RETURN FROM TOUR

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27026, 10 March 1949, Page 8

RETURN FROM TOUR

STUDENT PLAYERS' SUCCESS IN AUSTRALIA

PRAISE FOR DICTION Special to the Daily Times

WELLINGTON, Mar. 9. Members of the Canterbury Student Players Company were praised in the Melbourne press for their diction and speech generally when playing “Othello” at the same time that it was being played in another Melbourne theatre by an English company, said Mr Rodney Kennedy, one of the players, on his return to Wellington to-day. Mr Kennedy is country drama tutor in the Adult Education Department of Otago University. The New Zealand players had a better press than the English players who included a number from Stratford-on-Avon, said Mr Kennedy. The praise the New Zealanders’ speech received in the circumstances was an amusing sidelight of the tour. He said it was not sufficiently realised that this was the first New Zealand amateur drama team that had left this country to tour

overseas. The party had given 47 performances. mainly at the universities in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra in the course of a two months’ tour which had been successful from all points of view. The experience of giving a large number of performances of two plays —“ Othello ” and Pirandello’s “ Six Characters in Search of an Author” — had been more valuable for the players than if each play had had only a short run and he was glad to say they had been equal to the strain imposed on : them. The latter play in particular became a better production as the tour went on and attracted large audiences, especially of Continental people living in Australia, Mr Kennedy said. Hopes were held of a return visit, possibly from a team from Melbourne University where drama was more developed than in other Australian universities.

Four leading members of the Canterbury Student Players who have gone to England for further study include Brigid Lenihan, formerly of Dunedin.