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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume. 34, Number 2. 1971

Drama

Drama

The thriller had, until the opening of "The Creeper" at Downstage, been largely ignored by the New Zealand professional theatre. Billed as a psychological thriller, the play represented to me a step backwards in that it did not offer anything that had not been done much better in "The Real Inspector Hound". A thriller becomes a very bad proposition if there is no excitement for the audience. "The Creeper" was not an effort that involved any active reaction from many people in the theatre, or if it did, I am amazed at the total lack of discretion in the theatre-going public just as I am amazed that Downstage selected this script for production by one of their best producers and performance by some of their most experienced players.

This was not a straight thriller in "The Mouse Trap" tradition. It attempted to spoof the convention but failed because of authorial weakness and a lack of pace in the performance. This type of play necessitates very brisk, yet naturalistic performance if it is to be even a mediocre success.

Ray Henwood as Edward Kimberly never once lost his stock gestures and declamatory speech which I feel to be inappropriate to a play of this nature, ken Blackburn as the earlier of Edward's paid companions was miscast as a mincing bitchy little queer though, like Henwood, one was always aware of the quality of his talent if not the performance. Craig Ashley as the latter, and apparently the last of Kimberly's companions, looks and sounds like Hansel, after sister Gretel has been spirited away by the wicked witch, his was what someone called a "sweet performance".

This play was at best mildly intriguing and at worst a boring illogical diversion into the banal. However, if it is possible to attend this on a licensed night one would pass a not unpleasant, though immemorable night. Such a play does not produce productive theatre, it offers nothing to the theatre-going public that cannot be more painlessly extracted from a television set.

Visually, the play was put at an extreme disadvantage by Richard Russel's set. If offered nothing for the actors to help them create a mood and at times hindered the physical movement of the players.

It is a collected edition of most of the stupidities of the theatre 30 years ago. It was ill-conceived and only adequately executed by a cast and directors who deserve much better.