VERBAL DUEL AT A PLAY

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 July 1931, Page 12

VERBAL DUEL AT A PLAY

DRAMATIST AND STUDENTS

ROME, June 13

Milan students took their revenge on the Italian Futurist leader, Marinetti, on Saturday night by shouting “Long Live Alarconi” during the performance of his new play “Simultanina.”

The shouts had no bearing on the play, but voiced a pent-un sense of injury at the attacks delivered by Signor Marinetti against Italian food, culminating in the opening of a Futurist restaurant in Turin.

“Simultanina” is the name of a young lady, who, in. the course of sixteen tableaux (or “syntheses,” to use the Futurist terminology) displays her ability to show many sides of herself at the same time. This would not seem a very original idea, but it is complicated by the introduction of certain symbolic notions, the chief of. which —according to the programme, for they transcend the bounds of ordinary comprehension—are two: the temperamental contrasts between mother and daughter, and scenic contrasts supposed to convey opposite sensations. Thus in one tableau half the picture was of a torrid African desert with palm trees, and the other half a snow-swept Siberian waste.

The audience after a few of these “syntheses” grew very restive, and, rising from the spheres of cuisine to those of dramatic art, added Insult to injury by shouting, “Futurism is old stuff. Marinetti’s day is over.” Signor Alarinetti became furious, and a sharp exchange of repartee followed.