Shakespeare Review

By J. A. Haxton.

A trio consisting of Sybil Westland (actress), Desmond Lock (actor), and Ronald Barker (narrator) gave a performance of "William Shakespeare, Portrait of a Man" in the Memorial Theatre recently. Despite the fact that it is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth this is the only profession company to be touring New Zealand in 1964 celebrating the event. On this ground alone they must receive credit in bringing to the public the seldom heard, but much read words of England's greatest poet.

The show consisted of excerpts from Shakespeare's sonnets, his longer poems "Venus and Adonis" and the "Rape of Lucrece", as well as most of his better known plays. The programme was well devised and showed Shakespeare up in an interesting light.

Very rarely did the players rise above mere recitation though in itself the recitation was generally excellent. Both players had good voices and on most occasions used them well. They acted on a few occasions only. Desmond Lock performed well in any excerpt from "The Two Gentlemen of Verona", and better still as Falstaff in "King Henry IV part one". He tended to speak too fast and ruined, in doing so, the speech from "King Richard III" . . . "Now is the winter of our discontent . . . . " Of the three, his stage presence was the most convincing.

Sybil Westland did not fare so well. She exaggerated her parts and only in roles such as Mistress Quickly from "King Henry IV part two" and as Kate in "The Taming of the Shrew" did this exaggeration succeed. Ronald Barker's narration was, at the least, annoying, though the words of the narration were helpful in giving "The Portrait".

One felt he was intruding upon a natural sequence, and he gave the appearance of leering over every word he spoke. The performance improved in the second part of the programme, but this type of show has to have a Geilgud for it to have continuity of meaning and not appear as a series of unlinked sketches.