Action and Reaction

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 498, 7 January 1949, Page 14

Action and Reaction

HETHER one is a‘ believer in miracles or not, the NZBS production unit must be given full credit for a splendid effort in No Miracle for Klomp, a play in which the principal actor is a medieval chalice used for nefarious purposes in the celebration of the Black Mass. This object, during the course of the play, becomes more important and more real to the listener than any of the characters; the listener makes a vivid image of its blackened appearance, and finds no difficulty in’ visualising its horrifying end as it vanishes in radiant fire, leaving its burnt shadow behind. Whether, like the priest in the play, the: listener finds himself willing to believe in a miracle; or whether, like the newspaper editors, he can glibly accept some elaborate theory of atomic disintegration, there remains the disturbing query of the innocent fool, as to whether a "natural phenomenon" is just another name for God. In this play the action alone is not the main purpose of the play (indeed, who cares whether or not the cup was imbued with mysterious properties beyond human knowledge?) but suffices to reveal the reaction of various minds when confronted with the unexplainable. The cast succeeded admirably in expressing the varied . emotions aroused in the beholders of the chalice, fear, anger, greed, pride. When the NZBS copes so well with a, short play containing such good material, it will not be long, I hope, before they are encouraged to give us a new venture not yet done, to my knowledge, by New Zealanders on our radio; I mean the full three-act drama, neither serialised nor cut, but presented as an entire evening’s. programme, as an ordinary play would be at the theatre.