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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 25, No. 5. 1962.

What's Wrong with the Drama Club?

What's Wrong with the Drama Club?

Sir,—The Kiwi is popularly supposed to have lost its wings through lack of use. However inaccurate this may be biologically it all too frequently applies to its modern unfeathered counterpart.

An example is the University Drama Club who have proved themselves quite unadventurous in their choice of play for major production. Not that I have anything against Chekov, and The Seagull's association with Stanislavsky gives it historical status. The point is that it makes too slight demands on the club's resources.

Some time ago I suggested to certain members of the committee that Eugene O'Neill's trilogy Mourning Becomes Electra would be a sensible choice. The suggestion was greeted with tolerant smiles and incredulous eye-brows. I still believe that it would be preferable to the Chekov.

I estimate that the attendance at the Drama Club's first meeting this year was 60-70, most of them freshers. The Seagull will employ 13 actors, most of them senior students. An ideal production of the O'Neill trilogy would have the same actress as Lavinia in all three plays, the same actors in those parts which occur in two of the plays, and, of course, the same producer. This is scarcely feasible for an amateur group, but three separate productions with different producers and casts could easily be staged, without great expense. Sush a series of productions would employ 13 actors, and three times the number of stage-hands required for The Seagull. This is within the club's potential. How long the Drama Club can keep its junior members amused with "all-fresher" playreadings etc. is debatable.

As far as I know Mourning Becomes Electra has not previously been staged in New Zealand. Vic's Drama Club is one of the few groups with sufficient resources to do so.

And if you don't like O'Neill, how about the Wesker Trilogy?—Yours etc.,

Nelson Wattie.