W.E.A. DRAMA CLASS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 91, 19 April 1939, Page 17

W.E.A. DRAMA CLASS

Mr. R. Hogg, M.A., who is conducting the twenty-lecture drama course for the W.'S.A., devoted the first meeting, on Monday evening, to an introductory talk and an outline of the course. There was a brief discussion on the questions: "Why we go to the theatre" and "Is there literary drama distinct from the drama" of the theatre?" A reading list of works on the drama accessible in Wellington was provided for members and included '.'Seven Soviet-Arts" (Kurt London), "Moscow Rehearsals" (Norris Hough ton), "Bread and Circuses" (Willson Whitman), "On the Art of the Theatre" (Gordon Craig)^ "My Life in Art" (Stanislavsky), "The Fays of the Abbey Theatre" (Fay and Carswell), "My Life in the Russian Theatre" (NtVnirovitch-Dantchenko), "Theatre Arts Monthly," and "Modern Continental Playwrights" (Chandler). A feature of the class is to be regular play-readings in which members will participate, and a play will probably be produced. Mr- Hogg mentioned the following playwrights from whose works plays will be read during the course: O'Neill, Rostand, Gogel, Strindberg, Tchekov, Romams, O'Casey, Vosper, Maugham, Heijermans, Bruno Frank, Rubenstein and Bax, Quintero Brothers, Masefield, and Ronald Mackenzie. Considerable interest is being aroused in the combination of "theoretical" with "practical" drama.

Mr. Hogg's next lecture will deal with the present position of the drama in the U.S.A. and the next few lectures will cover recent Irish drama, "thrillers," pre-war Russian drama, and Soviet drama, leading up to Continental drama, upon which some time will be spent. Later, stage design, the technique of play-production, and the scope and place of the one-act play and New Zealand drama will be considered.