SHAKESPEARE IS GREAT DRAWCARD IN HOME TOWN

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 89, 1 September 1948, Page 5

SHAKESPEARE IS GREAT DRAWCARD IN HOME TOWN

Memorial Theatre Doing Big Trade (By Reece Smith, New Zealand Kemsley Empire Journalist) Stratford-upon-Avon, July .27. What any theatre needs is a good script writer. It is no use paying players to meander round the stage with nothing to say, or without beaning each other now and then to recover the attention of patrons who have mislaid the thread of the discourse. Even as the West End scratches for such writers, an out of town theatre has unearthed quite a drawcard. His shows go on by the brink of a swan-swathed stream down Warwickshire way, in a town with a New Zealand name. This place has no lowing herd winding slowly o’er the,railway }ine. Stratford-under-Egmont has no,Shakespeare. Shows how things balance out. Roy, night porter at the “Swan’s nest,” opined that: “If it wasn’t for Shakespeare Stratford would be the most one-eyed town you ever saw.” I don’t know about that. I’ve seen Auckland. , The Stratford Memorial Theatre makes many New Zealand theatres look like fourth rate circus tents. Smooth, glassed restaurants overlook the soft river. There is a terrace for tea on fine, afternoons. An ample dinner in the restaurant, a pleasant panorama of the Avon, a few steps into the theatre, and few steps back to the glossy bar between acts. It could be argued that this is more civilised playgoing than a feverish ;butt in a draughty foyer, then a fistful of melting eskimo pie. Shakespeare is disinterred from textbooks when the Stratford team gets to work on him. I asked the retiring director,' Sir Barry Jackson, whether the Old Vie waS 1 competition. Smiling, he shook his head. “We have Stratford here.,’’ , - In his three years 1 of office Sir Barry has gone far to makng the Memorial Theatre the shrine it was intended to be from its ' birth 16 years ago. He told us of a Norwegian student, studying the Merchant of Venice,- who worked his passage from Oslo to Newcastle, bought a bicycle with his paying off money and cycled to Stratford to see the play performed. • One day last week brought 3000 letters applying, for bookings, and enclosing amounts from 2/6 to £so' Seventy-three nationalities have been to the theatre. Because the Shakespeare- festival only extends through the simmer each year, and mantenance has to go on all the time, £BOOO was' lost last year. Even though a sell-out summer season 'is not enough to tide over the winter the theatre will never fold, said Sir Barry. It is the Shakespeare headquarters of the world. Shakespeare is international, and there are some plump, international wallets not too far in the background. Which may sound high hat, hut the theatre goers are certainly not. For the most part they are quiet, ordinary British folk, come to see a show by their Stratford boy who spun such meaty yarns.-