LITTLE THEATRE PLAY

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21883, 20 August 1934, Page 12

LITTLE THEATRE PLAY

DRAMA OF "THE BERG" SINCERITY AND POWER In "The Berg," Ernest Raymond's tragic drama of the last hours of a great ship and its passengers, thp Auckland Little Theatre Society undoubtedly chose its most difficult subject for a considerable time. Based on the disaster to the Titanic in 1913, it is a play demanding a very high emotional level throughout from almost every character on the stage. Saturday evening's opening performance in the Town Hall concert chamber was marked by sincerity and power, and a fine sense of climax.

The great dramatic unities are observed in the play, the whole action of which unfolds on the deck garden of. the huge liner. The drama of the piece lies in the different reactions of the human spirit to the news of imminent death —the heroisms revealed at the moment of crisis, the removal of the distinctions of caste before the one central fact of mortality, and the revelations of the individual characters when stripped of their masks of habit and convention. Two apparently opposite outlooks on life are represented by the principal characters of the play, John 800 l and the padre, yet in the end both are seen to be similar in the courage and resignation they inspire. Bernard Brittain dominated the play by his restrained and thoughtful portrayal of .John 8001, the invalid who has fprced himself to look at life without sentiment, yet with an understanding sympathy for human frailties. Lan Moir gave an equally effective portrayal of the padre, faced with doubts as to his own sincerity, yet possessed of the same, courage at a moment when the faith of most others was collapsing. As Alice 8001, Susan McCallum a so gave a restrained and tolling interpretation of a noble and stoical character. In lighter vein, Val Mulgan contributed a gem of comedv characterisation as Pointer.

Apart from .1 tendency to over-in-tensity, very effective work was done by the other players. Alan Harper and Joan Lawrence had exacting roles as the young honeymoon couple are completely stricken by the tragic end to their romance. In contrasting roles, Frederick Gaudih, ai Major Boldy. and Gerald Wright, as Dandy, acted in finished style. Sydney King made an understandable figure of Henry Tate-Hughes, and Chris Kohn and Deirdre Williams, as his wife and daughter, played their parts with sincerity and feeling. Jame - Cutler made an excellent junior officer, and Wilfred Lane and Eve Miller took minor parts. The atmosphere of the sinking ship was admirably conveyed by the producer, Mr. Frederic E. McCallum, with the limited stage resources at his disposal, and the final scene in which, with the failure of the ship's lighting, the remaining group of passengers and crow gathers in the half-darkness to await the last moment, contained the very essence of drama and tragedy.