W.E.A. LECTURES AT LOWER HUTT.

Hutt News, Volume 3, Issue 11, 7 August 1930, Page 2

W.E.A. LECTURES AT LOWER HUTT.

AN APPRECIATIO]Sr.

% A student who r attended the Workers''

Educational Association lectures given at the Hutttii'e last few months, has expressed appreciation in the following ti'ibute: "The decision of the directors of the WIE:A Classes in appointing Mrs J. Hannah to give a series of lectures on '/The Drama" at L^wer Hutt, was evidently a ; wise one, judging, by the interest and enthusiasm/of th|>se who attended for sixteen -consecutive lectures. Mrs Hannah, who is well known as an exponent of the drama in all its forms—reading, acting, coaching and study—traced its progress from __tho Greek, through Roman and early British days, the seventi. Century and onward, when the themes were mainly religious, through the Elizabethan aa'd

Georgiari era, right up' to the present clay," devoting an evening each to celebrated writers, and. reading extracts from their plays, culminating in George Bernard Shaw, whom she, with others, considers the most outstanding figure ■'in. dramatic literature to-day. Although dealing mainly with English. dratiia and play-writers, she included an interesting lecture on the American - theatre, and another on the fascinating subject of the Irish' drama, with its exponents, Synge, Yeates and O "Neill, and | others, with special reference to the value of the .'repertory theatres, which give an opportunity to new writers, who otherwise would ii'ave remained in obscurity."