Mansfield centenary marked

Press, 13 July 1988, Page 16

Mansfield centenary marked

The Concert Programme highlights for the next four months the life and works of New Zealand’s most famous author, leading up and into the October 14 start of the Katherine Mansfield Centennial Year. Opening the season, Rima Te Wiata takes the lead role in Radio New Zealand Drama’s 22-part adaptation of Antony Alpers’ “Life of Katherine Mansfield,” which is being broadcast Monday to Friday at 10 p.m. August and September

bring a medley of short stories and backgrounders, including two critiques by Mansfield biographer Gill Boddy on humour and on men and women in Mansfield’s work. Radio New Zealand Drama’s Wellington executive producer Fergus Dick and Concert Programme executive producer and literary editor Elizabeth Alley have pooled resources over the past year to produce a wide spectrum of Mansfield’s work.

They have lined up 14 short stories, three of which are used to illustrate Kirsty Cochrane’s features on Mansfield’s symbolism and writing skills. Poet Fleur Adcock has selected poetry and Vincent O’Sullivan presents letters. His selection, “Wanting to be Real,” completes the trilogy of programmes scheduled for the author’s 100th birthday on October 14, alongside “The Birthday,” a short story, and the one musical production of the season, a can-

tata by New Zealand composer Gillian Whitehead, “Out of this Nettle, Danger;” commissioned by the Concert Programme and the Composers’ Foundation it features mezzo soloist Anthea Moller. With the centennial year officially under way, the Concert Programme rounds off its Mansfield season with four Radio N.Z. Drama plays adapted from the stories: “The Stranger,” “Mr Reginald Peacock’s Day,” “The Man Without a Temperament” and “Bliss.”