NEVER AGAIN

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 496, 27 October 1928, Page 24

NEVER AGAIN

Gregan McMahon will Not Produce Australian Plays ANTAGONISTIC PRESS Gregan has decided that he will never produce another Australian written play in Amstralia. This is due. he explains, to the “criticism” by a section of the Press of the Australian-written play, “The Lap of the Gods” (Louis Stone). “We might reasonably have expected,” he proceeds, “a little encouragement and help in a play that is admittedly superior in dialogue, plot, and construction to many importations. But it was not even fairly reviewed. For the most part it was attacked in a ruthless, destructive spirit. By others —treated in a languid, patronising way. “Some of the ‘critics’ had themselves submitted plays to me which I had refused. My reply to one, foremost among the attackers, «was that his was the worst play I had ever read.” i A critic need not be a play-writer. ! “The Lap of the Gods” was the i twentieth Australian play produced by Mr. McMahon. The writers include D. H. Souter, Arthur H. Adams, Mrs. Dale, R. Buchanan, Helen de Guerry Simpson, "William Moore, Halcott Glover, Blamire Young, Mary Wilkinson, Mrs. Dearden, and E. H. C. Oliphant. But “The Lap of the Gods” will be the last. "I am,” he says, “absolutely finished with Australian plays. In practically all cases the Press attitude has been tho same.”