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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 12, No. 10. September 20th, 1949

Success at Last!

Success at Last!

It's a long time now since the plays were on: for various reasons, the review written then was not printed. But in view of the repeat performance of "A Phoenix Too Frequent" (noted elsewhere) we give it here.

Let's get it over at the beginning. We doubt whether the Drama Club ever presented a more successful evening than "The Wedding" and "A Phoenix Too Frequent." We aren't handing out any undeserved bouquets when we say this, either.

The first play was produced by Pat Evison and the effect of someone who knows production was clear from the curtain rise. The movement and action were extremely well sustained throughout: the lines went over well, and we spent most of our time being amazed at the way—how many; twenty-three?—people were manoeuvred on the stage of the Little Theatre (a very little stage).

It is much more difficult to praise than to dispraise any play: there is really little more to say. The whole thing was most competently done. We enjoyed it immensely. Of the cast, perhaps Maureen Ross Smith as the mother, Henry Connor as the bridegroom, Marjorie Williams as Madame, the opera singer, and Terence Bayler as the general were easiest on the senses. There were surprisingly few weak characters, and anyway they didn't matter much in the hurdly-burly movement. Pat Evison scored a minor success as the quite mute guest: it has been said of Robert Helpman that he is one of the few people in ballets who can be the centre of the movement without moving. This certainly went for her; we found it difficulty occasionally to concentrate on the others.

The other play, by Christopher Fry, could have got past perhaps purely on its own merits. It is an exhillrating play. Not that it could have been an easy one to put over. Three people delivering what is essentially a series of monologues for more than an hour, with little action, in a dully lit and relatively featureless decor, could be an audience's idea of hell. To the cast—Audrey Cook as Dynamene, Bob Donovan as Tigeus and particularly to Margaret Loftus as the maid—goes the credit for putting over the feeling of the play.

Of course, they had really good lines to work with. The imagery throughout is most unusual: we found it pretty stimulating to meet with a playwright like this, who seldom deals in the stock expressions, who can maintain for a long one-act play this sort of pleasantly astrngent humour wrapped in such intellectually palatable imagery. It has heights of quite superb wit: the rather sophisticated audience took it well and even left their rather sophisticated shells once or twice.

Personally, we are going to see it again: Christopher Fry as well put over as these three did it, is worth seeing and hearing.

By the way, the delightful manner in which Margaret Loftus carried off that sticking curtain at the end capped her performance. Not that she outshone the others, but she did have a little more stage presence. And into that curtain drawing she managed to pack an astonishing amount of innuendo.

See it—it's worth seeing.

"A Phoenix Too Frequent" can't be too frequent for us.

—D.G.