AID FOR ACTORS

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 184, 3 May 1934, Page 6

AID FOR ACTORS

More Responsive Audiences MISS E. BLAKE’S PLEA That drama was before all else tho art of the unexpressed, was a statement made by Miss Elizabeth Blake at the concluding lecture-recital in the series on “Music and tbe Drama,’ given on Monday night. The whole gamut of human experience aud emotion was expressed through the drama, she said, thus enlarging, vivifying and enriching individual experience, aud it was often in the atmosphere, the silence, or the significant gesture, rather than in the spoken word that the inspiration was revealed. This was so of necessity, for the object of all great art was a striving toward spiritual expression, and it was in this striving and moving to mighty measures that the arts of music and drama met. In considering the audience and its most important functions, Miss Blake pointed out that the success or failure of every- performance depended largely upon the attitude of the audience, and she thought that the- average British audience could be much more responsive and vital than it was. Every player and artist gained inspiration ami help from a sympathetic and intelligent audience and was able to reveal new beauties in the theme treated when this co-operation was given. The wide-spread popularity of the cinema had definitely increased tbe unresponsiveness of the average audience, which had acquired the habit of accepting stupendous performances quite passively. “Of all tbe arts,” continued Miss Blake, “music and drama are the two that lie nearest to the heart in the. various stages of human development, and at whatever point of . education man might reach—however primitive or advanced the civilisation—religion, music and drama are always integral parts of the life of the time. The scope of drama includes all humanity in every stage of development and has no geographical limits.” An illustration of the religious element in folk,drama was given in a reading of the story of-Abraham’s-sac-rifice of Isaac, taken from the Chester Pageant of the 14tb century, and this was followed by a'reading from Laurence Housrnan’s "Little Plays of St. Francis,” to show’’the (religious feeling that is so evident in some forms of modern drama. Turning to the more objective side of modern drama, where man-made laws were the motive power in action, Miss Blake dealt with Somerset .Maugham’s remarkable, play, “Tbe Constant Wife,” giving an outline of the plot and reading the final episode to illustrate au unusual handling of a very hackneyed situation. Miss Blake concluded an interesting and informative lecture by referring to the masterly power of - Shakespeare to depict the great emotions of the spirit. —despair, ecstasy and passion. She illustrated each point with readings from “Macbeth,” “Th? Tempest”, and “Romeo and Juliet.”