ONE-ACT PLAYS

Evening Star, Issue 23092, 19 October 1938, Page 1

ONE-ACT PLAYS

DRAMA LEAGUE FESTIVAL TIMARU TEAM TO REPRESENT SOUTH ISLAND A triumph that was clear-cut in its decisiveness was scored by the Timaru Catholic Dramatic Club’s A team over the other two representatives in the South Island elimination festival of the British Drama League last evening, the Admiralty Players (Otago) and the Amberley Drama Circle (North Canter bury) conceding the South Canterbury team the credit of representing the South Island at the Dominion final at Hastings next week. A valuable means of assessing the strength of dramatic art and of pointing out where its interpreters succeed and fail is accorded by the society, and here Miss Elizabeth Lqe gave her adjudication particular point with at once constructive and very observant advice. The audience in the Concert Chamber was a critical one, and before the judge made her award it had selected the chosen team. Incidentally, as iu the case of many musical functions that are held in the Concert Chamber, there were too many noises “off stage,” the clatter of running feet and the chatter of voices in the passage ways being very distracting throughout all three plays. OTAGO TEAM’S CHOICE. The first of the one-act pieces was ‘White Queen, Red Queen,’ by T. B. Morris, delineated by Otago’s winning team. The Admiralty Players did not present it with the same smooth confidence and verve as previously, though admittedly this period play was by far the most ambitious and difficult of the trio—a fact that the judge conveyed. The emotional sense was developed to the pitiful climax where Catharine of Aragon received confirmation of the King’s transference of his affections to Ann Bolevn. The quiet dignity of the queen, the bitter spite of Boleyn, the courtly demeanour of the Countess of Salisbury, and the emotional outpourings of the Princess of Wales were moods that were presented with sharp contrast. The judge commented specially on the firm hold on the interest and sympathy of the audience that the cast created, and ajso on the most apparent prompting that halted at one stage the continuity of the dramatic motion.

NORTH CANTERBURY TEAM. From the sixteenth century the scene was transferred to the more prosaic atmosphere of a country house, the North Canterbury team making one of the rooms the locale for its presentation of ‘Tarnish,’ by A.-IF. ■Talbot. This piece is decidedly hot of a d-aiS'.tic mood until the final word# haye been spoken,, the play depending entirely on the almost frivolous assuming the earnest when the movement of things has nearly run its course. The decision of the dean to have a stained window in the church to the memory of the rich benefactor, the conflicting desire of the alderman to have a statue instead, and the disclosure by the solicitor when all parties but the departed one’s relations have assembled in the room of the house to have the conditions of the will smoothed out. that everything points to his having possessed a pornographic mind, suggest a strong flavour of comedy. The crux of the plav rests on the fact that he had gone blind and could not have read the dubious literature he was supposed to have purchased.' Miss Loe was not as impressed with the studies of the accountant, solicitor, and doctor as' she was with the human portraiture of the dean. The widow suggested dignity and authority, but she could have held the central position more. The delineation of the niece was very neat. As in the case of the other two plays, the judge commented on various technical details. THE WINNING PIECE.

The emotional tempo of ‘ The Willing Spirit,’ the choice of the South Canterbury team, was intensive, the cast making the most of the simple newer of the play, avoiding any pitfalls, and taking it to a dynamic conclusion. The desperate relief of Jo when he runs into the room of the. tenement ,to acquaint his wife of his employment after years of idleness sets the foundation for the moment of utter dejection when his chance of security against comparative starvation is almost snatched away from him. The realisation that he may still work follows fast on the heels of the emotional strains to which he and his wife are subjected—and also the audience. It was an exhausting task correctly to choose the dividing line among the displavs of violent temperament, but they and the neighbour’s wife and husband made the line a continuous and unbroken one. The cast was accorded an ovation for its performance of this Esther M'Crackon play.