NATIONAL THEATRE

Hawera Star, 13 January 1930, Page 7

NATIONAL THEATRE

| SHAKESPEARE MEMORIAL. ■SCHEME TO BE PREPARED, A conference, convened by the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Committee, of representatives of various bodies interested in the establishment of a National Theatre in London, was held during the latter part of November at the House of Commons, Sir Johnston Forbes-Eobert-son. trustee of the Shakespeare Memorial Fund, presiding (reports the London correspondent- of the N.Z. Herald).

The chairman recalled that the movement for a Shakespeare Memorial Theatre was launched about a quarter of a century ago, and said that in 1914 a site for the National Theatre was secured, but the war frustrated their efforts, and the site was sold. After the war their plans remained in abeyance for a time, but of late years the executive had been active in its efforts t,o secure a suitable site from the State or from some public-spirittd donor. Personally, lie would prefer the latter. They had been much encouraged by

i statement of the Prime Minister last-

July to ! the effect that he was not unwilling to consider favourably an agreed scheme if put forward by the various interests concerned. The conference had been convened in order that they might carry our necessary preliminary busisess before they approached the Government and put forward such an agreed scheme as might ’ he possible toward a National Theatre. J They had in hand about £90,000.

The chairman moved that the conference, being strongly in favour ,of the establishment of a National Theatre in London, ‘‘proposes the appointment of a small representative committee to prepare details of an agreed scheme, and further suggests that when this has been prepared the Government be asked to receive a deputation. ’ ’

Lord Lyf-ton said the drama could only be studied and enjoyed in a theatre which could present it in full, and in a theatre which could give them not only contemporary drama but, for purposes of comparison, the works of dramatic art of the past, which time had proved worthy to survive. None of the existing theatres to-dav could do all that—although the theatres ’today could do some of that and do it well.

Those interested, tli,. speaker said, could do nothing without the good will ami assistance u>f the. Government. At the same time they did not expect that the Government could alone provide what they wasted, and the Prime Minister had asked to he satisfied, first, that there was a national demand for a theatre of this kind, and, secondly, that there was agreement among all who wanted it as to the precise nature of that, demand. The resolution was agreed to. Mr. George Gordon, president of Magdalen College, Oxford, expressed the University’s great sense of the importance of the movement for a National Theatre, and assured the conference of the sympathy of the Universitv.