Community Drama

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19578, 26 August 1933, Page 12

Community Drama

(By “Prompter").

Sidelights on the Amateur Stage

Following a conference with Miss Elizabeth Blake, during her visit to Timaru, the executive of the South Canterbury Drama League, has under consideration a week-end School of Drama for the whole of New Zealand to be held at the Timaru Boys’ High School. Some very capable instructors are available, particularly in movements on the stage and speaking. The school will be held during the Christmas holidays, and a comprehensive syllabus of work and a convenient time-table is now under consideration. It is quite on the cards that one or two plays will be produced after preparations under the guidance of the staff of the school, who will be specially chosen for their knowledge of various aspects of the presentation of drama. There are available, several capable lecturers who would give short talks on drama and dramatic presentation, and a very attractive syllabus can be drawn up. The Dominion executive of the New Zealand branch of the British Drama League will undertake the organising work, and the school will be controlled by the Souch Canterbury Drama League.

At the end of September the first annual conference of the New Zealand branch of the British Drama League will be held in Wellington, and it is anticipated that a strong representation from all parts of New Zealand will attend. During the conference, the winning plays of the North and South Island festivals will be presented for adjudication. Under the original proposal, the winning play by the South Island was to be found at a festival to be held in Christchurch, but the Christchurch Societies have evinced so little interest in the contest that it is likely that the Timaru Readers will journey to Wellington to participate in the festival and present “The Long Christmas Dinner," in competition with the leading North Island productions. It is considered likely that the Orari Readers who were placed equal first at the Timaru festival may also consider making the trip.

The six scenes which compose the play “Socrates” being produced in Christchurch by the Repetory Theatre Society give a general cross-section view of classical Greek life. Representations are to be given of the life of the Greek city and of the countryside, and in each scene the changes which can be effected to the cunningly devised background emphasise the spirit of the play. Austere rock walls which reverberate with the profundities of the Greek scholars become stately trees under whose shade Socrates and his friends indulge in the gentlest philosophising, or the walls change in a minute to the four graceful lonic columns of the entrance to a Greek mansion. Thus the attention of an audience is concentrated upon the important point of the play by these physical aids, and with the use of specially constructed pool and spot lighting there can be no distraction from the actors themselves and what they have to say and do. All the scenic effects, and the incidentals, including the drinking vessels, were designed true to period. Most of the scenery was made by Mr G. Worthington, of Canterbury College, and Professor Shelley, besides designing the scenery, designed and made several drinking vessels and other stage effects. The play “Socrates" has been taken almost wholly from the dialogues of Plato, the favourite disciple of the great Greek. Scene 2 was taken from Plato’s “Symposium,” Scene 4 from “Phaedrus," Scene 5 from “The Apology of Socrates,” and Scene 6 from Plato’s “Euthyrpho.”

Who among us could be found going to court and paying a fine all on account of Shakespeare and Keats? Two men were arrested in London for obstructing the traffic. They stood arguing as to whether Shakespeare or Keats wrote the words “My heart aches.” Certainly Keats wrote it, and probably some one who cares to search long enough will find it in Shakespeare too. But the point is that two Britishers stood disputing on the pavement as to the source of a passage of poetry, and a bobby “ran them in.” And this fact causes the' London “Morning Post” to rejoice. “It suggests that the glorious heritage of English verse is being at last in widest commonalty spread; that even in the outer suburbs it is broadening down from resident to resident.” The men lived in Twickenham, and were “mulcted in costs by a police magistrate.” The “Morning Post" has more to say: “They became quite hot in the contention, and the champion of Shakespeare was even carried so far as to say disparaging things about Keats, It was at this stage that the police intervened—not out of respect for Keats, however, but out of zeal for law and order. To the officers the argument had no interest. Evidently he was one of whom it might be said — A primrose by a river’s brim A yellow primrose was to him, And it was nothing more. So he charged the disputants. “It is sadly evident that neither of them had a profound acqaintance with the poet whom he backed; for even if the champion of Keats identified the authorship of the words, he attributed the quotation to a sonnet instead of to the ‘Ode to a Nightingale.’ ”

In only one class in the forthcoming Community Drama Festival being held in Auckland next week, were entries below expectations. This was the section for players under the age of 17, and the only entry received was from the Auckland Girl’s Grammar School, which announced as its choice a stage adaptation of one of Stephen Leacock’s "Nonsense Novels,” "Thrown on the World,” a delicious burlesque of full-blooded melodrama- The entrants have consented to take part in the open competition. Five plays written in Auckland have been entered in the festival. A great deal of Interest centres on them, and the committee of the Auckland area is gratified at the excellent response to its appeal In this conection. The festival gives an opportunity which would be otherwise difficult or impossible for an author to obtain. It offers almost the sole means of displaying to the public the work of local play-wrights, and, more important still, allows local playwrights to see their work actually "on the boards." The lovally written plays are “Challenge,” by Mrs. H. C. Parker, played by the Georgian Readers; “Judgment,” by Mrs. E. M. Doust, played by the Writers’ Club; “Ghosts on Christmas Eve,” by Mrs. M. A. Latter, played by the Georgian Readers; “Local Colour,” by Miss May Scott, played by the Fio Pio Dramatic Society; “A Turncoat Politician,” by Madame H. G. Milburn, played by the Pen-women’s Club D.C. Three plays will be presented each night of the festival. The presentation of the plays will be commenced in the Town Hall concert chamber on August 28, and will continue for a week, three plays being presented nightly. Les Ballets, 1933, at the Savoy gave Londoners the best joke of the season. Against a back-cloth which suggested a nightmare of Goya and Greco, a large orchestra performed Igor Markevitch’s tone-poem “Les Hymes.” Constant Lambert conducted, and seemed to know precisely what he was about. The orchestra had something of a field day, and the audience behaved admirably—in fact, all had a highly enjoyable time. This work was written only this year. Among thd serious musical items was a magnificent performance of Milhaud’s “Death of the Tyrant,” in which Alanova’s dancing was beyond praise. The “high spot” of the evening was Kurt Weil’s “Mahagonney.” In this Lotte Lenia, singing under the handicap of serious illness, gave a magnificent performance. Petrolini, the famous Italian actor, had a triumphant introduction to London at the Little Theatre. He is a brilliant comedian and character actor. Moreover, he is a master of illuminating detail, and the blindness of a blind musician hungering for a woman’s love was conveyed with remarkable conviction in the sketch with which he opened. Then he became a rascally but very domestic Levantine peddler swindling a partner out of his share of a winning ticket in a lottery. After that he was a dissolute music-hall artist—a rogue with winning ways. Petrolini is an nusual and versatile entertainer.