Elmwood Players Come Second In Drama Festival

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30540, 8 September 1964, Page 16

Elmwood Players Come Second In Drama Festival

(New Zealand Press Association)

HAMILTON, Sept. 7. The Ngaio Revue Club, of Wellington, won the 1964 finals of the British Drama League’s festival with its production of T. S. Eliot’s melodrama, “Sweeney Agonistes.” Its win was only “by a short head” over the Elmwood Players, Christchurch, production of “Conversations With A Golliwog,” by the New Zealand playwright, Alexander Guyan.

In his summing up, the adjudicator, Mr Frank Newman, named the two plays as the most outstanding of the six presented in the finals on Friday and Saturday night. ‘ ‘Sweeney Agonistes’ was a ■remarkable creative achievement,” he said. “The script gives no directions and it. is remarkable what the company has done with it.” Producer for the winning play was Mr- Stanley Campbell, who had to withdraw as adjudicator for the Dominion finals when his production reached the finals. The book of honour was presented to the winning producer by Sir Leslie Munro. The originality ■ of Mr Guyan was praised by Mr Newman. “This is a very recent New Zealand-written play and consequently it is of great interest Its theme is universal and an important one that has been dealt with by other dramatists in other ways,” he said. “But Mr Guyan has dealt with it in a unique way and it is surprising that no-one else has thought of it before. “It is both fascinating and disturbing with a frightening quality embedded in truth.” The play deals with the effects of childhood happenings on the mind of an adolescent and later adult girl.