Former City Actor With Wide British Experience

Press, Volume C, Issue 29515, 17 May 1961, Page 9

Former City Actor With Wide British Experience

An actor and producer formerly of Christchurch, Mr William Cook, is visiting the city on a month's holiday. Mr Cook acted for the Canterbury Repertory Society and produced experi•mental drama for the active members’ group of the society from 1944 until he received a Government drama bursary that took him to Britain in 1951. This is his first visit to New Zealand since then. The bursary enabled him to studv at the Bristol Old Vic School in a producers’ course. After six months he was appointed to the staff of the school. There he worked on the original production of “Salad Days." Later Mr Cook was in charge of the Horsham Theatre, in Sussex, for six weeks, and then became director of productions at the Felixstowe Theatre, in West Sussex. He became associate producer of the Chesterfield Repertory, and then was in charge of the theatre in Guernsey, in the Channe' Islands. During this period he toured with two plays for the Arts Council of Great Britain. Afterwards he became director of productions at the Newcastle Playhouse for 18 months. Mr Cook is now with the T.eatherhead Repertory, in South London, where he is permanently engaged as a production manager. During the nine years he has been away. Mr Cook has produced 200 plays and been associated with about 350 “The case of the Leatherhead Repertory is an interesting one.” said Mr Cook yesterday. “It belongs to a council of repertory theatres all of a high standard which pool information about their productions. Thev tell the other members about their box-office takings and the audience reaction to various plays. This is a great assistance. “The township around the theatre lias 35,000 persons, but it serves an area of about Im. It is one of the five fringe theatres of London, and is about 20 miles out" The Leatherhead Repertory stages a play a week, and has a fortnight's rehearsal

for every play. There is no permanent company attached to the theatre. Parts are taken by West End actors and television actors. There is a different director for every play. The directors come mainly from the West End. “Television actors like to come to us because when they are working in television all the time they lose their sense of audience reaction,” Mr Cook said. The Leatherhead Repertory promoted West End productions, too. Mr Cook said. A play was produced and the whole production was sold to a West End management. "Brides of March” and the revues, “And Another Thing" and "Look Who's Here,” which played in the West End, came from the Leatherhead Repertory. The theatre was also usually successful in getting the rights to stage a play immediately the West End production was finished, Mr Cook said. “The theatre in England is on the rise,” he said. “The great effect of television has worn off. and it has brought to the theatre a new and a younger audience. A lot of provincial theatres went right out through television, but it was all the bad ones that went. In the provinces now there are only the good theatres left. “Our biggest trouble is in getting good plays. Most young playwrights are following the John Osborne line of ‘kitchen sink drama.’ "English theatre is falling back more and more on classical plays. A good third of our own productions are Restoration drama, Wilde, and Ibsen. Because the bie companies like the Old Vic are constantly doing Shakespeare. we do not act his plays often." One of the biggest troubles was the theatres, Mr Cook saiid. Most were built in Victorian times with solid proscenium arches and picture frame stages. Some of the contemporary playwrights, particularly lonesco and Jean Anouilh, did not write plays suitable for production in those conditions Plays in the round and openair theatre with little stage properties were gaining in