BRITISH DRAMA FESTIVAL.

Evening Star, Issue 22084, 18 July 1935, Page 6

BRITISH DRAMA FESTIVAL.

TO THB EDITOR. Sir, —The letters in your paper regarding the efforts of a group of competitors in the above set me thinking and caused me to examine carefully my programme. This team was a genuine entry from a bona fide amateur organisation having an existence apart from the festival (rule 2), and I should like to know why the Otago branch of the British Drama League breaks so many rules of the parent body by allowing (a) teachers of several years’ standing to compete against beginners; (b) groups of pupils from teachers masquerading as a club to compete (rule 2) (c) individual players to play in more than one play; also, where is the sporting instinct of a prominent lawyer of over 30 years’ experience of public speaking and a professional singer trained for the stage competing as amateurs? One wonders how the little historic team from Scotland which won in Scotland, England, and later in America, would have fared in Dunedin. Probably it would have been pushed aside for some trifling fault in technique. I do not wish to say anything about the judging at the festival, except to express the view that the public would feel more satisfied were’ the judge to be kept apart from social functions and not know the personal names of competitors until after the festival. I have no interest in any team or society competing in the festival, but am observant and have a keen ear.—l am, etc., , Regular Theatregoer. July 16.

[We are informed officially; The Otago area breaks no rules of the parent body, (a) As to teachers of several years’ standing, the national rules define amateurs as “ Persons who have not during the three years preceding the national final festival received any personal remuneration or share of profits' from any appearance on the stage, and who have never made acting, play production, elocution, or the teaching of acting or elocution their vocation. The Otago area, for the purpose of defining “ vocation,” said that any person who earns more than £25 in any one year by elocution, etc., is a professional. Obviously anyone who earns less than 10s a week at elocution either is not making it a vocation, or is so ineffective at doing so that such competition need not be feared by anyone, however amateur. No person at the festival transgressed the £25 rule, (b) Groups of pupils from teachers masquerading as a club. The group to which the correspondent no doubt refers has for years put on dramatic shows in Dunedin, to the great benefit of local charities, and certainly has an existence apart from the festival. All its members are amateurs, and the fact that they have all been taught by one teacher has nothing to do with the league. To exclude them from participating on that ground would be an arbitrary and quite unjustified action by the committee. Incidentally, professional producers are specifically permitted by the rules. (c) Individual players in more than one play. Here our correspondent’s ear was keen, but his eye a little dim. Certain players appearing in a competitive play also appeared in ‘ The Playgoers,’ which the Opportune Players presented at short notice to fill a last minute gap. The play did not compete, and the players concerned went to the trouble of learning another play purely to give “ regular theatre-goers ” their money’s worth. These facts were announced in the programme. The suggestion that the eminent lawyer’s practice in public speaking unfits him for the amateur stage cannot be taken seriously. The singer mentioned was trained for singing, which does not make her a professional actress. The proposal that a festival judge should be treated as a social leper is to make the judging of these plays a matter of life and death. The suggestion that he can be bribed with a cup of coffee and a sandwich hardly needs refuting.—Ed. E.S/]