Advance Guard of the Theatre

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 188, 29 October 1927, Page 22 (Supplement)

Advance Guard of the Theatre

Gregan McMahon Writes on Repertory BREAKING NEW GROUND j After 21 years on the profes- | sional and the amateur stage, Gregan McMahon has written the following article on the Repertory Theatre. Eleven years ago he formed the i Melbourne Repertory Theatre and i s now its director. The aim of repertory: As I see it. it is the advance guard of the theatre, a movement that will always be two strides ahead of popular taste. When it has been overtaken by popular taste, it will be failing - in its objective. It must always be in advance of the commercial stage, breaking the ground and clearing the way, creating in the public a taste that the stage can produce.

Probably, the professional stage will smile when I say that repertory is the greater movement. It is, and it should be. Its scope should know no limits. None but those that are bounded by the possibilities of the stage. Commercial stage must always be the paying stage, with shareholders

and a balance sheet, producing plays that will be popular. Its plays must be judged by the box office. The theatre manager will reply that the best play is the play that has the record run. But he is helped in putting up his record by the interest aroused in the production of the “good” play. Between 15 and 20 years ago the Barrie plays were done. They were as

well done then as they have ever been done in Australia, but thy failed financially. A year ago they were again done by the Bou'cicault company, and they were a financial success. The ground had been broken. The repertory movement is not in opposition; it should be too far ahead. Its scope is wider, even the scope of its people is wider. Repertory has perhaps 20 times as many actors as a stock company has. Individually, not all of them are good, most of them are far from good; but each is a character, and the “ensemble” is often perfect. When a stock company puts on a new play, it may turn its late burglar into a benign father, and make a hero do comedy. They may do it well or badly. In the repertory there are characters typically approximating those in the play, an actual character like the one that the author conceived. If he has enough art and enough experience to project himself in his character across the footlights, he is giving a first-class performance. I believe that it would be better to stand on the corner of a street and wait for 20 villains to pass, and take them on to the stage. Among them would be found one who could play the villain better than some of the professionals who are forced into the role on the stage. I do not say that there are not some actors who are able to project themselves into almost any part—the great actors— i -I do not say that a villain can be a convincing villain on the stage. But there are some actors we see put into parts that hang on them like a slop suit, because they have a name and a high salary.

In the 70 players of the Melbourne repertory, there are none without some talent and some training. I do not say we can produce players perfectly, we cannot get perfect plays. But we have the privilege of being able to lay aside all other considerations, and strive after an ideal we will never reach, because it is an ideal, but by following if we can keep representing