THE AMATEUR STAGE

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 293, 6 September 1932, Page 6

THE AMATEUR STAGE

Movement With Remarkable Growth

(By

Victor S. Lloyd.)

'T’HERE was once a wit’who, at an X amateur performance, Inquired: “Why do these people do this?” He was told they did it for charity. “But ought not charity to begin at home?” he asked. “I believe it should,” his companion agreed. “Then why don’t they act at home?” the wit wanted to know. That must have happened many years ago, when the amateur performer deserved the contempt in which he was held. To-day the amateur actor is, like the amateur golfer and the amateur cricketer, frequently as good at his hobby as the professional at his job. The ranks of the professional actors and actresses are being continually added to by talented amateurs. To-day the amateur takes his hobby very seriously indeed. The days when “amateur theatricals” meant, merely dressing-up and putting on make-up for a lark are happily gone. ‘ Many people saw in the mechanised drama, as they love to call the talkies, a menace to the flesh-and-blood theatre. Myopic and pessimistic pundits have wailed that the real theatre is passing into the limbo of forgotten things, that it is on its last legs, and will be dead in a few years time, killed by the talkies

milking-shed, yet they showed a fine sense of character, and often an easy grace on the stage. “The South Canterbury Women’s Club came second with “The Home Front,” by Hal D. Stewart, and the Catholic Dramatic Club’s A team came third with “Shanghai." The Hawke’s Bay Drama League festival will be held to-day and to-morrow at Hastings. Miss Elizabeth Blake will adjudicate, and reports indicate that the teams competing will give a good account of themselves. Wellington holds its Drama League festival on September 23 and 24, nt the Blue Triangle Hall, Boulcott Street, when teams from various parts of the Wellington district will present plays, including children’s teams as well as adults. ' I understand that an effort will be made to arrange for the winning teams from South Canterbury, Hawke’s Bay, and 'Wellington, to meet in competition some time in October. Notes from Other Centres I greatly admire the courage shown by the recently-formed Manawatu Repertory Society in selecting Galsworthy’s “Loyalties” for their first production. This, play bristles with difficulties for the amateur, is very hard to stage, difficult to rehearse, and has an unwieldy cast. However, I understand that their effort was a distinct success. The Hawke’s Bay Little Theatre Society have adopted the apparently sound method of ensuring the success of their future productions by asking the members of the audience to indicate their preference from a series of oneact plays and sketches which the society presented uncler the direction of Mr. J. O. Kelsey. The Auckland Little Theatre will present Arnold Bennett’s “The Great Adventure” for its next production, with Mrs. Hugh Fenton, Miss Upton, Messrs. A. J. C. Fisher, L. O’Malley, John Stewart, and Alan McSkimming in the cast. The Auckland Catholic Repertory Society has recently been formed, with Gaston Mervale as producer. It will present four one-act plays in its first bill: “The Marriage of St. Francis,” “Cathleen ni Houlahan,” “Golden Doom,” and “The Coffee Stall.” The Hamilton Operatic Society Is busy rehearsing “The Belle of New .York,” which will be presented next month, under the direction of Mr. Harold Piper. The Jewish Ladies’ Club are to pre-

and the radio. I would ask these mournful pessimists to consider just one indicative fact: Since the radio has become popular, and since the talkies have penetrated to every village and hamlet in England 10,000 village drama societies have come into being and have affiliated with the Village Drama Society. ■ , These groups of enthusiasts were severely handicapped in the beginning; they knew next to nothing about production, they had practically no technicians of the stage to help them, but they had their enthusiasm; and they have progressed so far to-day that many of them have fostered their own village playwrights of village drama, interpreting life as they themselves know it, and are commanding larger and more keenly interested audiences than the local bi-weekly cinema show. '1 As for real enthusiasm, where can the Great Hucklow Village Players of Derbyshire be paralleled ? Great Hucklow is a village, near Buxtoh, with a total population of less than 100, yet 1 the Players,- who put on plays for a week at a time, attract an average of 1000 people during that period to their performances. Plays are always given at the time of the full moon, so that audiences, which are drawn from a wide area, can find their way across the moors without mishap. The society wag founded six years ago by Dr. L. du Garde Peach (who has written several plays for the 8.8. C.), and its choice of plays is interesting. Its first production was “The Merchant of Venice,” since then it has produced “Arms and the Man,” “As You Like It,” “Everyman,” “Journey’s End,” “The Pigeon,” and when I heard last were about to produce “Julius Caesar.” The society operates in an Unsual way. There are no subscriptions, no donations, and no charities, and a fixed admission charge of 1/3 per head enables the finances to come out 0? the right side. Drama League Festivals Dr. Peach, by the way, has acted for several years as adjudicator at the Drama League festivals in the North of England. Mention of the festival reminds me that the New Zealand branch of the British. Drama League is actively engaged with its festival of drama. The South Canterbury festival was held recently at Timaru. Mr. W. S. Wauchop, who adjudicated, tells me that he was astonished at the high standard of-acting and playing of these country teams. , ...The winning team came from Pleasant Point, a village of about 500 inhabitants, and the play they chose was “The Road of Poplars,” Vernon Sylvaiue's post-war play, which was awarded first prize in a competition held by a London literary weekly. This is a play which makes great demands on the principal actors and requires considerable skill and ingenuity in staging, but the Pleasant Point players, by their sincerity and dramatic skill deeply impressed Mr. Wauchop. and held the audience spellbound. Geraldine, a small place of 1000 inhabitants, actually sent two teams, each of which gave creditable performances, one of them winning fourth place. “It was hard to realise.” said Mr. Wauchop, “that many of these players came straight from the plough and the

sent “King Lear,” entirely in the Jewish language, under the direction of Mr. H. Broitjat the club rooms in Cuba Street, Wellington, on September 25. Books on Drama “The Art of Mime,” by Irene Mawcr (Methuen: London). This book, which must be unique in the English language, gives an intensely absorbing history of mimetic art fropi its primitive origins until the present day, discoursing on the Asiatic dramas, Egyptian rituals, classic Greek and Roman drama and dances, the Commedia dell’Arte, and France of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is a very valuable and comprehensive section dealing with the practical training of students which should interest producers. “Poetry Speaking for Children,” Parts 1 and 2, by Gullen and Gurrey (Methuen, London). Marjorid Gillian is head of the Polytechnic Department of speech training, and Percival Gurrey is a lecturer in the London. University. Both are admirably fitted to deal with the subject, and their method is very sound. The method was first begun in Glasgow schools in 1922, and has since been amplified and more adequately applied. ■ This is a book for teachers of children and outlines a full course for children between the ages of seven and eleven.