DRAMA LEAGUE

Waipa Post, Volume 49, Issue 3554, 6 December 1934, Page 2

DRAMA LEAGUE

WIDE FIELD OF ACTIVITIES IN 7* BRITAIN. “The once-despised amateur actor has come into his own—with a flourish of trumpets (off),’’ writes a . Special, Representative of the “Morning Post.” “Nearly 2,500 amateur societies are now affiliated to the British Drama League. The Summer ‘School’ of the League at Scarborough was the most, successful ever held. This year there were 558 entries in the Community Theatre Festival.” '/“What would a Victorian play-goer have paid to this?” the writer asks. “Could he have believed that the amateur would ever be more than an incompetent farceur in an ill-fitting Wife 1 ? That one day these tiresome fellows would become the backbone of the provincial stage? That critics would honour them as experimentalists, And innovators? “Would he have believed all this? Not a word.

“An official of the League—which is, as it were, the M,C.C. of the amateur stage, and is now in its sixteenth year—told, me that, the 2,500 clubs affiliated to the League are drawn .from all parts of Britain. And these no means complete the roll-call of the amateur societies.

; , “The whole country is acting. Thespis is triumphant from Shetland to ,scilly, in the Scottish Highlands, and on the Yorkshire moors. It is a notable fact that this efflorescence of amateur dramatics should have occurred .during a decade -when, one by ofie, -the, theatres of the provinces h^fe'v;pihsedv : their'. doors; when, indeed f the only professional actors are those who arrive week by week — packed in tin boxes of cinematograph film.; ' “Some of the. younger generation, young men and women who have never seen a professional theatre, have ..taken delightedly to the stage. The annual Community Theatre Festival full of surprises. This is the Olympic Games of the amateur movement; year by year its entries Increase, and .this spring 558 teams —IOO more than last year-—shared in the competition. ;“The provinces are eager for the Drama. Fine, sincere players blessedly unaffected and full of enthusiasm, have., been .discovered in. obscure villages oh the skirts of Dartmoor and among the mountains of Wales. Dftrihg the last few years the amateur theatre has taken root even in the remote districts of Cornwall, horn'e of rigid Nonconformity; where, in spite of the acting traditions of the Duchy, dating from the time of the .miracle-plays, the stage had long beeh: shupned. “The choice of play is often a difficulty. Some amateurs, ambitious and sky-aspiring, seek to ‘pluck bright hotiOtirfrom the pale-faced mood,’ othOrs confine themselves to simple, rustic cbmedies; others, again, are satisfied if they can produce a recognisable copy of the latest West End success.

“But ah increasing spirit of adventure ,is abroad. Many societies arb. .experimenting with new’ forms add itiitried dramatists,. and some hayb hbcofaie the amateur Repertory Theatres of their areas.”