PEOPLE AS SYMBOLS
LOST IN THE STARS, a Dramatisation of Alan Paton’s novel, CORY THE BELOVED COUNTRY, by Maxwell Anderson; Jorathan Cape and the Bodley Head. English price, 6/-. A PLAY shotild always act better than it réads. Ag this reads very well, I cat imagine a sympathetic production having a difect impact on a fiormally recéptive audience. The teader here is at a disadvantage because this is a play of atmosphete fathér than action, arid the atmosphere deperids a great deal on the work of chorus and solo singing. The book gives no hint of the quality of the music. Some of the lyrics of their own do not reach a very high standard, but if the music relates, as 6f course it should, to the mood of the verse, and is combined with good voices atid effertive lighting, it must add enortthously to the general effect. The play is written in a series of short scenes, some of them fot more than two 6r threé pages long, snapshoited on to the stage in between blackouts afid quick curtains. From the point of view of construction, off@ wonders whether this technique would not de tract a little from the play’ dfarmatic possibilities, as there is no gradual working up to any ore intense emotional climax. On the other hand, there is no time or room for boredom. The theme is the colovir qitestion in Africa, with the tindér-privileged Negro on the one hand and the prejudiced white on the other, The people in the play can be regarded as symbols, slightly larger than life, or as individuals catight up in theit own particular travail. I would like to see this play produced hete, biit casting would be difficult. Most of the playets are Negtoes, and while make-up and inference might get thé chatacters across visually, the fluid notes of the Negto voicés, which eveti in teading one cath hear booming he ~~ as = a) oY
through the pages, are a necessary adjunct to the proper presentation of the @ssential message of this sifiéeré and
earnest play:
Isobel
Andrews
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19520125.2.32.4
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 655, 25 January 1952, Page 17
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348PEOPLE AS SYMBOLS New Zealand Listener, Volume 26, Issue 655, 25 January 1952, Page 17
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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