ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Search For Grave Led To Musical

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31087, 16 June 1966, Page 11

ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT Search For Grave Led To Musical

Not without the chance of controversy, the Richard Campion produc--1 tion of ‘‘Oh What a Lovely War” will run for a week in Christchurch from next Monday. The show has been described as ‘a smash hit musical with a saw edge.” I Created by Charles Chilton, loan Littlewood's Theatre workshop and members of he original cast, the production has been a spectacular iuccess in London, on Broad-

way and in Europe. In 1963 it won three “best musical”! awards. Based on real life incidents from the First World War, both grim and gay, the show was inspired by Chilton’s search in 1958 for the grave of his father, who fell in the battle of Arras in 1918. He found no grave, only an inscription on a wall with the other 32,951 names of officers and men of the British Empire forces who too remained graveless

after falling in that battle. The show is his answer to his query: “What could have rendered their burial impossible?” He hopes no such epitaph will be written again. RECORD RUN The Downstage production ran for a month in Wellington —a New Zealand professional record. Richard Campion has re-directed the show for the New Zealand Theatre Centre with a slightly changed

professional cast for the present national tour. “You can laugh or cry or both, but basically this is a musical for serious people,” Campion has said. “Compared with, say, ‘Salad Days’ which is a modern fantasy story with charming tunes, this has much more zest, sweep and strength. Audiences feel a tremendous emotional tug, largely through the songs which are so much a part of us. It’s all very telling and very tender.”

“Oh What a Lovely War” tells the story of the Great War within a pierrot musichall framework. Every actor plays at least six roles. There is pure dance or stylised movement in each of the 30 non-stop scenes, which vary from comedy to the tragedy and pathos evoked by the old war songs and the miming of life in the trenches.

The production, with 103 lighting cues and about 70 slides of war scenes, thrown on to a cyclorama by rear projection, is fast and slick. . All the dialogue used in the show is real, much of it from the mouths of men like Kitchener and Haig. NEW PERSPECTIVE

Roy Patrick, who went from the New Zealand players to work in films, television and theatre in Britain, and has returned to New Zealand after a Nottingham Rep. tour of Malaysia, said of the show: “You could say it triggered off new'interest in the Great War —the 8.8.C.’s magnificent television series, the spate of books and articles which have since appeared. “I think ‘Oh What a Lovely War,’ in its brilliant revue form, burst the bubble of sentimentality about the war and lets us see it in perspective,” he said. The cast also includes Jonathan Hardy and Paddy Frost, who returned to New Zealand for “The Comedy of Errors.”

Leonie Leahy is principal dancer and Graham Gorton has crossed from opera for the tour. From the original Downstage production come Tim Eliot, Joe Musaphia, Kenneth Tillson, David Weatherly and the Christchurch dancer-actress, Carolyn Wright. Others include Susan Maxwell - Stewart. Graham Eton, Silvio Famularo, Elizabeth Stevenson, Ginger Skillman, Nicolette McKenzie, lan Ralston, Stephen O’Rourke and Peter Tulloch. The stark set has been designed by Don Ramage, musical direction is by the

New Zealand composer and conductor Peter Zwartz, and the choreography is by Tillson.

Next week Christchurch theatre-goers can decide for themselves how this ironic musical, which combines the delight and spontaneity of an old-time pierrot show with driving satire, strikes them in this production. “Oh What a Lovely War” will play in Nelson on June 27 and Blenheim on June 28.