RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30856, 15 September 1965, Page 30

RANDOM REMINDER

BLIND FAITH

The psycho boys have been quoted as saying that one of the best ways of ridding the young of morbid fears is to let them play them out. It doesn't we fear, always work. Consider the case of a Papanui family who have found that not even vintage movies on the tiny screen are sufficient to keep a young family happy on wet Sunday afternoons. Far more efficacious is a play, enacted, produced and directed entirely by the young set. The difficulty, of course, is not only finding a suitable play, but casting, learning the lines and finally producing them without simpering or giggling to an audience of two parents secretly dismayed at their bumbling incompetence, but outwardly enthusiastic.

The plays are limited to a cast of four and the costumes to a box of ancient clothes scorned by rag collectors. Given these factors, Red Riding Hood was a natural choice recently. The youngest child, aged three, was by common consent given the star role and done up in red satin she rather looked the part. But there was a hitch during the dress rehearsal. This child has an abiding fear of dogs which carries over even unto the drama. And when her older brother appeared wrapped in a mangy old goatskin to posture as the wolf, the heroine forgot all her recently-acquired lines, her sense of the dramatic and the dictum that the show must go on. Her hands went up to her eyes, she burst into tears and she shot from the stage to her mother’s arms.

The cast debated possible cuts in the script, but concluded that Red Riding Hood rather lost its point without a wolf. They discussed recasting, but found It WQi|ld not be easy for onesJtiayer to act Red and grandmother simultaneously. They tried persuasion and logic on the reluctant star. They said the wolf gets his in the end and anyway it was only her brother. They would, they said, have to consider asking the girl next door to be leading lady.

The star thought hard about it and it was obvious the fear was almost overwhelming. But she did find a solution. “Put a bandage over my eyes,” she commanded, “and it will be all right.” And so it was.