WHY THE STAGE WILL LIVE

Hokitika Guardian, 22 June 1929, Page 3

WHY THE STAGE WILL LIVE

I, EL CAPER’S. OPINIONS

"l lie theatre is the last island in the aca of modern civilisation m which

mat ancient invention, the spoKen word, is as if through a sort ol enchainment .preserved in its original purity; there mill lingers that ancient ivo.nle.ful and popular lnibit by which people make themselves mutually understood, through talking and gesticulating with their band, using neither machines nor marks, but only words,’; writes Karel Capek in the Observer. "Viewed from this standpoint,’ there is a great luture in store lor the-thea-tre., a* is the case with all things that nave a great past. It cannot be replaced by anything else; it is the sacred reservation of the spoken word;

“The second adyantage of the theatre is the actor, not because he plays better than a film-actor, but because lie is real and stands before us in the Hcsh. In modern civilisation the theatre ceases to he a house of illusions and becomes a house of realities. In the course of a lifetime we rarely have an opportunity of observing, for several hours, living beings walking, sitting, and chatting ot tilings of general interest. It we want to pass a few hours in c ntemplative observations of wonderful reality and to see what a human being looks like, we must go to the theatre. In our real life we see people only pass.ng by, or, oerhaps. .bending their hacks over their desks, but we usually don’t know the way they make love to one another, or how they kill each other, how they compare notes on their tragic or inlinir ate affairs. The actor of the film is a shadow; the actor of the theatre is a reality.

“! he* more wo l cel drawn towards; i.-alitv the more frequently shall wo come hack to the theatre. But hero, j to, it lies with the actors' to satisfy theis craving of ours. It is the loity task of the actor to place before us living beings, a sight' now so rare and so unusual. As long as there are actors there will lie theatres; as long j as queer people are being horn with ( a wild desire to reproduce a living man by shouts and gestures, we neihl not put to ourselves the question whether the theatre will he swallowed up by i any other interest! I