GREEK PLAYS.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 122, 21 May 1909, Page 2

GREEK PLAYS.

(By Frank Morton.)

Wellington is so keen on 'what foil purposes of suggestion may be called1 -the mere idea of the new idea that it often makes undue haste to embrace a novel theory or suggestion an a first nleeting. Never was a community where so many new things were talked about; and so few new things vitally done. Every weeK somebody proposes something, and everybody talks about it—till the next week, when the next proposal is voluminously belauded and discussed. You-see, it is not really the idea that clutches our minds, but the newness j of the idea that appeals to our imagination. Just now there is m v. ellington a Mr Garnet Holme, who has been managing the California University Greek Theatre. In California, it seems, students produce suitable plays, in a gully, the sides of "which are. utilised for "seating an audience ranging from 10,000 to j 11,000." Wellington turiis this bit «i information over in its \restless mind, sniffs' it, licks it covertly, and straightway, proclaims the navoxir very good. There are gullied in Wellington, necessarily having "sides"; j ' why not a- Greek theatre ?. Why'not,: indeed! The evening paper seeks out Mr Garnet Holme, and sets out to make him talk. Of course he will talk': he is from California. He talks of culture—naturally. He tells how people, the ten thousand or ■ eleven thousand, pay- four shillings and two shillings to go and sit m the gully.. The evening paper man is charmed —obviously. He sees the '; students of Victoria College doing wonderful . things -with Aristophanes and "ancient darices." Eleven thousand times 3s is £1650—a' very decent gate. (I put it at 3s because we must be moderate in our averages.) The financial soul of the reporter is - pleased and flattered. He throbs to a sense of new possibilities in these stark environing hills. He glows at] the thought of the culture that is go- ." ing to'envelop us like a wave,. His enthusiasm thrills me also. '../-■ Yesterday, therefore, I put on a mackintosh and leggings and went forth valorously booted to spy out % the ' gullies suitable . for this refined rejoicing. There is none very near town, and'to reach those that are accessible the public wquld enjoy xhe grace of exercise. Some of those I found are too bald and precipitous to acepmmodate these large audiences. But some are possibje. On the whole, ,- then, what I may call the gully diffit culty1 is disposed of. When I had, got back home/ scraped the mud off. my clothing/and eaten, something, I sat down in a glow of firelight and ; thought the thing out. I decided that a Greek play performed in one of these/gullies" might m favourable conditions attract ari audience of as many as.two hundred persons. Possibly, five hundred if cabs and automobiles. were provided. There is no J /reason why a populace that prefers melodrama and the cheapest ?ort3 of musical comedy should not run to stare perplexedly at Aristophanes, his watered ghost. Difficulties of climate are not* insurmountable. Prepared for whatever might happen, the audience could go forth waterproofed ; and. booted, as I did. There is, of / course, the possibility of wind, which every; day or two makes these. delightful gullies skirl like flutes; tut the College could provide some arrangetoent of ropes and stanchions to hold its audience down, and the .-■...- actors could easily, be equipped with megaphones. The visit of Mr Garnet Holme is, singularly opportune.