Where Chauffeur Produces Plays

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 276, 11 February 1928, Page 22

Where Chauffeur Produces Plays

Theatre in English Country House I have visited to-day a moorland village far from theatres, cinemas and dance-halls, where gamekeepers, a chauffeur, clerks, cottagersarid housewives write plays and produce them, where folk dancing is a popular pastime, and when boredom is unknown, writes a correspondent in the “Daily Mail,” London. A converted barn is used as a ther atre and the enthusiasm for play-writ-ing is so great that it is hoped in the spring to hold a competition for the best original play. The villagers will adjudicate by ballot. The best team of sword dancers in the village includes a gardener, a wholesale milliner, a gamekeeper, a lawyer’s clerk, a chauffeur, and a wollen merchant. The accompaniment is provided by an 11-years-old boy with an accordion. Mr. Henry C. Smith, a chauffeur and ex-naval man, whose hobby is playwriting, said, “We strive to follow the example of Gordon Craig and get the maximum of effect with the minimum of effects.” His employer, Mrs. Mary Chorley, also writes plays, and has acted with her chauffeur. She said: “The playwriting idea started in a small way. One of my little attempts, ‘ln a Fisherman’s Cottage,’ was produced in the smoke-room of my house. The storm effects were made by playing a hosepipe on the window, dragging holly down the wall, off stage, and rubbing bricks over sand. “My chauffeur produced a charming piece, ‘Sun,’ in the drawing-room before 60 people. He had to make his entry as a burglar through the draw-ing-room window.”

If the Firm persists in its ambition to stage “The Squall;” a new Spanish melodrama by one Jean Bart, the respectable critics will be faced with situations that will drive all the assumed nonchalance out of their prose, says the Sydney “Bulletin.” The play takes its title from a storm assailing the placid household of a typical Mendez, whose dear son Luiz has just been betrothed. During the evil weather a gipsy female with meet-me-after-midnight eyes sweeps into the Mendez home for shelter. First she lures the serving-man Pedro into her slimy embrace, then she worms herself into the delighted arms of papa. Peace is restored only when a violent gipsy heaves out of the middle dishis “woman” with the gentle menace tanca and drives home what he calls of a whip. A pretty play, full of Y.M.G.A* slogans^

“The provinces badly want repertory,” said a prominent English producer recently. “Ther© is a widespread repertory movement. In place of half-baked touring companies murdering London plays, we may soon see West End successes being played by local repertory companies. The twicenightly system is on the wane, revue is dying out, and touring actors’ salaries should be raised.” Arthur Adams, the New Zealander who is claimed as the Australian novelist and playwright, has left Sydney for England with a number of his comedies which h© will try to place on the market. Mr. Adams’s last play. “Mrs. Pretty and the Premier,” was produced in London early in the war. On the voyage to England Mr. Adams will act as secretary to Sir Owen Cox, the shipping magnate. * * * Jose Collins, the well-known London actress, who, in private life, is Lady Innes-Ker, has been granted a discharge in the Bankruptcy Court, subject to the payment of £6OO from her future earnings. The official receiver pointed out that her liabilities were £6,289 and her assets £65, to which £1,464 was added from her earnings, the creditors receiving 4s 5d in the pound.