The Pastoral Play

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 215, 30 November 1927, Page 4

The Pastoral Play

ART OF IDYLLIC DRAMA | FLOURISHED IN ITALY IN | 15TH CENTURY I I NATURE’S OWN SETTING As far as New Zealand is concerned the pastoral play is ahnost a forgotten art. It is not that we have no settings—there are gardens and wooded groves suitable for the production of any pastoral , but we have not the opportunities. The pastoral play must be performed in daylight . On the afternoon of December 3 the Auckland Lyceum Club will produce a pastoral play at the Ellerslie racecourse. This should make a perfect setting for an open-air performance. Graceful palms, an emerald lawn and beds of brilliant flowers are fit background for the characters of a pastoral, with its shepherds and shepherdesses, its nymphs and other idyllic creatures. • Mr. Allan Wilkie gave Australia a taste for pastoral productions. In the lovely grounds of Government House, Perth, Western Australia, he produced Shakespeare’s "Midsummer Xight’s Dream,” a comedy which is eminently suitable for out-door treatment. Mr. Wilkie has also directed pastoral productions of other Shakespeare plays in Sydney and in Hobart, Tasmania. "As You Like It,” with its woodland setting and its romantic loves, is the favourite Shakespearean comedy for the open air. It is frequently produced in England as a pastoral play, usually in the garden of a country house where there is a wide sweep of lawn and a background of trees. In England, too, the owners of large country houses stage pastoral plays among their friends. The Oxford University Dramatic Society has given several pastoral plays and many other societies have given open-air performances. “The Bowl,” in Hollywood, California, was specially built for open-air performances of both plays and musical festivals. Several elaborate and spectacular productions have been staged there. The pastoral drama, which has been described as the bucolic idyll in dramatic form, flourished in Italy at the end of the 3 sth century. It grew from troupes of strolling players who toured the country, giving performances on village greens, or anywhere *in the country, where a reasonable audience could be found. This form of dramatic art reached its height with Tasso’s "Aminto,” written in 1573 and in Guarini’s “Pastor Fido,” written in 1585. These plays influenced the pastoral drama of England, which, however, was marked by artificiality even at its best. "The Faithful Shepherdess, Fletcher (1610) and “The Sad Shepherd,” Jonson (1636), are considered to be two of the finest examples. Sir Philip Sidney’s "Arcadia” is another. The Lyceum Club has chosen a very beautiful example of the modern pastoral for its production. This is “How the Weather is Made,” by Harold Brighouse. Classic and woodland dances will be woven into the story and will add to its attractiveness.