DRAMA IN NEW ZEALAND
Sir,-As I am responsible for quoting John Gielgud in Unity Theatre’s section of your recent article, "Acting in Self Defence," I feel I should leave your correspondent, Haswell Paine, "wondering and doubting" no longer. In the BBC Listener of February 6, 1941, he will find that Gielgud said everything I attributed to him. And since your correspondent has dragged in Bernard Shaw to confirm his "obstinate suspicion" that I have misrepresented Gielgud, he will be a little sad to find this: "It’s true," says Gielgud, "that Shaw made Pygmalion, one of his most popular plays, out of a flower girl in Covent Garden, but the flower girl is experimented on by an expert in phonetics, and he turns her out at the end a very’ presentable young lady. If the experiment hadn’t »been a success, the play would have been a failure." . ' And as Mr. Paine says, Gielgu is no fool: neither is Shaw, and groups like People’s Theatre, Hamilton and Unity Theatre, Wellington, are following. the advice he gave during his visit to this country: : "Amateurs make a hopeless mess of ‘modern fashionable comedy.’. They should really only try the most seri- ous and weighty plays so that the intelligence in..the lines will help them. through." But if this. quotation leaves Mr. Paine "wondering and doubting," he will find it on page 24 of the book "George Bernard Shaw in New Zea-land.""--UNITY THEATRE MEMBER (Wellington).
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 281, 10 November 1944, Page 7
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240DRAMA IN NEW ZEALAND New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 281, 10 November 1944, Page 7
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