ONE-ACT PLAYS

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24900, 13 June 1946, Page 3

ONE-ACT PLAYS

REPERTORY SOCIETY PROGRAMME

“ QUIET WEDDING ” SCENE Fantasy, tragedy, and, chiefly, comedy, were mixed in nice proportion in the programme of one-act plays presented by the Canterbury Repertory Theatre Society in the Jellicoe Hall last evening. The senior class •staged three of the five scenes, including one of the best of that delightful play, “Quiet Wedding,” and the other two were given by the intermediate class. There was some unevenness in performances, but each item was on the whole well presented and all were enjoyable. The “Quiet Wedding” scene took the audience into the bride’s home on her wedding eve, and introduced all the members of her family and one or two others, an unusually large cast for a short production. A good deal was required of each character to ensure the intelligible development of the story. They succeeded in giving the atmosphere as well. Joan Gracie, as the fiancee of the bride’s elder brother, gave possibly the best performance. , The other comedy item of the senior class was “On Dartmoor,” a broader sketch of two modern, reforming young women, who find that they have much the same reactions as other people when their personal interests are at stake. Edna McGee and Dawn Kincaid bad the,right icea about these parts. “The Wishing Shop,” a fantasy by Harold Brighouse, was a sincere effort by the senior class. The difficulties of this type of. work did not daunt the flayers in an interesting interpretaA trio from the intermediate class scored a distinct success in a tragicscene from “Bathsheba of Saaremaa,” in which the emotional intensity was sustained without a break. Very different was a scene from Noel Coward’s “Weatherwise.” in which a strange thing happens to Lady Warpie when her family tries to summon up spirits. Judith Barker was good as Lady Warpie. The players in the various plays were:— “The Wishing Shop”: Ruth Collins, Nancy Pritchard, Edna Neville, Barbara XJlive Gee, Eunice Scott, Margaret Inwood, Nancy Harrison, and Patricia Pellow. “Bathsheba of Saaremaa”: Jack Woods, Judith Barkefs and Gloria Cameron. • “On Dartmoor”: Edna McGee, Dawn Kincaid, Bill Cook, Clement Newmarch, and Tom Kincaid. “Weatherwise”: Judith Barker, Dorothy Macdonald, Wyn Grimmer, Dorothy Caygill, Russell Roberts, and Syd-, ney Day. “Quiet Wedding”: Hilda Thompson, Jean McGregor, Joan Dew, lan Vernazoni, Joan Gracie, Tom Kincaid, Muriel Cochrane. Doris Davies. Cyril Cook, Harriet Smith, Bruce Caygill, and Gretchen Murray Smith. The senior class producer was Paul Latham, with whom was associated Beryl Bigg-Wither in “On Dartmoor.” Frona King produced the intermediate class plays. The programme will be repeated tomorrow evening.

DAILY MEMORANDA—Thursday, June 13 AUCTIONS. E. R. McDonald and Son, at their Rooms, at 1 p.m.—Furniture Auction Sale. Tonks, Norton .and Co., at their Rooms, at 12.30 D.m.—Furniture Auction Sale.