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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria University College, Wellington N.Z. Vol. 20, No. 13. September 12, 1957

Tournament Drama

Tournament Drama

Local Talent Wins

The Drama Competition was won this year by Auckland, with a very able and imaginative production of "Machine Song." a play by a New Zealander. A. S. Coppard. The competition was marred by unhappy judging, but one hardly would have seen fit to quarrel with their decisions had it not been for the comments with which they were accompanied. Certainly its production was the most effective of the three I saw. The set was fine—grey oblong shapes looming up into the darkness to suggest the angular melancholy of a deserted factory, a machine relentlessly turning out bolts in the foreground, and its solitary operator, bewildered by his own imagination. The play, however, has a crippling disadvantage when compared with "Modern Times": it is deadly serious. Indeed it is the highest praise of the performance of the machine-operator, and of the production in its use of the machine, a booming voice in the background, and the conflicting influences (which took the guise of a barmaid, and angel, an agitator, etc., and were concealed within the oblong shapes) to say that there was no time to think about the play until the tension was over, and it was only then that one realised what a terribly hackneyed play it had been.

Dangerous Choice

Canterbury followed with a cut version of "In Camera." a dangerous choice for a drama festival held in conjunction with a University sports tournament. It would take great confidence and conviction to master a typical tournament audience with a play such as this, but the cast was not experienced, they seemed to be under-rehearsed, and I rather wished, at the time, that circumstances had influenced them to choose a different play. I did not think it was a success. The climaxes were missed, and through, this and the cutting of some of the starker (but most significant) scenes in the play, its whole build and significance seemed to have been passed by. The man clearly had [unclear: thtt] within his reach, but made you flinch by missing the structure of every other speech. This play is too strong meat to bear inadequate performance. Its lines are willy, but the whole tone of the play is too bitter for you ever to laugh easily. If the players cannot cast its spell on you, you laugh at their embarrassment.

Recalcitrant Nose

On the second night, Otago opened with "The Happy Journey," by Thornton Wilder. At this stage I was struggling with a recalcitrant plasticene nose, and I heard only the applause, which increased my discomfiture, but led me to suspect that their performance had been tolerably good.

Finally Vic. took the stage with Shaw's epic, "Man of Destiny." It is one of Shaw's finest and most moving works, and the character of the Lieutenant must rank with St. Joan in subtelty and care of delineation. John Gamby in this part was outstanding. It is, of course, a wonderful acting part—the sensitive courageous officer, out of his time, struggling with the treachery of the Woman (adequately portrayed by Elizabeth Kersley) and the perverse orders of his commanding officer (played with energy by myself) to triumph over superstition and leave the general and his lady to a questionable happiness—but Mr. Gamby's moving performance cannot be too highly praised for its delicate variations in pace and diction, and its overpowering pathos. The right touch of malice was provided by the innkeeper (Trevor Hill) and the play was produced with patience by Colin Bickler. It was unfortunate that the judges should have construed this play as "Much Ado About Nothing," but I take comfort in their comment. "No man alive today can be Napoleon!" and so leave my readers to resume my usual imposture as

—D.VJ. (BSc.).