Fine Mansfield performance

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33451, 5 February 1974, Page 14

Fine Mansfield performance

“An Evening with Katherine Mansfield,’’ by Pat Evison. The Court, Worcester Street. February 4 to 9. Running time: 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Most people problably imagine that New Zealand television survives through enormous feats of type-cast-ing, that the actress who did Mrs Telford in “Pukemanu” was not capable of handling much else. A forgiveable misconception, perhaps — and there could have been few’ people who were not impressed by the surprising’ new sides to Pat Evison’s. talent when she did the female lead in “Awatea” last : week. But her Katherine Mansfield evening goes far beyond even that; it is the sort of programme which can reveal the full range of an actor’s ’virtuosity, jumping in and out of characters rather as Mason does in “Golden Weather,” and Pat Evison glides through it with ease and versatility. It is about a year since 1 I saw the premier of “The Two 'Tigers” at Auckland's Central ’Theatre, a biographical play' 'about Mansfield and Murry. Pat Evison’s programme of-1 Ifers just as much insight into Mansfield’s mind, her whims.; her private jokes, her sense f I of pathos — and yet she does ''it in a purely interpretive manner, just through an am- ■ mated reading of four stories. Pat Evison’s reading style has a surprising range, moving from gruff male voices , and simulated ship’s horns to ’ passages of lightness and delii cacy which catch perfectly ; what she terms “the authenticity of childhood recall.’’ • This is particularly well done I in “The Voyage” and “The Wind Blows”; in “Miss Brill”'

she gives a delicate reading of one of those intensely sad Mansfield studies of spinsterhood. But Pat Evison also manages to give these stories — particularly “The Daughters of the Late Colonel” an impishness and a depth of ironv with which I would scarcely have credited Mansfield: her voice can fuse the mimetic with the ironic, the timidity of the characters with their banality, and evoke a peculiar audience-character relationship which is distant yet endearing. For Mansfield enthusiasts — and there must have been a lot of them among the very large, very female first-night audience — Pat Evison’s solo dramatisation of the stories will be a unique experience, lively and thought-provoking without pretending to be definitive. And for those who don’t care so much for Mansfield it is a good evening, too —a top-calibre actress at her best.—H.D.McN.