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New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 374, 23 August 1946, Page 5

° ? Sir,-Will you pérmit a few thirdparty comments on your review of Auckland University College’s Peer Gynt production, especially that part where your reviewer "J" complains of the number of non-students and nonuniversity people taking part in the production? It hardly seems that ti are sufficiently aware of the ° difficulties which attend’ a student production of major scope, presented during the winter term when scholastic demands on the participants’ time are at their peak. A student drama society consists almost entirely of birds of passage, i.e. of nonpermanent members, who sacrifice part of their limited time to their interest in the drama. Recognising this fact, the Oxford University Drama Society has pursued a regular policy of engaging professional actors, often with first-class London reputations, to form the nucleus of a company and enable the amateur and inexperienced to take part in a production in the company of the most talented and expert. To come nearer home, the list of "outsiders" concerned in the Peer: Gynt production appears little, if. at all, in excess of those concerned in most of the five Shakespearean plays so far presented by the Canterbury students with Ngaio Marsh as producer; and there is no feeling here, as far as I know, that students do not take their fair share in the productions. "J's" fundamental mistake I think is his apparent assumption that the function of a student society is to present student drama. It is not; no such thing exists. Its function is to present drama to a community which sees very little of that art; that students happen to form one of the societies so engaged gives no conceivable reason why they should limit their companies to students. What matters is that plays like Hamlet or Peer Gynt should be presented in New Zealand; what section of the community does it matters not a hoot; and as long as the interests of the society’s members are not neglected, let us take our talent and enthusiasm wherever we can find it. and be erateful.

J. G. A.

POCOCK

Chairman Canter-

bury University College Drama Society. /