Drama Club Study Weekend

The Drama Club's study weekend was again held on john Wright's invitation at his parent's Waikanae Beach home. Twenty-one members of the club were in residence from Friday. July 10. 'till the Sunday evening, whilst one or two others travelled out on the Saturday and Sunday to Join in the play readings.

The River Line (Morgan). Henry IV pt. II (Shakespeare), The Forest (Cresswell). The Doll's House ( Ibsen) and Waters of the Moon (Hunter) were the plays chosen to be read. Count Albany (Carswell). the club's British Drama League entry, read and rehearsed under the producer. Ross Gilbertson.

The reading of plays was not the only sourse of dramatic interest. A study of Gavin Yates was worthy of any young actor's attention, for in Gavin we saw the epitome of an utterly dejected being who remained much in solitude, sleeping and dreaming and pining for the one he had left behind for two days in Wellington.

On Sunday morning after a night "amongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy" we rose from "golden slumber on a bed" and read Henry IV pt. II. Late that afternoon after further readings we were taken to the bench on location, where Ian Rich directed and cameraman Ross Gilbertson and Gavin Yates shot scenes for a film which included Pauline Kermode and John McLean in the Sunset Ballet Duet; Bill Sheat dancing the "light fantastic ... with quips and cranks and wonton wiles" and Graham Patchett and John Marchant reincarnating with "wreathed smiles" and many Venus scones reminiscent of Rudolph Valentino. In the sand hills a scene with the Miltonic superscription.

"Here perhaps some beauty lies.

The Cynosure of neighbouring eyes." was shot where Rosemary Lovegrove and Bill Sheat enacted the love secenes so essential to a film which may have no story, whilst the third side of the triangle Beranadette Canty "So bucksom, blithe and debonair" sat invitingly on the garden gate.

In the last sequence to be filmed the whole cast (prompted by a cowboy and Indian film. Sugarfoot, seen the previous evening in Waikanae) "in wanton heed and giddy cunning, their melting voices through mazes running" (with Judy Goodman as the heroine mounted on David Bridges as the horse) executed scenes of violence and melodrama which may well have been the envy of a Carol Heed or John Houston.

Finally, in the words of the film Sugarfoot. the Drama Club is indeed "obligated to John Wright as host and "felicitated" to Pauline Kermode for her kindness as hostess.

—John Marchant.