Stage and Film

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 690, 15 June 1929, Page 24

Stage and Film

Karel Capek Writes Of the Beauty of Spoken Word STAGE ACTOR A REALITY Karel Capek, author of “The Insect Play,” “The New Adam ” and the Robot play, has written the following article on “The Film v. the Drama”:~ r FO put the matter bluntly, the contest between the film and the drama is a rather unequal one. The film does not attack the drama, hut it takes the public out of its theatres. Though the drama has Its objections against the film, it cannot, whatever it does, get the better of it. We have been reading lately that Bernard Shaw condescended to move in front of a film apparatus and shake hands with a small girl. It is not at all improbable that we shall live to see him one day galloping on an unsaddled horse through the Llanos of Arizona or rescuing Gloria Swanson from a burning farm. But even this will be a success for the film rather than a success for dramatic literature. One day the drama will have to ask itself what means are at its disposal in the contest, and of what kind are the weapons of which the film cannot deprive It. I believe that there are two of these weapons, and that it would be advisable for the theatre to use them both to the best purpose. The first of them is one which has existed not only since the beginning of the drama, but also since the beginning of the world—the spoken word. In spite of all experiments with speaking films the real spoken word will always remain a preserve of the theatre, and that not only for purely technical reasons, hut also because the moment the spoken word is raised to a position of equal importance with the picture the film will cease to be a film and become a drama. We may truly say that the theatre ! Is a temple of the spoken word. It is the task of writers and actors to realise this metaphysical and absolute privilege of the theatre, and it lies with them not to misuse it. The newspapers deprive people of the possibility of telling each other the news; the radio deprives them of the opportunity of exchanging, after supper, ideas on various aspects of life. Similarly, the cinema enables them to amuse themselves silently and without words. The theatre is the last Island In the sea of modern civilisation in which that ancient invention, the spoken word, Is as if through a sort of enchantment preserved In its original purity; there still lingers that ancient and wonderful popular habit by which people make themselves mutually understood, through talking and gesticulating with their hands, using neither machines nor marks, but only words. Viewed from this standpoint, there is a great future In store for the theatre, as is the case with all things that have a great past. It cannot be replaced by anything else; it Is the sacred reservation of the spoken word. The second advantage of the theatre Is the actor, not because he plays better than a film-actor, but because he is real and stands before us in the flesh. In modern civilisation the theatre ceases to be a house of illusions and becomes a house of realities. If we want to pass a few hours in contemplative observation of wonderful reality and to see what a human being looks like, we must go to the theatre. The actor of the film is a shadow; the actor of the theatre is a reality. The more we feel drawn toward reality the more frequently shall we come back to the theatre. But here, too, it lies with the actors to satisfy this craving of ours. It is the lofty task of the actor to place before us living beings, a sight now so rare and so unusual. As long as there are actors there will he theatres, as long as queer people are being born with a wild desire to reproduce a living man by shouts and gestures, we need not put to ourselves the question whether the theatre will be swallowed up by any other interest.

lon Maxwell and Louis Darnley will head a company at the Newton Majestic, Sydney, in the old melodrama. ‘‘Maria Marten —or The Murder in the Red Barn,” based on the killing of a woman of that name in England 100 years ago and the sensational trial that followed. Great success attended a recent revival of the play in London.

New Zealand vaudeville artits who have recently appeared at the Berlin Winter Garden are Jan Caryll, the dancer, Keith Wilbur, ‘‘The Whistling New Zealander,” and May Wirth, of. the Wirth Circus family, so well known in the Dominion. John Caryll is a great favourite with the Berlin public, both socially and on the stage. A few months ago he stayed some time directing the dances of the great German film, "Waterloo.”