Pacific Fantasia
URELY John Gundry’s New Zealand play Manifest Destiny should have had more of an advance notice than the bare statement of its performance over 3YA, if only to indicate that it was about Captain Cook. It was not a play in the ordinary sense of the word, but a fantasia on the events leading up to Cook’s death, with the drum-and guitar skilfully used to transmute the cruder material of history into "something rich and strange." Lines from. Sir Patrick Spens and Chatterton set to music rose or faded into the roaring of waves without fault. Restraint was indeed a word with meaning here, where the very picture of the South Sea Islands and their attendant clichés might so easily have dispersed the images of Cook and Tereavo, in whom the clash of two cultures was focused. Was it a fault that once or twice, most noticeably when Tereavo delivered ceremonial instructions regarding Cook’s body, the Shakespearian ring of the words tended to carry the mind beyond its Pacific setting, or did the universality of the theme support this treatment? Finer points of query or criticism aside, Mani- ---- eeeeeee
fest Destiny in conception and execution combined beauty and the search for truth into a single enthralling whole.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19530501.2.17.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 720, 1 May 1953, Page 8
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209Pacific Fantasia New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 720, 1 May 1953, Page 8
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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.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
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