Play About Freedom

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32265, 7 April 1970, Page 8

Play About Freedom

A second play by the young Christchurch playwright, Richard Brooke, whose first play, “Eros Blight,” caused something of a stir last year, Is to open tomorrow for a season of four nights. The play is to be performed in the Repertory Theatre, which has been made available by the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society as a first venture into experimental theatre. Entitled “Acted,” it Includes mime, dance, and chants which are almost continuous. The play is set in an era after the apocalypse. A troupe of players, led by the mysterious Kris Regs, comes to a monastery high In the mountains; and there each member of the troupe undergoes a crisis. “The theme is freedom,” Mr Brooke says. “The sort of freedom which makes a Chicago conspiracy trial worth while—the freedom to act through conscience.” Mr Brooke and the producer, Brian de Ridder, have taken the unusual step of asking for small audiences.

“Mr de Ridder wants no ftiore than 60 persons a night,” Mr Brooke said. “This kind of theatre begins with a confrontation between audience and actors. There must not be too many of the former.

or they will become mere onlookers. “Asking for 60 Is not an Idle gesture,” he said. “We did get mor<> than 140 on the first night of ‘Eros Blight’.” Describing the play, Mr Brooke says: “The play ‘happens’ In our time. Actors and spectators share the same space on the stage. “The audience enters a darkened auditorium through a blinding white light. The bomb has fallen, we assume; our eyeballs

are seared; suddenly the wail of children strikes us —chanting that wells up out of the dark in a distinctly tribal manner. ‘Acted’ has begun. “Perhaps two hours later it follows us out into the street outside the theatre, the chanting now blocking out any other thoughts in our heads. “ ‘Acted’ Is theatre that concerns us all. It makes claims on us. It even attempts a few answers to the burning questions of our time.”