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Drama

The Club Downstage

Theatre, good theatre, needs critics as it needs audiences, if only to spread the word about a production: of course good criticism does much more. The fact that "Salient' did not have one to cover a new show at Downstage seemed to me sad for theatre and for that body of potentially theatre going students — surety an important section of audiences for a healthy community serving theatre.

Good criticism should also be consistent and comparative, and that I cannot offer having been away from Wellington for some time so I am not in a position to stand The Club against it's predecessors in the Downstage programme. It seems to me though that The Club is a play that deserves to be performed and seen, not for any high minded theatrical qualities, no startling invention here, nor profound statement, but for its nicely observed comedy, and the sense of Roger Hall's Glide Time.

or Middle Aged Spread, it should have its audience merrily chuckling at the familiarity of the characters and situations.

On a surface level it could be taken as look at the workings of professional sport-in this case, "Aussie Rules", despite a half-hearted attempt to convert it into rugby—but the machinating, the hypocrisy and the shifting loyalties could be taking place in any boardroom or office.

Given, then, a piece of this nature, the director, Tony Foster, was not required to do any sleight-of-hand theatrical innovation, no stylistic whizz-kiddery, but to direct, as he has, cleanly with well-judged pace, somewhat penalized by a set, which had actors moving from side to side but seldom up and down.

The acting, however, deserves more attemtion. These characters were people we must believe in for the comedy, naturalistic comedy, to work. Williamson is a shrewd observer, he draws characters we know. The Department, The Removalists contain people who live three doors down the street, work in police stations, teach at colleges. Denied the novelist's powers of description, a playwright works through creating dialogue. There the actor's job lies, to give the physical presence, fleshing out the dialogue's bones. When an actor is on stage the audience must be reacting to more than just the playwright's words, or else we may as well save our five dollars and read the script at home. In body and voice, movement and intonation the actor must impress us in his character.

There were moments when these actors did. But all too often it was the actor we were conscious of; the voice and body were those of an actor trying, yet not finding, the reality of the character. A naturalistic comedy demands a naturalistic style.

Any style can only be perfected by working on it, and it is to be hoped that these and other actors are to be given the chance again. And yet no one style should become sacrostanct. Here's to healthy theatrical variety.

After the highly successful production of The Creation and the Fall of Lucifer for Open Day. Victoria University Drama Studies is now preparing its major production for this year, Pierre Beaumarchais' play -not Mozart's opera- of The Marriage of Figaro, directed by Andrian Kiernander.

The Marriage of Figaro is a perfect example of eighteenth century French comedy — fast moving, witty, often farcical and always entertaining, but underneath lies a significant and serious play dealing with the relationships between man and woman and between the aristocracy and the servant class. It was written on the eve of the French Revolution and was initially banned by the Court as being too inflamatory and revolutionary. It quickly became very popular, but has subsequently been unfairly overshadowed by the opera which Mozart based on it.

Beaumarchais is one of the best creators of all time of roles for women, and the play's treatment of the position of women in society and their dustion is not conventionally eigtheenth [unclear: centu] Instead the play is being presented as a broad treatment by men is as important to the [unclear: twen] century as it was to the eighteenth.

This is Adrian Kiernander's last production [unclear: in] Wellington (before he goes to Auckland to [unclear: wor] with the internally famous director [unclear: Anthony] Besch on the new National Opera Company's first production of Cosi Fan Tutte) The [unclear: pro-] comedy in an irreverent, lively and highly [unclear: the] rical style, partly-based on the German [unclear: cabe] of the 1930s which is an approximate [unclear: mode] equivilent of the highly stylised and [unclear: blatantly] threatical performances of the [unclear: eighteenth] century.

The Marriage of Figaro opens on Saturday [unclear: 7] and runs for one week only until Saturday [unclear: 14] Performances are held in the studio at [unclear: Drarma] House, 93 Kelburn Pde, starting at 8.00. [unclear: Boo] ings can be made by ringing 721-000 ext 693 between 9.00a.m. and 5.80 p.m.