REPERTORY DRAMA IN LEEDS

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12619, 2 December 1926, Page 8

REPERTORY DRAMA IN LEEDS

INCREASING INTEREST. In view of the interest taken in the Little Theatre movement in Wellington, it is of some purpose to note the surprising hold which repertory drama has obtained in some of the older cities of the world. Leeds, the famous Yorkshire town, is in the unusual position of haying three repertory companies, all of which, v after a thorough trial by the public, continue to pay their way. They are the Leeds Civic Theatre, the. Leeds Art Theatre, And the Leeds Little Theatre, and all three have become established features of the city’s dramatic life. The present season at the Leeds Art Theatre began recently with a performance of Bernard Shaw’s “Caesar and Cleopatra.” Five other performances will be given before the season comes to an end in April. The plays will be selected from “Churchill” (Rubenstein-Talbot), .“Doctor Knock” (Romains-Granville Barker); “Pierrot Grown Old” (Williamson); “The Heir-at-Law” (George Colman -tlio Younger) ; “The Man Who Was Thursday” (Chesterton); “The Master Builder” ( Ibsen); “The Rising Sun” (Heijermans); “Young Mrs Ureenshaw” (Graham); and, in conjunction with the Little Theatre, "Let’s Pretend.” ;,The plays of the Little Theatre are given in its own cnarming theatre, and iwo specially interesting productions this year will be operas, "The Cherokee,” last performed m 1802, and "The Alchemist’s Daughter,” a new opera by Anderson Tprer. Among other productions will be "The Bear,” “The Ship,” “At Mrs Beam’s,” “Black Ell," by Miles Malleson, and “An Enemy of the People.” Tho Civic Theatre begins its season with E. K. Whittaker’s “The Sphinx,” but before that the company intended to celebrate the septcentenary of St. Francis of Assisi by presenting two of Laurence Housman’s ‘Little Plays of St. Francis,” “The Builders” and “Sister Clare.” The method 1 of production is peculiarly suitable to the simple founder of the Franciscan Order. The plays will be taken to the people, for they will be played on the top of a motor-lorry, which will occupy a different stand in the city each night, it is a modern adaption of the mediaeval custom of playing “moralities” on carts which were dragged from street to street. Among other plays to be done by the Civic Theatre are “The Poor Little Rich Girl” (Eleanor Bates), “The Dybbuk” (from the Yiddish of S. Ansky), “The Knight of the Burning Pestle,” “The Child in Flanders” (Cicely Hamilton), “Mid-Summer Fires” (Sudermann), “The Yellow Jacket” (Berimo and Hazelton), “The Mountain” (C. K. Munro), “Cupid and Common Sense” (Arnold Bennett), “The White Savidur” (Hauptmann), “The Gamblers” (Gogol), “Heartbreak House” (Bernard Shaw), “Danton” (Reman Holland), and “Youth” (Miles Alalleson).