The living arts

Press, 30 August 1977, Page 24

The living arts

Aeie facet One member of the cast of the Court Theatre’s new production. “Hay Fever.” has a distinct advantage over her associates — she has actually worked with the author of the play, the late Sir Noel Coward. She is Louise Petherbridge, a newcomer to the Court but not to the theatre. Mrs Petherbridge went to England originally on an Arts Council study grant, and stayed there to work in the theatre, in various productions including a season at the Mermaid with Bernard Miles. After her son — now aged 12 — was born she gave up acting for some years and turned instead to an occupation with more conventional hours — lecturing in drama at London University. It was in this capacity that she joined Otago University after her return to New Zealand, and she now lectures there to both full-time and extension studies students. She has done some acting in the last year, but has been very selective in her choice of roles, and she agreed to work for the Court Theatre only after watching a production by Jan Prettejohns, director of “Hay Fever.” After several weeks of rehearsals, she has nothing but praise for the Court; it is, she says, a very professional set-up and its actors receive first-rate treatment. Louise Petherbridge’s association with the Court will end, for the present, witht he season of “Hay Fever.” Then it will be back to Dunedin to resume lecturing and to take up again two major projects on which she is working with the help of the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council. One of these is a variation of the Japanese bunaku style of puppetry — a style in which not only the puppet but also the manipulator appear on stage. The wellknown sculptor, John Middleditch, has carved the wooden heads, hands, and feet of the puppets, and Mrs Petherbridge hopes, with a cast of four, to present a puppet .version of Shakespeare’s “Tempest” in Christchurch next year at the arts festival. The other project is a multi-media version of Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando.” on which she is working in association with Professor Drummond, Honour McKellar, and the Dunedin dance group. This project, too, is likely to be seen on stage next year. In “Hay Fever.” Mrs Petherbridge is one member of a strong cast that includes some Court regulars — Paul Sonne, Judie Douglass, Russell Smith, Robin Queree, Charles Hambling, Maureen Kim and Linda Spiers — and another new face, that of Faye Fl egg, who has worked at Centrepoint Theatre, Palmerston North, for the last three years. “Hay Fever,’’ first performed in 1925, is one of the long-term successes of the British comedy theatre. In 1964, “Hay Fever” was triumphantly revived in a production at J the National Theatre, ? under the direction of Sir J Laurence Olivier and fea- J turing Dame Edith Evans in the role of Judith Bliss. ' “Hay Fever” is set in a I country house where an I elegant, if bizarre, week- I end party gathers. The I hosts are the four members of the Bliss | family: Judith, once a | famous actress, now a i “country' lady”; her hus- X band, David, a novelist of X some success but little ! talent; and their two i highly unconvenitonal v

children, Sorel and Simon. The guests — romantic attachments of the Blisses — find the atmosphere a little heady and Coward’s amorous whirligig spins its way through chaos, misunderstanding, and mix-up to a witty and hilarious conclusion. The setting is designed by Peter Lees-Jeffries, who has produced some of the most elegant settings seen at the Court. I erse visitor An American poetess, Elizavietta Ritchie, is in New Zealand for a poetry reading and lecture tour, and will give a reading of her works at the United States Information Service rooms in Christchurch on Thursday and on Friday she will give a reading in Ashburton. Mrs Ritchie’s first book of verse, “Tightening the Circle over Eel Country.” won the Great Lakes Colleges Association award for the best first book of poetry in 1975. She has also won the Poetry Society of America’s Devil’s Advocate award. Mrs Ritchie has a master’s degree in French literature and is author of numerous poems, short stories, and a novella in verse. She has had works published in the “New York Times,” the "Christian Science Monitor,” the “Washington Post,” and the “Washingtonian.” She has lectured widely and has recorded a series of contemporary American poets for the Library of Congress, whose consultant-in-poetry described her poetry as having "vitality, wit, sadness, and enormous gusto.”

Shoestring opera A new series of lunchtime concerts aimed at the opera-starved audiences of Chrii tchurch, will start next Monday in the State Trinity Centre. Radio New Zealand is sponsoring the series, which will feature lunch-hour concert performances of grand opera. The first performance will be Act 111 of “Faust.” featuring Margaret Purdie, Anne Price, Peter Williams, and Martin Thomas, accompanied by Rosemary Miller-Stott.

Acis repeat Those who missed the recent performance of Handel’s masque. "Acis and Galatea,” by the Harmonic singers will have a second chance to hear this work on Sunday. The group, under its conductor, Elizabeth Wemyss, will present a further performance as part of the Sunday afternoon series in St Alban’s Methodist Church, Merivale. The singers will also present music by Tony Hewitt Jones and Elizabeth Maconchy, and the guest artist, Martin Thomas (bass-baritone), will sing songs by Wolf and Rachmaninov. Viola solo

Works written for the viola by Bach, Brahms

and Bloch will be featured in a recital in Akaroa on Sunday by Donald Maurice. a Christchurch-born instrumentalist who has studied and worked m England since 1973. He has done free-lance playing with large orchestras in the United Kingdom, including the 8.8. C. Orchestra, the Northern Ireland Orchestra, the Bournmouth Symphony, and the London Mozart Players, and in Switzerland he has played in the Berne Radio Orchestra and the Berne Baroque Ensemble. He has held also the position of principal viola player with the Ulster Symphony Orchestra and the Mercury Ensemble of the Ballet Rambert. Last January he was given a Queen Elizageth II Arts Council award to enable him to further his studies without the financial need "> resort to orchestra playing. This has given him the opportunity to perform chamber music and attend courses, the most significant of these have been with Professoi Max Rostal and Donald Mclnnes, an American violinist. He has now been accepted as a student by both men, and after his brief visit to New Zealand will travel either to Switzeralnd or to America to take advantage of one of these offers. —Derrick Roonev.