WHEN STUDENTS PLAY IBSEN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 366, 28 June 1946, Page 19

WHEN STUDENTS PLAY IBSEN

"Peer Gynt" in Auckland

DOZEN or so years ago a group of enthusiasts in Christchurch set about producing Peer Gynt and went as far as casting the play before they gave up. That, as far as I can discover, waS the nearest anyone came to producing Ibsen’s fantasy in New Zealand until this month, when the Auckland University College Drama Club, Dr. Frank Birkinshaw producing, played Peer Gynt seven times within a week to six full houses and one half-empty one. Opening night was an Auckland June night of uncertain rain and slippery streets and I felt sorry for the players who spoke their lines largely for an audience of empty chairs and coldfooted parents and friends. There were some players who succeeded in making their parts lively in spite of the weather, the chill audience, and the inevitable raggedness of such a first performance; this was so encouraging that it was no surprise to hear that later performances went with a good deal of verve and that the last night was pretty successful even, as an independent observer reported to me, to the overflowing audience hanging from the rafters. A Mature Play ' Whatever may be said in criticism of this production only praise may be said of the courage shown by those responsible for attempting it. It was explained to me that cold water, hail, snow and ice were all thrown on the idea of tackling such a producer’s nightmare; and that finally the work of producing it

was wished on to Dr. Frank Birkinshaw, who had first suggested the idea. "It seemed to me it was time a group like the University Drama Club produced a mature play, and that’s just how I regard Peer Gynt," he told me. "But the important thing is to put it on straight without a lot of mumbojumbo and straining after effects, in fact without approaching Ibsen with held breath as if he’s a god or some strange and awesome being. It doesn’t matter a fig whether it’s a morality play or a social conscience play or a romantic fantasy or what it is; the thing is to put it on and put it on fast and with as much liveliness and ag little reverence as possible. I’m sick to death of this attitude of reverence and breath-holding towards Shakespeare and Ibsen and Eugene O’Neill. Let’s get on with the plays and the dramatists and demi-gods can look after themselves." The Club Made Money One morning I went to have a look at the scene-painting operations and found people deep in pots of very bright colours transferring designs from an inch scale to a foot scale. I was startled to hear that the cost of the production would be about £200, but I have since learned that the Drama Club made money on its venture and has, in addition, some very good permanent costumes and properties, including the really exciting sets and costumes specially designed for the play. The wardrobe mistress told me a few of her worries-such that the costume for The Stranger took eleven yards of

material, that the price of material ranged from about 2/- a yard up to 11/and this after long tramping on her feet to find the cheapest and most suitable stuffs. "And," she wailed, "sequins cost so much a thimble and you should see the size of the thimble! One thimbleful goes nowhere at all." "So it’s not fun being a wardrobe mistress?" I asked her. "No, I shouldn’t define it as fun ex-actly-wearing on the feet is nearer the mark." Organisation At the top of a ladder someone was hammering; the back drops were huge and heavy and had wooden selvedges. Three or four people moved cat*like among pots of paint and pulled and pushed a new scene into its storage place. The stage manager had a word with the carpenter about the position of the ship’s rail. "My stage manager is a really magnificent organiser," Dr. Birkinshaw said. "Of course some things take longer then others to organise. Some properties have taken about 18 days and others, cushions and things like that, have taken about 18 hours. But I announced that we needed a keg of beer or a beer keg for the wedding scene and the response was quite marvellous. That keg of beer was not only organised but actually presefit on the stage in exactly 18 minutes. Oh no, not a beer keg; a keg of beer, all present and correct for the meantime." I went along to a rehearsal a few nights before the opening and saw various scenes in no particular order: and (continued on next page)

"PEER GYNT"

(continued from previous page): there I had a vivid impression of ‘the hard work involved in producing this play. Throughout the rehearsal people were climbing and moving in every possible Place from the floor to the ceiling, fixing lights, trying new positions for scenery, moving ladders, calling: for a hammer, and in general taking. not the least notice of the few people. repeatedly speaking lines on the. stage. "We'll take that again. There .was.-a. really very. unpleasant pause there," called the producer. Again, please, and: very much faster!" So over they went again, and the noise and the movement all round roared on and no one took the least notice of anyone else. ~ a a Ey EER GYNT covers a period of 40 to 60 years; in this production.the main. part was played in two sections, the young man by one player and the old Peer by a second player. I am sure that I should have found the preterided transi. tion from youth to age in one player at least as comfortable as I found the change from one player to another. It seems to me that the old Peer makes. unfair demands on a new player; someone else pointed out, I think fairly, that the early P has a_large advantage | over his succes§or, purely on the grounds . of his youth: it is possible to. look be-. nignly on a young man making a fool of himself;. but an old man making a fool of himself is an object of scorn or at least impatience. at bg a HE two-piano music robbed this Peer . Gynt of the operatic quality a full | production with music can have. And in addition the small stage did certainly have a cramping effect on the scope and movement of the play. I heard others grumbling about the bicycle, complaining that this was an unwarranted liberty to take with Ibsen, (continued on next. pae).

(continued from previous page) who instructs that Peer and the Woman in Green shall ride off the stage on a gigantic pig. But I can quite see that a bicycle built for two may be just about the 1946 equivalent of a gigantic pig with a rope on its neck in 1867. The bicycle didn’t steal the scene, but it did draw laughter; and even better, it gave the players themselves a few moments of undergraduate fun and then removed them from the stage with envious speed. I could make my objections to the cowherd girls scene (Ibsen says "Three cowherd girls run across the hill, shout. ing and singing"), in which we had the curtain rising on a most jolly backcloth with three very agile cows prancing and three suitably fluffy-looking girls with buckets and large-doll-like heads. Peer does his bit and suddenly the heads of the girls painted on the backcloth flap inwards and out come the heads o: three girls. I was reminded of the brightly-hued film "Gold-diggers of Broadway 1932," a film and a year I’d be happy to forget. * * * ‘THs was a university production; yet the music, from two pianos and z violin, was provided (free of charge I understand) by Dorothea Franchi, Owen Jensen and Frank Hofmann, not now students of this university; the balletKathleen Whitford’s pupils-was nonuniversity; so were some of the stage hands, the electricians, a carpenter, and the designer of the settings, Hella Hofmann. This leaves us with the actors themselves, the wardrobe mistress (who had a heavy time of it as she played the part of Aase as well), the stage manager (and he played a part in the last act) and perhaps one or two student helpers. So how can this be called a students’ production? It seems fair to suggest that a university production

should be wholly so; that a university of the size of this one should be able to provide electricians and all the rest of the technical workers from its scientific ranks; and that it should certainly ‘be. able to provide its own music for such a play. That is a hope in advance, not a complaint in retrospect. For this production of Peer Gynt stands, whatever criticisms may be made of details, as an important event in drama in New Zealand. The significant thing is not that it was a pretty successful venture, but that

it was a venture at all.

J.