.

“Personally, it has been wonderful to be able to play in the theatre here, because of the opportunities to do parts that one wouM not be able to in England,” Mrs Newman said. The theatre had a professional organisation, and having eight performances for each play enabled you to develop a character once you got the audience there, she said. After seven years in New Zealand, Mr and Mrs Newman will return to England next March. They will leave Christchurch next Tuesday. They will go to Dunedin and Auckland, where they will do theatre work before sailing from Auckland. Mrs Newman has two children, Jane, aged nine, and James, aged six. Both take an interest in their parents’ work. Mrs Newman feels

that her children have a tendency to things cultural rather than academic, and she spoke of the theatre in regard to children as a necessary part of their upbringing. “Good Audiences”' “We are judicious in which of our productions we allow our children to see, but children are good audiences if they are given the right fare, and if the plays absorb interest," she said. “There is a world-wide tendency to give them too many mechanical things these days, such as television, which is an enemy of theatre. Having children of your own makes you realise this tendency

to keep up with the- Joneses, and to counteract it, you must stimulate children’s imagination by interesting them actively in the arts,” she said. Mrs Newman feels there is still much to do here for the theatre. She and her husband hope to return and they would like to found a professional or semi-professional theatre in New Zealand.

It would be a multiple theatrd, catering for all types of plays, with an academy attached, so that bursers leaving New Zealand to study acting could return to do professional work. Once the theatre and academy were established, there would be another company attached, for touring.

“However, we feel that we need to go back to Britain to see the developments of theatre there, and to renew our many friendships,” Mrs Newman said. Now that her children are growing up she would like to return to professional acting. Although in the throes of packing, Mrs Newman is playing her husband’s last production for the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society, “The Rape of the Belt.”