NELSON REPERTORY CLUB

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 1 July 1939, Page 2

NELSON REPERTORY CLUB

FOUR ONE-ACT PLAYS SUCCESSFUL EVENING In place of the usual 3-act play, four one-act plays were arranged for the very successful reading this week. The plays chosen were; "Ladies In Waiting.” by Wendy St. John; “Dirge Without Dole.” by Cedric Mount and “The Distant Drum.” and “Heaven On Earth,” by Phillip Johnson. The first three were dramas, and the last a most amusing comedy read delightfully by the three producers. Miss Blackett and j Mr Parker. Briefly it tells of the engagement, no, | the pre-elopement of Jill, Miss Jeffreys, j and that glorious symbol of freedom, | Adrian Ulidgc. Adrian loves hiking. | smelling the ploughed fields, chanting j poems to the sun and generally ignoring laws and conventions—particularly the marriage law. In some trepidation Jill announces their plans to her conventional parents, Mr and Mrs Parker, and is amazed when they take it as a matter of course. They fight Adrian with his own guns, Jill comes back to her senses and the young man realises that she’s not a glorious untrammelled dragonfly, but one of “those women for whom God made the aspidistra.” in fact. "Ladies In Waiting.” with a hospital waiting room as a setting, was arranged by Mrs Parker. It tells the story of two women 'Mrs Adam and Mrs Kirk) who are, unknown to one another, waiting for news of the same man. The girl, his mistress, and desperately in j love with him. is in a great state least he shouldn’t survive his operation. In her misery she unwittingly tells Mark’s wife, Mrs Adam, the whole story. The wife however. selflessly keeps her identity a secret and it is the girl, using her name, who goes to Mark when he comes out of the operating theatre. So the wife walks out of the hospital and the life of her beloved husband. The nurse’s part was read by Miss Just, and the three other visitors to the hospital —a garrulous old woman, amazingly haphazard with her aitches. a blase girl, and her forgetful friend, gave comic relief. and were read by the Misses Blackett. Willis and Brent

“The Distant Drum.” arranged by Miss Jeffreys, was a play woven round a family ghost, in the form of a drum which was supposed tc beat whenever a death occurred in the Same family.

The play opens with the arrival ol Olive Siddail (Miss Christie), a heartless scheming adventuress, at Same castle the home of her fiance. Alan (Mr Scott) is in love with her in such a way as only a serious minded youth could be, but Lady Same (Mrs Charlesworth), knows her for what she is immediately they meet, and an instant dislike to one another. In the midst of all this, the family is waiting for news of Alan’s aviator brother, and Lady Same has a premonition that he has crashed. The drum is mentioned and for the benefit of Michael Heniey (Mr Addis). Lord Same (Mr Du Klou). tells them the story of the drum, j Later, having sent Alan to fetch a j non-existant scarf. Olive and her lover and co-adventurer, Michael, are left alone. She persuades him to beat the | drum, that she might vent her spite on Lady Same. Alan returns in time to hear them jeer at him and see them embrace. He leaves the doorway without being observed, and Michael goes off to the armoury to get the drum. Just as he has left the room. Lord Same enters with the news that his son has landed safely in Wales, and then goes off to tell Alan. The drum is heard beating mournfully and almost before it ceases, Michael bursts in w'ith the news that Alan has shot himself in the armoury. Dirge Without Dole” arranged by Mr Kirk, was a most unusual and modem play within a play, given at a drama festival. It was very much after the style of “goth Century Lullaby.” one of the one act plays produced by the Society last year. The llrst scene is devoted to the play put on at the festival. The employed family. Mr Kirk, his wife, (Miss Childs), and their two children (the Misses Baxter and Beattie), are appealing for help and relating the story of their happy ’'working” past, and miserable workless present Various people, the scientist, fascist bishop, business man and communist give ad* vice according to their occupations—these parts being read by Mrs Jensen, Miss Rout, and Messrs Simn. Solon, and West, respectively. In the second scene, the adjudicator. Miss Harris adversely and confidently criticises the play, which she says, has on it “all the marks of the canker of decadence which is eating into our younger generation.” and awards the cup to "Naughty Little Nancy." to which "nobody could possibly take offence.”

In the last scene, the actors in vari ous stages of undress, themselves cri. ticise both the play itself, and the ad judicator's criticism.