On and Off the Stage

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19803, 19 May 1934, Page 12

On and Off the Stage

News about Plays and Players

| Members of the British Drama I League throughout England were invited to witness the performance of “The Agamemnon” at Bradford College. j The annual festival of community I drama organised by the Dunedin and j Otago branch of the British Drama League will be held at the end of next week. Twelve plays will be presented for adjudication and Miss Elizabeth j Blaise, of Wellington, will act as judge, j The winning play in Dunedin will participate in the actual final to be held | in Timaru in October. St. Mary’s Girls’ Club will begin the j season with the production of a one ; act play at their entertainment in June . The play chosen for performance ; is a light comedy “A Dish of Scandal” , 'tv E. M. Wild. The action is set in ! Bath, towards the latter part of the Victorian age, so that the dressing | should be most attractive. | The South Canterbury Drama j i League's play writing competition will j : be held as usual this year, and it is ■ , anticipated that there will be an inj crease in the number of plays submitted for adjudication. The executive \ of the League has decided to make a ( change in the system of judging, and ! this year a committee of three will be j invited to adjudicate, and three Wei- ! lington enthusiasts are being approached to undertake the work. The repertory group of the South Canterbury Drama League is functioning energetically. About sixty names have been handed in to the committee and it is proposed to proceed with the consideration of repertory plays for production and arrange play readings. The first reading will be held in the Little Playhouse on Monday, and “Milestones” by Arnold Bennett and Edward Knoblock, will be read. The committee has chosen an almost entirely different set of readers for. each act, and a number of enthusiasts who have not previously taken part in the presentation of plays will participate. Active rehearsals have been proceeding for some weeks of Barrie’s fine play“ Dear Brutus,” and the South! Canterbury Drama League has decided j to present the play in Timaru on j Wednesday, June 6. Under the dir- I ection of Miss Bessie Thomson, of j Dunedin who visited Timaru last week, j the work of the cast has improved al- i most out of recognition, and during the j Hfext three weeks the play will be thoroughly, rehearsed. Barrie's “Dear j : Brutus” is one of the great playwright’s > most attractive and interesting plays, 1 - and is in itself drama of the best class, j i In the hands of the repertory group j 1 of the South Canterbury Drama | J League, the play should mark a dis- 1 tinct advance in community drama in 1 South Canterbury. ; 1

ia | The Christchurch Repertory Theatre i- j Society is staging John Galsworthy’s 3f | play “The Pigeon” for three nights in [- ! June. Katharine Cornell recently presented ,y The Barretts of Wimpole Street” at d ■ Baylor University, Waco, Texas, where ; , | there is the largest Robert Browning :t ! collection in the world. It contains a d i portrait of Browning painted by his !i son, who told Dr. J. A. Armstrong, who 5. began the collection in Waco and later gave it to the university,. that he cond sidered it the finest likeness of his I father in existence. During the per- : formance of the play in Waco, Miss e : Cornell wore a chased gold brooch with e | three large topaz settings that Brownp : ing gave his wife on their first wede | ding anniversary. a | During March and April the. British e j Drama League Community Theatre g | festival was in full swing. Entries ! are “up” all over the country except i for Scotland, which showed seven J | fewer entries in the British Drama 1 1 League section—the total of these ens tries amounting to 51. Wales has _ ! twenty entries— four in excess of last - j year, though entries from North Wales = | were conspicuous by their absence. But i j the greatest increase is in the Northjj em area which showed 162 entries ; i against 116 last year. The Eastern . j area boasted 211 entries against 186 in . 1933. The Western area final was held at Staiford-on-Avon on April 30. Last year, there were 106 entries in the ( Western Area, and this year there were 122. The grand total of entries was . thus 566, against last year’s 477. Romance and idealism are woven into an emotional theme with peculiar . adroitness in the Milne play “Michael and Mary,” which is to be the Garrick Dramatic Society’s next production in Auckland. Employing a “flashback,” the story jumps from the present into the year 1905, with an unusual -opening scene in the British Museum. Various period costumes are required in the play, adding to its attractiveness from the box-office viewpoint. “Michael and Mary” was first produced in London in 1930, with Herbert Marshall and Edna Best starring, who were also i seen in the brilliant English version made a year later. Miss Raie Robinson j is the Garrick producer. The play will I be presented at the Lewis Eady Hall early in June. Miss Phyllis Crawford, writing in j “Drama,” says that “the palm for proi dueing plays from another language | must surely go to Professor H. O. * Meredith, of Queen’s University, Beli fast, who banded together a team of ; unemployed workmen and gave them j the “Philoctetes” of Sophocles, an ex- ; periment so successful that it seems tragic ’more of us have not the courage. Controversy was aroused at the time as to the suitability of Greek plays for people of simple education, until it was mentioned that the little village of Hoathly, in Sussex, has given a Greek play nearly every year since 1910, the producers finding that the village people got less tired of rehearsing a classical play than a modem comedy.” i The South Canterbury Drama League J is now going to its eighth annual fesi tival of community drama and no attempt has yet been made to present j a piece of classical Greek drama. Sydney and Melbourne are doing unheard-of business in the theatre to-day. “White Horse Inn,” the musical play that is breaking all records at the Sydney Theatre Royal, is one of the most successful shows presented in London in recent years, and ran for nearly 12 months at the Coliseum. Another strong attraction in Sydney is “Fresh Fields,” Ivor Novello’s much discussed comedy which was received in London with overwhelming enthusiasm. “The Dubarry,” at the King’s Theatre, Melbourne, with Sylvia Welling in the lead, sends play patrons seeking library information regarding the famous lady who, bom a daughter of a pretty cook and an unknown father, had some education in a convent, tried her lovely hands at peddling cheap jewellery, entered a millinery establishment much frequented by young gallants of the period, became a gambler’s decoy, and eventually the mistress of Louis XV, after she had been conveniently married to a count. The entrancing play “Dr., My Book” which is known to wireless listeners as “Dr. Abemethy—His Book,” has been translated into Welsh, and has recently been broadcast in that language. The play, whose original title is derived from a nickname given by his contemporaries to the great surgeon, the popularity of whose lectures at St. Bartholomew’s hospital led practically to the founding of its magnificent new medical school, is gradually making the circuit of the globe for it has been broadcast from New York, Ottawa, Wellington (New Zealand), Dublin and Cape Town. It is also popular with amateurs, since every part of it offers a specific opportunity to the actor to make his or her effect on the audience. In Blackpool in November last, the members of the Sheffield Y.M.C.A. Debating Society won two trophies by their presentation of this play, which was also produced during the spring at the Repertory Theatre, Liverpool. The success of the play in New York has already led to the broadcasting there of two other one-act plays by the same authors—the late Alicia Ramsay and her in- -and Rudolpii de Cordova—viz; “Ednvmd Kean,” and “The Silver Candlestick,” in which latter the characters are such famous people as Sheridan, Dr Johnson. Boswell, Sir Joshua Reynolds and Mrs diddons.