Second Thoughts
HE youngster who took life in such deadly earnest that he could néver see anything in Noel Coward’s plays but the affectation and constant posing of his characters has quite vanished. Hay Fever, whose people I somewhat bitterly condemned when I saw it performed in an open Roman-like amphitheatre in Maadi, left me convulsed with laughter when I heard the NZBS production over 3YC. The acting was of a high, even standard, leaving one free to enjoy the amusing situations which develop in a household of anarchic, arty-crafty individualists. Whereas in earlier times I had probably thought that Coward lay completely immersed in a world I couldn’t stand, now it is just as evident that a play like this could only be written by someone who was at least
half-aware that there are deeper, clearer values behind it all. At the same time I must not take a gallery seat. Although in youth I did not like the Coward world as I then saw it, I must admit that I shared in this ridiculous and wrong-headed intensity more than I care to remember.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 764, 12 March 1954, Page 10
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185Second Thoughts New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 764, 12 March 1954, 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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