The living arts

Press, 22 July 1980, Page 9

The living arts

Change of play A change of format and an emphasis on co-oper-ation are new elements this year in the annual Theatre Federation one-act play festival, which will be held on Friday and Saturday of next week. Because of rising costs — and especially travelling costs — arid dwindling entries the future of the festival was in doubt earlier this year. The national festival is going ahead, however, as it has for the last 40 years, and the various areas of the federation have found their own ways of tackling the regional festivals. The Canterbury solution to rising- costs has been to make the festival co-oper-ative and to reduce overheads. Groups with plays entered will chare costs — and profits—- and the festival has been moved from the Repertory Theatre, where it has traditionally been held, to the State Trinity Centre. According to the federation’s president (Mr

Barry Grant) the participating groups have been urged to view the festival “less as a competitive public spectacle and more as an in-group learning and training opportunity.” Mr Grant says he hopes the festival will enable the participants to learn more about drama, and to apply the lessons to their work in their own theatres. To help achieve this, entrants are being encouraged to attend both nights of the festival, and to make their own assessments of the performances, so that they can compare them with the comments of the judge. This year’s judge will be Brian Deavoll, who has directed many productions, both musicals and dramas, for various Christchurch theatre groups. His latest production was “Oliver” for the Christchurch Operatic Society. Six groups have entered plays, and this is regarded as a satisfactory entry. The winners will go to a second round in Blenheim, and from this and the semi-finals in Whakatane and Napier six plays will be chosen to contest the national final at Balclutha on August 29 and 30. The Canterbury area entrants are the Halswell Drama Group, the Oxford Little Theatre, the Riccarton Players, the Rangiora Dramatic Society, the Christchurch Operatic Society and the St Christopher’s Drama Group. 2Vew band The Christchurch School of Instrumental Music will have a new section, a symphonic wind band, conducted by Frank Dennis, when it resumes after the August holidays. A symphonic band has been described as “a military band which sits down,” but Mr. Dennis prefers to describe it as “an orchestra of woodwind, brass and percussion.”

The band will begin at a junior level, and will attempt more difficult works next year. The response from prospective players is described as very good, but Mr Dennis hopes to attract more players of bass trombones, bassoons, and saxophones. Some instruments may be available through the C.5.1.M., but more will be required and the organisation hopes to obtain a special grant for them. 100 years '

The School of Music of the University of Canter-

bury-will mark the cententary of the birth of the Swiss composer, Ernest Bloch, with a special lunch-time concert on Thursday. Graham Hollobon (organ),- a member of the staff, Marta Hidy (violin) and Zdenek Konicek (cello), artists-in-residence this term, and Maurice Till (piano), from Dunedin, will play three organ preludes, .a work for solo violin, and the Three Nocturnes for piano trio. Bloch’s musical style is marked by. an intensity of expression and an “accent” which reflects the strong influence of Hebrew music. This factor is probably the one which most people remember. Bloch’s personal and “Romantic” idiom looked more to the nineteenth century for its stimulus, side-stepping ' the new problems posed by his contemporary composers — Stravinsky and Schoenberg in particular. A member of the school’s staff, John Jennings, will introduce the works with excerpts from Bloch’s writings on music. Comedy contrast After “The- Imaginary Invalid,” by Moliere, one of the world’s classic masters of comedy, early next month the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society will turn to a very different type of comedy for its fourth ijBo, production in September. Open auditions will be held at the theatre on Saturday afternoon for “The Coarse Acting Show” by Michael Green, directed by Barry Grant. The cast requires about 10 men and four women “of any size, shape and age with an ability to act (and sing) in the best Coarse Acting tradition.” A few years ago Michael Green wrote “The Art of Coarse Acting,” a book about theatrical misadventures which became a best r.eller. Later he wrote a quartet of one-act plays, known collectively as “The Coarse Acting Show.” These are parodies of four dramatic styles — an opera, a Shakespearean piece, a whodunnit, and a mining - village - disaster saga. The success of this programme at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and elsewhere -resulted in annual Coarse Acting festivals which have attracted en-

tries from the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. Some teams write their own plays, others perform coarse productions of standard -works. Repertory’s “Coarse Acting Show” will use substantially the same cast for all four plays, as was done at Edinburgh. Thus a fair degree of flexibility .will be demanded of the actors. Organ music William Hawkey, who will be in Christchurch for a brief visit this week-end, will give an organ recital in the St Alban’s Methodist Church on Sunday evening, at 8.15 p.m Hawkey was musical director of the Christchurch Harmonic' Society from 1960 to 1976/ He is now assistant director of the Canberra School of Music. • . ’ ‘ The church’s arts committee considers it appropriate that he should give a recital on the organ at St Alban’s, because, as the predecessor of the church’s present organist, Martin Setchell, he was associated with planning the design and specification of the instrument. The programme on Sunday will include works by Bach, Buxtehude, Hindemith, Sweelinck, Byrd and Scheidemann. Hawkey will also accompany Martin Thomas (bass-baritone) and Mark Hodgkinson (trumpet) in a cantata by Telemann. Local soloist The Amici Chamber Orchestra will have two local soloists, and John Pattinson as guest conductor, when it presents a concert in the Great Hall of the Arts Centre on Sunday afternoon; Ross McKeich will be soloist in the Handel G minor Oboe Concerto, and Judy Bellingham (mezzosoprano) will sing the solo part in Allessandro Scarlatti’s “Christmas Canata,” which has been included in the programme because Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere is in midwinter. The concert will also feature two symphonies. Continuing its series of Mozart symphonies, the orchestra will present No. 29 in A major, written when Mozart was only 18. The other work will be Sinfonietta No. 1, by the English composer, Malcolm Arnold. A former trumpet player, Arnold writes light, melodious and witty music that is of appeal to both players and audiences.