DRAMA IN SWEDEN

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1935, Page 16 (Supplement)

DRAMA IN SWEDEN

A GOVERNMENT ENTERPRISE.

If the people cannot come to the i theatre, the theatre must be brought to the people. That is the view expressed by Sweden’s Minister of Education (Mr. Arthur Engberg), whose Government Is about to establish a national theatre in Sweden. The population of Sweden, 6,000,000, is scattered over an elongated narrow area 1000 miles in length extending well into the frigid zone beyond the Arctic Circle. Two theatres in Stockholm, the Royal Dramatic and the Royal Opera, have enjoyed time-honoured State subsidies derived from national lotteries, while the theatres in Gothenburg and Helsingborg (western seaports) and Malmo are also subsidised. The scheme contemplated is based on the exhaustive survey of a theatre commission. During the past four years the “road,” which once flourished and held its own with Stockholm in giving the people good drama, has suffered a catastrophic decline. When last autumn the Royal Dramatic sent out its first touring company by way of experiment the machinery was not yet running smoothly. But the Stockholm cast for “Mourning Becomes Electra” (Eugene O’Neill’s play) toured 16 towns, eight with “organised” audiences and eight without, and everywhere it played to packed houses. Another play, Sigurd Christiansen’s “A Journey in the Night” was sent to Norrland (the far north). It was not only

received enthusiastically, but returned a neat little profit. With the news from London that Bernard Shaw’s new oneact play “The Six of Calais,” which he completed while in New Zealand, was staged in the Open Air Theatre, Regent’s Park, it is interesting to learn that the Swedish scheme takes in the 135 civic parks, no fewer than 90 of which provide stages with scenic properties and sets.

SUPER AIR-THRILLER FLYING HEROES OF PEACE. Heralded as the “Dawn Patrol” of 1933, Richard Barthelmess’ newest picture, “Central Airport,” comes to the King’s Theatre, Stratford, to-day for a limited engagement. The super air-thriller glorifies the flying heroes of peace, not war, and is said to exceed anything that the talented star has ever done. The powerful story deals with the hazardous lives and the exciting loves of these hardy ‘navigators of the stormy

air-lines. Richard Barthelmess plays the part of a returned war hero who pilots trans-continental passenger ’planes. He crashes his ship, with a heavy toll of lives, and is “grounded.” Discredited in the game he loves and the only one he knows, he goes barn-storming with a travelling air-circus, and falls in love with Sally Eilers, a parachute ‘jumper. Their glamorous love affair and the many thrilling plane crashes build “Central Airport” into a mighty drama. The principals are as reckless with their loves as they are with their lives. But Barthelmess believes that a flyer, with his life always in the hands of fate, is a coward to marry.

A strong cast supports the stars, among them being Glenda Farrell, Harold Huber, James Murray, 'Claire McDowell, Grant Mitchell, Willard Robertson, Arthur Vinton and Charles Sellon.