Films and plays

Press, 31 March 1980, Page 20

Films and plays

Sir, — Why, oh why do you give front-page publicity to people such as Renee Stanton who obviously went along to the play “Statements” before doing her homework on the conditions in South Africa. The gentleman in the ple-y was portraying a coloured man who was in love with a white woman. In South Africa it is forbidden and punishable by law to have a relationship of this kind, let alone for marriage to take place. When you realise how many mixed marriages we have in New Zealand, you can imagine what heartbreak it would cause if such a law existed here. It is this law that the play is protesting against and it was beautifully done, portraying so tragically the frustration and despair of such people. Anyone who was shocked at "the nudity must have no deep feelings of concern for the physical, mental or spiritual welfare of oppressed people. —

Yours, etc., A. E. CULLEN. .(Mrs), March 28, 1980.

Sir, — I have no doubt that those correspondents who criticise Mrs Stanton fo. going to see plays involving nudity would have been the first to criticise her if she had spoken against them without having seen them. With some people you can’t win. — Yours, etc., V. F. WILKINSON. March 29, 1980. Sir, — It is very sad to see that the decadent disease of puritanism, brought to New Zealand by the Europeans, is still present in people such as Mrs Stanton. Her conditioned loathing of the human body is something Jesus would have condemned. I’m sure that true Christians will despair when they see Mrs Stanton’s cori jpted point of view on “Statements.” Because of her prudishness, she has mocked a work of art that embodies a necessarily strong (and also Christian) message. — Yours, etc.,

ANTHONY RITCHIE March 28, 1980.