THE DEATH OF DON JUAN
HETHER he is to be regarded as historical person or fertility myth, Don Juan is one of those figures, like Ulysses, Hamlet or Faust, who exercise a permanent fascination over the human imagination. A play on the death of Don Juan by Hugh Ross Williamson suggested at first another of that .author’s ingenious exercises in ritual murder, as in his interpretations of William Rufus and Saint Thomas of Canterbury. In fact, the play (heard from 1YC) turned out to be something simpler, though perhaps not less arguable. Mr. Ross Williamson adopted a variant of the story, according to which the Don was actually poisoned by the Franciscans of Seville, who then spread about the famous story of the walking statue. One result was that the Father Guardian responsible for the poisoning sounded uncommonly like a_ villainous monk of romantic melodrama; he turned out to be something more-he is Don Juan’s counterpart, and dies by the same poison. Although we are. still likely to prefer Moliére and Mozart and ‘Shaw and Richard Strauss, this play was not unworthy of its subject; and the NZBS production was very well done in all. respects-one of their very best for some .time.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19530612.2.23.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 726, 12 June 1953, Page 10
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203THE DEATH OF DON JUAN New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 726, 12 June 1953, Page 10
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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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