What Plays Please Australians?

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 104, 23 July 1927, Page 22

What Plays Please Australians?

Will Future Development Demand Intellectual Themes? INTEREST IN PIRANDELLO As the majority of plays presented in Australia usually find their way to N.Z., the following article is of interest to theatregoers of the Dominion. It deals icith the taste of Australians who attend the theatre. rpHE general interest evinced in the Pirandello play at the King’s Theatre, Melbourne, raises a debatable question. On what lines is the taste of the Australian theatregoing public likely to develop? “Six Characters in Search of an Author” is in every respect a play of ideas, the six characters serving to demonstrate the author’s consciousness of the inadequacy of realistic methods and of the realistic outlook to get the full tragic effect, even out of the most tragic facts. Is the Australian going to develop a genuine interest in intellectul drama of this kind, or is he simply going to regard the theatre as an entertainment to stimulate laughter and stifle thought? We have, as yet, in this country, no national drama, nor any characteristic national taste. We take what is given us of the successes of other countries. There are at least two ways of thinking about the theatre. There is, for instance, a whole world of difference between the attitude of the English and that of the French, and no one who lives for any length of time in London or Paris can fail to be struck by this difference. The average Englishman is inclined to dub the expression of any abstract thought on the stage as “morbid.” He is a little uncomfortable in the presence of ideas, and sociological or sex problems in the form of a play send him home feeling cheated of an evening’s entertainment. The Frenchman, on the other hand,

welcomes the play that compels him to think, and regards the theatre as the perfect means of stimulating ideas and of present problems through the medium of an art. In several of the small theatres in Paris, such as the Atelier, the acting is invariably fine and sincere, the French temperament lending itself admirably to the expression of the profoundest emotions. These actors are not afraid to hurt. In England, however, the players

seem to be in a conspiracy with their audience to veil the more harrowing facts of life; hence the Gerald du Maurier school of acting, in which the whole art of the actor seems to lie in the wearing of a mask and his clothes with an equal perfection. One gets a little weary of this trick of so-called naturalness, this slim, strolling, self-effacing perfect gentleman of the English stage. The gTeat French actor, Lucien Guitry, made an epigram: “I do so envy the English actors their privilege of resting on the stage from their social labours,” he said drily. So much for one’s preconceived notions of the frivolous FrenchIn Paris the light, frothy revue is often amazingly badly done, the scenery and dressing tawdry, and the jokes and songs blatantly low. Revue above all things needs careful staging: in Paris the machinery creaks. It lacks that fine smoothness of detail, and even the legs and ankles of the drabbled, unlovely chorus point, one would sa» to the survival of the thickest. Par**" doxically, the alleged serious-minded Anglo-Saxon has brought this thistledown affair of revue to its ultimate perfection, made it a thing light and lovely, full of real gaiety, spontaneous fun and youthful beauty. w l3 che entertainment he loves best. How Columbine-like the charm o those slender, long-limbed girls ot tn English chorus! It wras Rodin. Frenchman himself, who said that n preferred English models there were no legs like those of tn well-made English girl. . m It is obvious that in our qU VL eS growing Australian cities the must equally grow in number ana portance. What shall we see our PJJgoers of the future demanding. little puppets of a frivolous hour, ting across the stage, bringing ter and forgetfulness, or the most JL an found concerns and emotions of hU life laid before him in all their P° *> nancy by the skilful dramatist.

Margaret Titheradge was grant_ ‘ divorce in London recently from v Titheradge, the Australian ac t qr * At , e ground of his misconduct with M Stuart at Weybridge last >' ea *L - parties had been married at in October, 1909. Petitioner granted the custody of the two c dren of the marriage.