Drama Jottings

During 1959 we were presented a very varied theatrical menu. But unfortunately many of the dishes were spoiled by plain bad home cooking. Most of the productions, and I saw nearly everything, lacked any overall unity of style. There were many excellent individual performances; such as Tim Elliott playing Jimmy Porter in "Look Back In Anger." and Ronald Lyn as Kulgin in "The Three Sisters." But I found no one production completely satisfying. The two best proof New Zealand's producers, Mr Richard Campion. The University Drama Club's '"Oedipus Rex" and "Jack Winter's Dream" were superb theatre. His other production was with Unity and James K. Baxter's "The Wide Open Cage." In both these productions Mr Campion's undeniable force as a producer was evident throughout.

In the professional world Ray Lawler's "Summer Of The Seventeenth Doll" was an event not to be missed. A heartwarming picture of ageing Australians. Next the New Zealand Players presented their best production in a very long time. The Players must be heartily sick of people telling them that they should, nay must, do something modern and up to date. They did "The Long, The Short And The Tall" by Willis Hall, and I need hardly add no one went and it had to close. Their next production was a rather pedestrian presentation of Barrie's "What Every Woman Knows," which was enlivened by a lovely performance by Brlgid Lenihan. Gooeie Withers came next and crossed swords with Bruce Mason and won. She also won a large and enthusiastic audience for "Roar Like A Dove." She is without doubt a very brilliant actress, but I would like to see her play Hedda, Queen Gertrude or Beatrice.

In the musical world we were given one opera excellently performed; a better-than-usual Extrav; two ballets of worldwide reputation; an atrocious production of "Salad Days"; a llvely and thoroughly enjoyable run through Venice with "Grab Me A Gondola"; and once again Harcourt and Tinkham gave us a revue of high calibre.

Whether television is state controlled or run by a group of businessmen, it will, to start with, be a challenge to the theatre, both amateur and professional. To keep (or should I write "bring back"?) an audience to the theatre then amateur societies will have to pull up thetr socks, learn not to scorn professional standards and realise that a theatrical production is a group effort. Every year plays from the pens of the great, the not-so great and the down-right bad are produced in Wellington and every year we are left with memories of individual performances sparkling like jewels in a sea of incompetence.

I would like to add a footnote to this by quoting a statement from the Unity Theatre circular. Unity were intending to start a Drama School under the direction of Anne McClymont. The School wasn't started because of lack of interest. Anne McClymont's own comment was that "those who did show interest were those who had considerable knowledge and experience and felt a desire to improve whilst those who had little or none seemed happy to remain in their pristine condition."