RISE OF DRAMA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 30, 5 February 1935, Page 5

RISE OF DRAMA

HOLDS ON THE SCHOOLS AN ENGLISH DEVELOPMENT ROLE OF THE PRODUCER. The Latin Play at Westminster, the oldest and most traditional of all school plays, has had its final performance tor 1934. After the “Kudeus” of Plautus was heard politely, the audience settled down to loud enjoyment of that ingenious academic pest, the Epilogue, writes W. A. Darlington in the Daily Telegraph. Tradition can be a fine thing, and Westminster is properly proud of the manner in which it has obeyed Queen Elizabeth’s command to produce a Latin comedy each year in the original. But tradition has its drawbacks- Otten it keeps a good principle alive, but sometimes it prevents a better principle fiom being established. It has had this latter effect, unfortunately, at Westminster. It is a depressing fact, but a fact nevertheless that of all the schools whose performances I have seen in recent years, Westminster is content with the crudest and most primitive standard in its actors. They speak well, for that is the tradition; but their gestures are few and awkward, their movements are uncontrolled, and their attempts to convey character or emotion are well meaning but ill-directed, except in the case of a few individuals with a natural stage talent.

A Renaissance. Ail is exactly the same, in fact, as it was fourteen years ago, when 1 paid my first visit to the Westminster Play. At that time, only this school and Bradlield College (with its triennial Greek Play performed in the open air had any acting traditions at all. No other schools were thought worth critical attention. li seemed to be generally admitted m the schools that some acquaintahce with the works of Shakespeare was a desirable thing; but it had only dawned on a few bold pioneers that Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be acted, and it might be a good idea to act them. Since then, however, there has been a revolution of thoughts in which Westminster, oound by its tradition, has not shared. Soon after the war an astonishing renaissance of interest in the theatre took place. It showed itself in the establishment all over the country of a vast number of dramatic societies, whose work reached a standard hither*o unknown among amateurs. The various university societies and dramatic clubs, moved by the same impulse began to take their work more seriously. The Oxford University Dra malic Society, for instance, which before the war had become a mere social dub to which it was the fashion to belong, became a training ground on which aspiring actors could learn their job. The Amateur Dramatic Club at Lambridge, though refusing either to rely on professional help or to have their female parts played by women, also achieved remarkable things. School Plays. London, Birmingham, and the newer universities joined in the movementLastly, the schools began to fall into line. Young, enthusiastic masters, who had been members of college societies and really knew something of stage work, joined the staffs, and found a new spirit of sympathy in their headmasters. First one and then another of the great public schools founded dramatic societies, which produced results to be proud of. Nor were the smaller and humbler foundations much behind. Indeed, my own first relatisation of the poetic and emotional possibilities of a school per forniance came to a chance visit to a production of “Twelfth Night’’ at Maidstone Grammar School, ten years

Since then I have had a fairly wide and most varied experience of school plays. 1 know now that a schoolboy cast is formed of material so malleable that under the hand of a good producer who is both keen and patient it may at any moment produce a miracle. Ever) niing depends on the producer and his staff, for boys act by virtue of an imitative faculty rather than their own knowledge or sense of character. Therefore, a boy who has no special talent for acting may sometimes be coached, coaxed, or clouted into giving as good a performance (well, almost) as another who is an actor born. Boy Actors’ Trials. It does, of course, take even a skilled producer some little time to break down self-ccnsciousness and teach his young actors their ABC. f lo learn. to stand still on the stage, and not to betray uneasiness by shifting the weight from fool to foot, is the most elementary lesson of all; and whea 1 see the members of a school cast standing still without awkwardness, I always feel assured that the producer knows his job. In these days, however, I seldom have to apply so elementary a test. The standard is already high, and rising almost everywhere. My own very mixed bag includes several good productions at Radley, an admirable “Saint Joan” at Rugby, and a quite outstanding ‘‘Hamlet’’ at Sloane School, a big London secondary school, where the boys are of all classes and come from all kinds of homes. Another big day school —Bullish School, at Wimbledon —puts on one of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas every year, and plays to three packed houses in the enormous town hall. 1 saw this company do “lolanthe” the other day, and a remarkable achievement it was. There was an amusing moment at the close, too, when all the small boys playing the girls’ parts took off their wigs, and tlie Fairy Queen—till then a golden-haired beauty—turned into a bullet headed urchin of truculent aspect. Value in Education. On every side I. hear of other good productions at school which I have not had the chance, or the time, to Tonbridge has achieved something like fame under the experienced eye ot Ulemence Dane, University College School with a real live dramatist on the staff in Mordaunt Shairp, and Whitgift have done work which is quite out of the common. . . Cranleigh, Chiton, Bedford Warwick, all come to mind. Two smaller senoo s in Somerset, Chard and Queen s College Taunton, have an honest pride in the quality of their achievements. And words appear in print I

have no doubt that I shall soon hear of many more. In short, there is no doubt that, in the boys’ schools at, any rate, the value of drama in education is being recognised and properly provided lor. Of the girl’s schools j can speak with no authority. Neither of the two big ones of- which [ know anything happens to [ have an experienced producer on the staff, and the performances are, in consequence rather hit °rmiss o r >1 a r.