Trophy To Elmwood

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31726, 9 July 1968, Page 6

Trophy To Elmwood

The Elmwood Players won the trophy for the best set and design in the Benson and Hedges fulllength drama festival, with their production of “The Ballad of the Sad Cafe,” and the Blenheim Community Arts Theatre won third prize in the section for small societies.

“The Ballad of the Sad Cafe,” an adaptation by Edward Albee from Carson McCullers’s story, was produced by Hunter Bell in Christchurch in May. It won the second prize in its section of the festival. The Wellington Repertory Society won the first prize in the major section —and the trophy for the best production in both sections—with its production of “Eh?", a play by Henry Livings. Third equal were the Hamilton Playbox Repertory

Society, with “Philadelphia, Here I Come,” and Stagecraft Theatre, Wellington, with “The Subject Was Roses.” The winner of the division for small societies was the Matamata Dramatic Society, with “The Shifting Heart,” and second was the Te Aroha Amateur Dramatic Society, with “The Skin of our teeth.” There were 39 entries. The plays have been performed publicly since March. The judge, Bruce Mason, said that amateur theatre was healthier in the country than in the large cities. “The big city groups are now in pitiable disarray," he said. “Five years of television has hit them harder than anywhere else.”

He had noted during the festival that the New Zealand theatre-going public overwhelmingly demanded light comedy or farce.

“It has a horror of the serious, the demanding, or the challenging,” he said. The public had the attitude that theatre was not for life but for an escape from life, said Mr Mason. “This is the attitude which does its best to strangle serious New Zealand theatre,” he said. “Like theatre everywhere in the western world, the New Zealand movement is sick but not dead. “Not dead, when it can produce evenings like the six prize-winners,” Mr Mason said.