SHAKESPEARE

Waikato Times, Volume 96, Issue 15101, 23 November 1922, Page 9

SHAKESPEARE

MR ALLAN Vb'JLKIE HONOURED

' -ih.- Mayor of Wellington (Mr R. A. Wright, M.P.) accorded a civic recep.i'on lo Mr Allan Wilkie, the Shakespearean actor. Mr Wright introduced' Mr Wiikio as one who had [Teen an enthusiastic devotee of Shakespeare since he was a lad, and whose love and veneration for Shakespeare had never waned throughout the years. In 1916 Mr Wilkie formed his first company to play Shakespeare only, and later re-formed in 1920 the company, which is still treading the classic way. This company has performed 15 of the plays of Shakespeare, and had given 600 consecutive performances of his works, an achievement unique in Australasia. Mr Wilkic's ambition was to produce the whole of Shakespeare's plays, a thing which had never yet been done. He was a great educator,• in that he was encouraging everybody to study anew these wonderful works, in which so many of our fnost valued quotations occurred. i\n hoped Mr Wilkie's stay in New Zealand ■would be pleasant and profitable, and joined with the members of his council In according him a welcome to Wellington Councilor M. F. Luokic also expressed his admiration of one who was doing his best to popularise the works of the greatest book-dramatist of all ages and countries. Mr Wilkie said that he took it that the reception was not so much an honour to himself, "a poor player that struts himself upon the stage," as it was lo William Shakespeare, master dramatist of all times. The occasion was not without precedent, for, curiously, it was Shakespeare's father, when bailiff of Stratford-on-Avon, who was wont to accord receptions to strolling bands of actors, at which time Shakespeare himself was but "a poor player." Mr. Wilkie remarked that the drama flourished at a height never known before or since in the days- of Elizabeth, because the great nobles bestowed their patronage on it, and their players became part of their households. But in the days of the Puritans that fashion was dropped, and ever since the stage has depended upon private enterprise. Whilst all oilier arts —painting, sculpture, literature—had been subsidised by governments and .municipalities, the drama had been permitted to exist as best it may—the Cinderella of the arts.

Mr Wflkie recounted how the present company was formed in 1920 against the advice of many of his friends —and two years and two months after it was still going. And he hoped it would, for Shakespeare was a great teacher, who was neglected overmuch. It might be news (o 'many to know that, more performances of Shakespeare's plays were given in the little new State of Czecho-Slovakia than in England, and that with all "the loss that a translation of the text must mean. That should not be, for,- as Carlyle said: "Shakespeare in a King! whom no Parliament or combination >of Parliaments can dethrone.