Period of Change in the Theatre

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23037, 14 May 1938, Page 16 (Supplement)

Period of Change in the Theatre

NATURALISM OUTWORN "Looking around us, we see that audiences are beginning to show boredom at things which had pleased w the theatre a decade ago. We stand, theatrically, in a moment of change, when older forms, i established for a generation, must give place to the new," writes Professor Allardyce Nicoll in the London Old Vic and Sadler's Wells magazine. A similar moment of change came 111 the 'eighties and 'nineties of last century (the writer continues), when Pinero and Jones brought forward their "realistic" plays, when Ityen: .was discovered by William Archer? when the Independent Theatre raised a standard for the young stalwarts desirous of achieving something fresh in dramatic terms. The realistic theatre, thus established, has endured until our own time. Hut this realistic theatre, which seemed so fresh in 1900, is now outworn. A new mood is upon us and we must obey its dictates. . In the realistic theatre materialism ruled and the problems presented dramatically on the boards of the stage were problems of our physical, social and economic existence. To-day, in spite of the material burdens upon us, our minds are searching for new realms. Science has opened up territories undreamt of in the past and the metaphysical is occupying attention alongside the physical. To deal satisfactorily with the metaphysical in dramatic terms the realistic method will not serve; soch a theatre cries out imperiously for the triumphant notes of poetry. The new drama which unquestionably will take the place of the old will be a poetic drama in which the imaginative temper probes questions incapable alike of positing and of answer in a naturalistic framework.