Extravaganza 1940

With no Laurel Wreaths Bedecking Him for his 1939 effort, author Ronald L. Meek, Victoria College's versatile brain baby, tried again in the lighter realm of musical extravaganza. To culminate a five-year term as Extravwright, he submitted his best and liveliest script to date, Centennial Scandals"

Measured against the author's previous productions, this year's Extravaganza was successful because of its faster tempo, its greater animation, and its narrow escape from the heavy drudgery with which Mr Meek has usually shovelled his message onto the stage. That the annual Varsity entertainment, which seems ordained to be in the form of a bright and airy musical farce, should be made a vehicle for directing the social upheaval and the imminent class struggle is regrettable. The form is not easily adaptable to prophesying and preaching, and it was when this was attempted in the Third Act of the "Scandals" that the Extravaganza fell down. Clumsy, awkward and obtuse, the saga of Ao-Toheroa's future was saved only by those elements it ignored—its songs and its setting. Until he could find more coherent expression of his ideas in the form he had chosen, Mr Meek would have done well to exclude this episode.

It was a shame the third act dragged, for the first two acts—the Past and the Present—were handled cleverly and amusingly. The first act burlesqued the hashed-up history which has been stuffed into every New Zealander, with an irreverence that jeered at the facade of early colonial gentility and respectability so beloved by the Pioneer Clubs of 1940. The discovery, colonisation and growth of New Zealand seen through the red spectacles of a mocking, Marxian humorist, made laughable and satisfying entertainment.

High spot of the show was the second act—the Cinderella sequence set in the Present. The topicality of the subject, the truth, and tolerant sympathy of the author for Cinderella's plight, the witty and impudent lyrics, and the competent acting, lifted the piece high above the rest of the Extravaganza.

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Credits, besides the many that go to the author, deserve to be lavished upon the producer, Mr Ralph Hogg. Despite the inexperience of most of his cast, the lack of any individual performers, and the faulty organisation which left him only two weeks in which to rehearse, Ralph managed to extract a show that was light and smooth out of a last minute shambles. His calm and suave direction brought ease and lightness to the script he handled. Special praise must go to Denis Feeney who worked vigorously and with notable success in his initial appearance as stage-manager.

"With Words and Music by John Carrad" again preceded the main feature. The name, though immaterial to this Carrad fragment, was "You Can't Pick A Winner." Buffoonery, ballet, and bulgy belles jostled each other for the spotlight, but were edged out by the verve and dash of Evan de Berry's and Derek Simpson's whirlwind waltz cum jitterbug routine, set to the rhythmic "Ragtime Lay." What John's frolic lost by the absence of a plot or good gags was redeemed by the gaiety of its choruses and Paul Taylor who "croons em just like Crosby can."

The prologue to the whole performance, also by Ronald L. Meek, was memorable for the second night orchestral dive by the spectral Professor Freud. On the other nights it served its job as a curtain-raiser, but more than that. . . . . .?

The Extravaganza has followed over the last few years a certain pattern which has split it up into three, sometimes four, separate parts. This programme has undoubtedly been popular, but the production always appears to suffer from the lack of any link between the different parts of the programme. The co-operation that comes from all parts of the student body in the rehearsal, staging, and management of the Extravaganza could with profit be simulated by the authors. Closer collaboration between writers and composers could at least balance the use of borrowed and original music in the three shows.

Extravaganza—Centennial Edition—remains, however, as the best of Ron Meek's contributions. The very speed in which it was prepared set beating at the start the pulse that ran through all the performances. Memories of it will linger with those who worked in its feverish haste—moas and Mitchells; capitalists and Cakefields: the frenzied dancing of Whui and the arrogant waddle of Whui Tu; the overworked cackle of Lord Bloodyslow and the word-wonders of Dr John Weevilbole; the "Heil Hitlop" and the "Whit's a-goin' on dun theer?"; the "shufflers and snifflers," and "crawlers and creepers"; "Centennial Blues" and the "Emissaries of Stalin"; and believe it or not plaudits from the Press and boodle at the box-office.

J.O'S.