Community Drama

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVIII, Issue 19959, 17 November 1934, Page 12

Community Drama

(By “Prompter”)

Sidelights on the Amateur Stage

Though no definite dates are available, it is on the cards that New Zealand will be visited by the Russian Ballet company, headed by Spessiva and Vilzak, early next year. The astounding boy violinist Yehudi Menuhin, commences an Australian tour under Tait direction in April of next year. New Zealand being visited about July. Dr Merton Hodge, the ex-Wellington doctor, wrote “The Wind and the Rain,” a comedy-drama of medical student life in Edinburgh, a play that has been, running for many months in I London, and is just as big a success in New York. This play will come to New Zealand later( it has just opened in Australia to splendid business) probably in February. George Thirlwell, a handsome young Englishman plays lead, and is also the hero in “The Minute Alibi,” the murder-thriller by Anthony Armstrong that will also be in the company’s repertoire. Instead of an example of the medieval “Miracle” Play, such as he has presented each Christmas for some years, the Rev. A. Russell Allerton, of St. Thomas’ Church, Freeman’s Bay, Auckland proposes this year to produce Sladen Smith’s “Mrs Noah Gives the Sign,” a play which gives with delightfully subtle modern humour a fantastic glimpse into the domestic life of the Ark. Most of the characters are animals and for these parts, masks, probably conventionalised, will be used. As in previous years the production will be given in the parish hall, with the cast drawn from members of the church. The play is to be presented shortly before Christmas. | At the annual meeting of the WelI lington branch of the British Drama | League the president (Mr A. S. Far- | quhar) spoke on the mission of the | British Drama League and remarked that they must be able to look further afield than the parish pump. Their ; own local interests might loom most prominently before their eyes, but they had to realise that they were but a part of a great national movement with its concomitant responsibilities and privileges. This being the' first annual meeting since the Wellington area has been under local control, a constitution and rules of the area were submitted to the meeting and adopted after full discussion and some minor amendments. The indefatigable work of the secretary, and also the sound position of the area finances were noted, enabling the new year to commence with a credit balance in hand. A considerable increase in membership is confidently expected during the forthcoming year. It was decided that the junior festival for young people under 1 18 years of age should be repeated as furthering the aims of the movement, in spite of the fact that last year’s junior festival was not a financial success. It was felt that the increased interest would no doubt result in this festival being as succesful financially as in other respects in future years. The very high standard of the work presented at the senior festival was commented upon and it was felt that the success of next year”s festival of community drama was assured.

i One of the features of the Summer I School of Drama to be held in Auck- ! land in December will be the producI tion of a series of one-act plays or ' dramatic excerpts. Those students who wish to act in rehearsal classes, howj ever, must come prepared to say some | twenty lines from one of the plays 1 selected for rehearsal, or something of ! their own selection, before castings are | made. The senior audiences will be held on the evening of Friday, Decemj ber 28, after the official opening of the I school. All classes will be open to nonmembers, as well as members, of the British Drama League and students may attend for the full course of two weeks, for one week, or for single sessions. “Ancient Greek Drama” was the \ title of a lecture given by Professor T. D. Adams at a meeting of the Dunedin sub-branch of the Otago * Educational Institute. In an ntroductory talk Professor Adams gave a short account of the invention of drama by the \ Athenians, with special reference to | the “Agamemnon” of Aeschylus, the “Medea” of Euripides, and the “Lysistrata” and “Frogs” of Aristophanes, Excerpts from all these plays were read by Miss Jessie M'Lennan and Mr James Fleming. Miss M'Lennan read the parts of Clytemnestra and Medea, and Mr Fleming, those of Agamemnon and Jason, and they both demonstrated to the full their well-known gift of powerful dramatic characterisation, always under due restraint and based on a foundation of well-nigh impeccable diction. The sequel of brilliant and rollicking comedy after severe tragedy made a happily diversified programme and demonstrated how amazingly modem the theatre was in the Athens of over 20 centuries ago. The city of York has started a Citizens’ Theatre. “During the last few years,” says the prospectus, “more than three hundred theatres have closed in Great Britain, and to-day such towns as Blackburn, Birkenhead, Cardiff and Carlisle have no theatre. This is a serious matter in the artistic and literary life of the country. It would be a matter of profound regret if York were to lose its theatre, too.” Accordingly, a group of prominent citizens, headed by Mr Beebohm Rowntree and the Earl of Feversham, have leased the Theatre Royal from the municipality and are going to run it, partly by inviting the best touring companies available, and party with a repertory company. Mr Maurice Browne, who has been helping in an advisory capacity, explained that the directors are undertaking the work, not for profit, but “because they feel it to be an important piece of public service.” Never before has there been presented in a single volume such a magnificent collection of one-act plays as has now been issued by Gollancz Ltd. The selected plays are fully representative of the best that have been written and owe their presence to the fact that of the thousands read by the editor over a period of years they have proved the most memorable. Some of them will be well known to play-readers already, those by Baring, Galsworthy, Housman, Milne, Dunsany, Gregory, Yeats, O’Neill and Wilder, for instance, to name only a few of the English, Irish and American authors included. But there are others which will come as a novelty to most people and a few which have never before been published in England. Among the translations are plays by Andreyev, Asch, Chekhov, Guitry, Maeterlinck, Sachs, Schnitzler, Strindberg and Sudermann. Since Mr Marriott issued the first of his series of “One-Act Plays of To-day.” there have been a great many rather similar volumes published, but none which quite takes the place of his selections in fulfilling the need felt for suitable plays capable of being produced by young actors. There are 10 plays in the new volume, and the authors are Edward Percy, Harold Brighouse, Harold Chapin, Lady Gregory, Charles Lee, Rachel Field, F. Sladen-Smith, Ashley Dukes. Ralph S. Walker and A. J. Talbot. Without having been subjected to any “writfhg down,” the plays are all suitable for school use. Mr John Bourne in his “8 New One-Act Plays of 1934” has selected plays which depart from traditional forms and provide new opportunities for producers as well as actors, thus following the policy which proved so successful :n the forerunner to the present volume. The dramatists represented are James Bridie, F. Sladen-Smith, Sydney Box, Dorothy Coates, Neil Grant, Aino Kallas, Olive Popplewell ind the editor himself. Because they aave been “told mournfully by profiteer after producer of the lack of naterial available for the all-women society,” Muriel and Sydney Box have vritten in “Ladies Only” six one-act Dlays with all-women casts. They have teen careful to avoid anything ambiious in the way of setting or scenery, ind as the main requirement is good ;eam-work and not individual brilliince, their plays should achieve popuarity with amateur bodies. Flora Hobson supplies by way of foreword some worth-while hints in a “Letter to i Young Actress.”