BOOK REVIEWS
A PLAY ABOUT WOMEN
THE WILLING HORSE: A PLAY. By Isobel Andrews, Progressive Publishing Society, Wellington. HIS is the play, now made available in book form, with which Mrs, Andrews won the Michael Myers Cup for the best play produced during the annual Festival of Community Drama in 1941, and also the Dairy Exporter Cup for the best play by a New Zealand author, Of course it is a good play -good to act and good to read-and well worthy of preservation in print. Mrs, Andrews could not be dull if she tried, or unintelligent, or uninteresting, But it is equally difficult for her to be non-provocative, and quite certain in this case that she did not try. Her willing Horse is the woman who does all the work behind the scenes at a country supper and dance-a middle-aged, quick woman with a "definite if downright" sense of humour-but of the nine other women who flit in and out of the Waituna hall kitchen where Miss Wilkes stands most of the time cutting sandwiches, everyone is dull or silly or ignorant or affected or catty, Unfortunately, everyone is also real enough to be
convincing, so that we find ourselves in spite of ourselves asking this question: does Mrs. Andrews specialise in fools, or does the country produce them in this proportion? If it does, there is a job to be done somewhere: perhaps in the kindergarten, perhaps in the office .of the registray of marriages. If it does not, there is another job to be done by Mrs. Andrews-a play to be written round a group of women and girls whom one would not be afraid to meet on a country road, SOUVENIR WORTH HAVING NGARIMU INVESTITURE SOUVENIR PROGRAMME. Printed by Whitcombe & pe for the Department of Internal Affairs, HERE are souvenirs and souvenirs, programmes and programmes, but those who were at Ruatoria this week saw something different from any of them. It is first of all a remarkably good piece of printing, and in the second place a most complete and interesting account of a full-dress Maori ceremony with all the songs and recitatives translated into English and all the dances and attitudes historically explained. Included are seven pages of text by Sir Apirana Ngata-more than half of it a description in verse of the Maori Haka, and the rest a prose account of the Poi Dance. Collectors should secure a copy and hold fast to it, *
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19431008.2.17
Bibliographic details
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 224, 8 October 1943, Page 7
Word count
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410BOOK REVIEWS New Zealand Listener, Volume 9, Issue 224, 8 October 1943, Page 7
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
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