University Club’s Play Deserves Good Houses

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30826, 11 August 1965, Page 14

University Club’s Play Deserves Good Houses

“Chips With Everything" opened last night with a sizzle of energetic acting. Eighteen young men from the University of Canterbury Drama Society ignited a Catherine wheel of scenes which threw out a trail of laughter, tension. pathos, and satire Arnold Wesker’s p'ay about the making and breaking of discipline, about leading and being led. about belonging and not belonging, all set in an Air Force training camp, was voted the best play of the year for 1962. No-one who sees the local performance of the play will doubt its high entertainment value, and few will fail to respond to the many barbed comments which are hurled from character to character. For all this ,it is a messy play (there are 23 episodes), even if individual scenes are brilliant set pieces—the stealing of the coke is an example Wesker toys rather cheaply with religious symbolism: his Christ figures, washing of the feet and his martyr are evocative without making cumulative dramatic sense. Perhaps Gerald Lascelles’ production was partly to blame for the continual drain away of impact. Some scenes stopned rather than ended, too much of the action was lost uo-stage. and characters seldom came together tn grouping or Dositioning that was' dynamic The characterisations were: strong indeed. Wesker's I scorching colloquial imagery ' was born on Corporal Stephen j Erber’s agile lips. What a

smooth, sinister-pallid refinement Barry Empson had—such a contrast with another officer. Robert Higson, whose cold, stupid inflexibility never became caricature.

Among the conscripts were many new faces, and they all showed exciting talents: Graeme McNeill’s authority. Rhys Jones’s cheap but attractive confidence, Roderick Lonsdale’s moving awkwardness, and Brian de Ridder’s innocence and passion—all these portrayed with economy, assurance, and force. The producer must certainly have done his best work here and very good it was. The problems of scene -hanging revealed no problems for the stage crew that a revolving stage would not cure, but they did work quickly and silently. As Wesker would have it, the s—eat must have been running off their brows like water over Niagara Falls. This play, and this production of it deserve good houses. “Chips With Everything” certainly does have evaryt' ing: lines like “no man survives once his motive is understood” are typical of the thought-provoking text; S' enes of slapstick business interleave scenes of gripping personal drama; and the nver-all conception of the play, confusing and confused ’hough it may be, is fresh, thrusting, and relevant. The chins were well put down, and so, Christchurch theatre goers, should yours be. —P.R.S.