WOMEN'S WORLD

Northern Advocate, 18 March 1929, Page 2

WOMEN'S WORLD

SHOULD WOMEN RULE? TWELVE-YEARS-OLD BOOTLE • GIRL’S PLAY. A small but excited audience of mothers and little brothers and sisters crowded the Bootle Free Church Hall, ou Wednesday evening, to see the play written by the 12-years-old Eileen Check-ley, of Knowsley Road entitled “Should Women Rule?”

The play was produced by Mr 6. H. Sharpe, of Canal Street, who runs a music and dancing class for the children of people of the borough in poor circumstances, the pupils of which formed the cast of the play. The theme was found to be naturally childish and disjointed, and the.production appeared, judging by the time devoted to dancing and singing, to resemble revue. It concerned a tyrant queen who ruled that none of her subjects were to think of anything but pleasure. They became tired of playing iaud she is dethroned. Occasional clever lines are spoken, which indicate literary possibilities on the part of the authoress. When scolding those of her court for showing a weariness of the surfeit of pleasure, Miss Creckley said 1 ‘ Pleasure, you’ll find, is hard to please,” and the prologue contained lines of a song, which ran:—

“Four hours’ work and eight hours’ pay, Eight hours’ sleep and twelve hours’ play; That is the law in point of fact Under the Pleasure Saving Act.” Before the curtain rose a small boy read, in a shrill treble a few “explanatory remarks,” in view of the publicity accorded the production. He said it should be understood that Miss Check-ley's idea in the play indicated a remarkable memory rather than a natural invention, since much of the plot had been drawn from books she had read,.

When a “Times" representative shook hands with Miss Cheekley “behind the scenes," he was surprised to observe that she was quite calm. “Eileen never gets excited," said Mrs Cheekley. ‘ ‘ She is quite an unusual child, and does "not regard this as anything* more than a little make-be-lieve. Really she hates fuss of any kind." * Eileen admitted that previous reports, stating that the play was the outcome of a dream in which she had, seen herself as ruler of the world, were true. I woke up," she said, “X thought it would make quite a good play, and as I had never written one, although I had acted plenty of times in children’s plays, I wrote it. “I don’t want to write plays or go on the' stage at all. I just want to teach dancing to little girls as I am doing now. I have heard how people on the stage have to live, and I don’t like the idea of it."

DANCE TEACHER AND WORLD’S YOUNGEST “PRODUCER,” VISION OP 1990. AMBITION TO HELP HER WIDOWED MOTHER. Living With her widowed mother in rooms above a small draper’s shop in Ivnowsley Road, Bootle, is the world’s youngest playwright and producer. Although only 12, Eileen Cheekley, an intelligent, dainty child, has written one play, is writing another, and is producing the first. A year ago she was teaching dancing to a class of nearly 40 children. She unfolded liei* dreams and ambitions to me when I visited her today. “For some time,” she said, “I have been connected with the Academic School of Dancing' and Music at Bootle, a place where children who are not too well off can learn music andl dancing the same as those more fortunate. “I had been taking dancing lessons, and then I started teaching other children, SHOULD WOMEN RULE? “As time went on I thought I would like to produce a play, so first of all I wrote “Should Women Rule?” and this I took to the ischool. “Although I wrote the play, the ideas were not mine, for I took a bit from this book, a bit from another that I had read and remembered, and so on. The actors and actresses in the play are all children from the school between the ages of 10 and 15. “My new play, the one I am writing now and hope to finish next March is, however, all my own, and will be entitled ‘The Dancer’s Return,’ “For this I get some local colour from Sefton Meadows, a few miles from here. ’ ’ Eileen went on to say that when the present play is given in public at the Bootle Free Church Hall next Thursday she hopes it will be a sufficient i success to enable her to hand over £2O to the Rev. H. Fisher Short for his church at Bootle. I

HER OW3ST PRODUCER. Asked what she wants to lie when she grows up, she said, "A teacher of dancing and a playwright, who produces her own plays.’ ’ “Should Women Rule?” she described as a stirring musical play, typical of the tendencies ot the times, and the period in which the action of the play takes place is the year 1990. “It is my idea of what the world will be like in 60 years’ time,” she added. She is very keen to be of help financially to her widowed mother in the shortest possible time.. Eileen Cheekley is a niece of Mesdames H. and J. Beehre of Whangarei.