ONE-ACT PLAYS

Southland Times, Issue 22042, 15 June 1933, Page 8

ONE-ACT PLAYS

WORKSHOP THEATRE’S SUCCESS. EXCELLENT PERFORMANCES. The Orphans’ Hall was W’ell filled last evening when the Workshop Theatre gave its second presentation of the three one-act plays, which mark the opening of the 1933 season. There was no mistaking the enjoyment which the audience derived from the plays. Equally apparent was its keen appreciation of the acting. The intervals between the plays were considerably shorter than on the opening night and in other respects there was greater smoothness and verve. In G. B. Shaw’s “Man of Destiny” the audience sees Napoleon in a refreshingly human light. If any of Shaw’s plays can shatter the fallacy that he is “high-brow” and “intellectual” (to employ epithets which are all too common to-day) it is this brilliantly entertaining comedy. Minor blemishes there might have been in last evening’s performance, but the whole effect was completely satisfying. Never once did one find it necessary to remember that the actors were amateurs. Always was one glad that instead of treading easier paths those responsible for selecting the plays had included Shaw among the authors patronized. “Symphony in Illusion,” by James Wallace Bell, was entirely successful. It is a play within a play; mere man is entirely excluded from the cast; and a very illuminating facet of war’s cruelty is shown. The author has conceived a most effective final line which, unfortunately, was drowned in premature applause last evening. The acting was much more confident than on the previous evening and the audience soon found its interest quickening into sympathy and anguish, to be cleverly relieved by the ending. The remaining play, “The Distant Drum” (Malcolm Harrison), was a psychological study of fear, the scene being laid in the West Indies where the tom-tom beats and voodoo reigns mysteriously. The most is made by the cast of the author’s attempt to weave a plot from a clash of wills amidst the unknown terrors of the tropical isle. The plays will be presented for the last time this evening.