Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 2, No. 16. August 2, 1939

Down in the Pit

Down in the Pit

Owing to a slight alteration in the programme (or a frantic unreadiness behind the scenes) we were next treated to some "Danger." a June Cummins production. Now there was something original and clever in this, though perhaps obscurely. . . in a play such as this the audience is asked to create a tremendous amount—inside its own head. We point this out because it is partly on this Imaginative ability that the success of the production depends. No imagination, no success. As it fortunately happened, we turned out to be quite vivid-minded on Friday night. The slightest suggestion . . .

The curtain rises—or rather, is heard to rise—on a perfectly black stage, while we sit in more perfect blackness. Round the voices issuing from the void (nominally, a Welsh coal-pit) we are required to construct everything, with, of course, the aid of indispensable tin-can noises (falling coal, we presume) and screams and exclamations from the poor heroine. The men utter only soothing noises. Interesting, though, considering the darkness. The three persons carry on an animated soliloquy on death, which is pretty Imminent in their position. The result is not a play, but a number of exceedingly vivid and entertaining mental pictures.