National Playwriting Competition

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 153, 1 July 1938, Page 6

National Playwriting Competition

Feilding Entrant Takes Second Prize SOME CANDID CRITICISM BY JUDGES Fer Press Association. WELLINGTON, Last Night. The following are tho prizewinner* in the radio play-writing competition for 1937-38 conducted by the National Broadcasting Service:— First prize of £4O: “Endeavour,” uy Isobcl Andrews (Wellington). Second prize of £2O: “The Tartun of Rangi Ngatai,” by Alerrick W. Horton (Feilding;. Four prizes of £lO each; “Love Thy Neighbour,” by Henry AlcNeish (New Plymouth); “Southern Lights,” by Gordon Griffiths (Tiniaru); “The Honour is Theirs,” by Agnes L. Henderson (Dunedin); and “The Trampled Herbage Springs,” by Ralph Hogg (Wellington). In the course of their comments on the competition, the judges said the restriction to this year’s competition to , plays about New Zealand might be taken as the main or sole reason for the drop in the number of entries from 39‘J to 206. This decrease had resulted in a rise in the average of quality. A feature of last year’s competition had been the number of poor plays about conditious iu other countries, plays obviously modelled on life not known personally to the writers, but taken from novel, stage and screen. This time the competitors had to turn their eyes to their own country and mako less use of showy material. There ha<l been a valuable gain in the sincerity or* choice and treatment. Borne competitors had not realised that a play about New Zealand life was something more than a play merely played in New Zealand. There were situations that were much the same whether they occurred in Auckland, Sydney, Ottawa or London. What had been looked for had been plays depicting conditions typical of New Zealand life—political, economic or social. In.this important respect tho competition had been somewhat disappointing. Generally speaking tho dialogue and construction were on a higher level than last year but there was still much to be learnt in this respect. Few of the plays showed mucli skill in obtaining tightness and compactness of form and a quick flow of interest from first to last. Some were slow in starting, others ended in a gradual dying fall whero there should have been a climax.