Degree lauds Bruce Mason

Press, 3 May 1977, Page 11

Degree lauds Bruce Mason

PA Wellington. Bruce Mason, the writer, actor, and critic, has been presented with an honorary doctorate in literature by Victoria University, and told he had helped his countrymen understand what it was to be a New Zealander.

Reading the citation for Mr Mason, the acting Vice-Chancellor, (Professor J. D. Gould) said that Mr Mason’s first published works had been short stories.

Mr Mason had made use of wide experience including war service with the Navy, work as a librarian, journalist, and war historian, and even a brief spell as an orchardist at Tauranga.

“He has drawn on that rich store of experience in a series of works, too numerous to list, which have explored the values of New Zealand society and

our emerging sense of national identity, and have helped us to understand what it is to be a New Zealander,” Professor Gould said. “One of Bruce Mason’s most distinctive achievements has been to develop works for the solo actor. ‘The end of the Golden Weather’ was a peculiarly personal triumph — an evocation, in some 40 roles, of a distinctively New Zealand experience. "But it was also a triumph of good sense as the one possible form of theatre in a country without a professional stage. “If the archetypal New Zealander is one who does it himself, Bruce Mason’s stature is secure,” Professor Gould said. Professor Gould also praised Mr Mason’s work r a critic of music and drama, and the help and encouragement he had given to other writers.