Miss Marsh Despondent On Theatre In N.Z.

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30688, 2 March 1965, Page 14

Miss Marsh Despondent On Theatre In N.Z.

From the turn of the century until now the theatre in New Zealand had remained resolutely, confidently and constantly some 10 years behind the times, said Miss Ngaio Marsh, the Christchurch writer, dramatist and producer, in a lunchhour address yesterday on “The Theatre in Australasia.” Miss Marsh said New Zealand had so little professional theatre and seemed so unready to support such serious ventures as had been attempted and had failed, that it was sometimes difficult to believe that New Zealanders came of the same race as Shakespeare, Webster, Congreave, Bridie, Pinter and George Osborne. Box Office Returns After the great depression and the advent of movies had dealt a double and deadly blow to Australian and New Zealand stages, the affluent and established managements, “controlled by businessmen whose gaze seemed to be fixed dimly upon box office returns from The Maid of the Mountains’ did nothing to stimulate a flaccid and nerveless theatre.”

“In the end,” said Miss Marsh, “it was the amateur and semi-amateur societies which contrived to reopen the stage doors, and, as far as New Zealand is concerned, it is to the amateur theatre still that we look fbr the oc-

casional venture into modern controversial plays. “Mr Ronald Barker has wrestled valiantly with the dough-heavy indifference to serious theatre of New Zealand audiences,” said Miss Marsh. “It remains to be seen whether he is able to leaven the lump. One can only hope.

“The cost of touring plays in New Zealand is possibly the highest in the world. Few if any financial concessions are offered even to managements of classical productions. Dramatic criticism is at an unprofessional and uneven level. Miss Marsh said it was encouraging to find in the Pan Pacific Arts Festival a distinguished and magnificentlymounted presentation of one of the great plays of English dramatic literature. Amount of Interest

“I suppose the problem of the future of the living stage in New Zealand really comes down to something like this. Is there a big enough proportion of New Zealanders interested in our heritage of drama to support a serious professional theatre? Or are our actors (and we have many very talented young players) to continue to win bursaries and leave the country for good? So far, apart from radio, we have nothing to offer them if they return.

“Are the costs so high that unless the State recognises the need for theatre in any civilised society and sub-

sidlses, we are doomed to go on as the only Englishspeaking country without a professional stage? “One is forced to concede that apart from the New Zealand Drama Council and the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council no consistent or even very interested noises are made by our powers-that-be. It is difficult to imagine one of our Parliamentarians (apt and ready as they are to shout at each other under almost any other heading) working himself into a temper over the lack of professional drama in New Zealand.

“As for our local bodies, many of them are so busy cutting down trees that they have little time to devote to other theatricals. Forever Starved?

“Is the drama-minded proportion (and however small from an economic point of view it may be, it is an important section of the public) to be forever starved of serious theatre? What about plays of the first significance and stature, developments in the English, European and American theatres that are of immense consequence to the rest of the world?

“In Britain the yeast that worked in Shakespeare’s, Marlow’s, Webster’s, Congreave’s, Bridie’s audiences still works in the theatre of Osborne, Beckett, Pinter and Whiting. Is it quite spent in New Zealand? Is there no ferment left out here? Are we really unrisen dough as far as a working theatre is concerned? “Of course not. Not while people flock as they are doing to the York cycle of plays; not while there are still young New Zealanders with the desire and ability and means to win their way to London—but alas, however great their desire, no reason for returning to New Zealand, and no means of supporting themselves on the living stage if they did come home.”