DRAMA IN NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 278, 20 October 1944, Page 5

DRAMA IN NEW ZEALAND

|. Sir,-In your very interesting article entitled "Acting in Self-defence," you quote a member of the Wellington Unity Theatre Group, who in his turn quotes John Gielgud as saying. . . . "The fashion of successful plays during the last 40 years has always had a tendency towards: high life. Wilde and Pinero started it by shéwing a lot of actors in beautiful costumes looking more like ladies and gentlemen than those who came to see them . .. with a few exceptions like Priestley, Williams, MacKenzie and Greenwood the playwrights don’t give us a chance. . ." Now I have no evidence on which to say straightway that to put that in the _ mouth of John Gielgud is misrepresenta- _ tion — but I will say I wonder and I doubt. The» last 40 years covers the best work of such men as George Bernard Shaw and Somerset Maugham, to name only two-both supreme craftsmen and not concerned with "ladies and gentlemen in beautiful costumes." John Gielgud is ‘no fool; he knows that in his own lifetime the English theatre has seen Major Barbara, John Bull’s Other Island, Heartbreak House and St. Joan; and of Maugham: For Services Rendered and Sheppie. Do any

of these ignore "real human and social problems"? I have an obstinate suspicion that John Gielgud above all would be little concerned about the "social content" of a play. For his own acting or productions he has always chosen the great part in the great play: Hamlet, Richard of Bordeaux, Macbeth, Chekhov’s The Three Sisters; Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest; and Sheridan’s Rivals, : Admittedly none of these was written in the last 40 years, but with such a list to his eredit, how could Gielgud have said that the scope of the West End‘ stage is limited? I repeat: I wonder and TI doubt.

HASWELL

PAINE

(Hamilton).