PLAYS ANCIENT AND MODERN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 32, Issue 823, 6 May 1955, Page 15

PLAYS ANCIENT AND MODERN

OUIS MacNEICE’S 1935 poetic translation of Aeschylus’s Agamemnon will be heard from YC stations shortly; "This is another in the BBC World Theatre series, and stars Francis de Wolff as the tragic king, Catherine Lacey as Clytemnestra, his faithless queen, Hugh Burden ag her lover Aegisthus, the murderer of her husband, and Marjorie Westbury as Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam of Troy, carried back to Argos as a slave by Agamemnon, Aeschylus, the author of the tragedy, is described by Louis MacNeice as "not only the most prophet-like of Greek poets, but also the greatest master of imagery." Earlier, Swinburne described the Oresteia-the trilogy of which the Agamemnon forms the First Act-as "on the whole the greatest spiritual work of man." * The Agamemnon will be broadcast by 1YC at 7.15 pm. on Monday, May 9; 3YC at 9.30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 10; and 2YC at 8.30 p.m. on Sunday, May 15. \ War through the ages -has a terribly familiar ring-the struggle, the sacrifice, the loyalty, the doubts. War in Europe ended ten years ago, in the last days of the pre-atomic efa which now seems so long ago. In memory of the time when the few fought and conquered the Luftwaffe in the skies over England ZB

stations are to broadcast an NZBS pro- | duction of The Way: to the Stars, by Terence Rattigan. Those who saw the memorable Caro] Reed film will recall the setting-an airfield "somewhere in Britain" to which comes Pilot Officer Peter Penrose, just commissioned and feeling distinctly a "new boy." We follow his career in the ait and on the ground, getting to know his friends on the: station and in the village. The Way to the Stars was produced. by William Austin with Gavin Yates as Peter’ Penrose and Michael Beegleman as Johnny Hollis, the American. It will be broadcast at 9:35 p.m. in*ZB Sunday Showcase on May 8. Not since Oscar Wilde, See oihed: has anyone written a fairy tale as charming as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince. Saint-Exupéry became an airman and his most famous: stories, including The Little Prince, deal with his experience of flying. He did not return from a mission over Southern France with the French Air Force in 1944. The Little Prince will be heard from 1YA at 9.45 p.m. on Sunday, May 15, and later from other YA and X stations. It Won't Be a Stylish Marriage, an NZBS comedy, will be heard from YA stations at 7.30 p.m. on Sunday, May 14, and later from YZ stations.