AMATEUR DRAMA IN CHRISTCHURCH

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 937, 26 July 1957, Page 8

AMATEUR DRAMA IN CHRISTCHURCH

AN amateur drama group which has had a varied existence over recent years is the Canterbury College Drama Society. Since 1943 the Society has presented several Shakespearian plays produced by Ngaio Marsh. When their first play, Hamlet, was staged, Christchurch showed tremendous enthusiasm. At this time the University players were using the Little Theatre, a part of the University which was formerly the Christchurch Boys’ High School. This had room for some 200 souls, but an enterprising front-of-house staff accommodated extras from school parties on the rafters. Christchurch had been starved of Shakespeare for about 20 years when these performances began. Allan Wilkie’s company of the mid-twenties had been the most recent Shakespearian group to Play in the city. When the Ngaio Marsh productions appeared ~- Christchurch theatre-goers rushed the performancesthe entire season for Othello (1944) was fully booked in a matter of minutesthe police complained about the length of the queue outside the booking office, On one occasion an excited Cashel Street tailor, clutching a bolt of material, rushed out of his shop to waylay Ngaio Marsh in the street to congratulate her on her production. The Society, realising the need for a bigger theatre, moved into the Radiant Hall (now the Repertory Theatre) for productions of A Midsummer Night's

Dream (1945) and Macbeth (1946). This brought fresh problems. The writer will never forget a dress rehearsal of the Dream, where Puck, after announcing his intention to put a girdle round the earth in 40 minutes, was to have flown gracefully through the flies on an invisible cable. Here, alas, was an instance of theory outstripping practice. In point of fact he made-a jerky exit upwards, suspended on two’ heavy hawsers the thickness of a prize-fighter’s arm, to the hurdy-gurdy-like accompaniment of an infernal machine groaning behind the scenes. Audiences at the performances missed this treat-Puck ran off stage like any frail mortal. The following year the witches’s brew in Macbeth was hurriedly changed from a vile-smelling sulphurous concoction which had the audience at the dress rehearsal coughing and wheezing like a wardful of asthmatics. Dan O’Connor sponsored the Society on three tours-two of New Zealand and one which went to Australia. Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author were the touring plays. The organisation behind these tours in time evolved into a very smooth-running machine. Ngaio Marsh is a producer who uses elaborate rostra in her productions. Complicated sets could be dismantled, folded up and packed away in a very short time. Advance publicity was the work of the whole cast-Mr O’Connor

staked great faith in "the personal approach," and a ‘publicity drive would find all hands busy with telephone directories, addressing envelopes to likely patrons. : In February, 1953, the University Theatre was destroyed by fire. Ngaio Marsh, back from England, set about the production of Julius Caesar. This was staged in the Great Hall at the University on a most elaborate staging with an immense centre-piece which revolved to give different settings, The audience were seated on tiers constructed of tubular scaffolding. Every-

body was happy except the all-import-ant University authorities, who wanted the hall back. So when Miss Marsh returned from overseas last year, and the production of King Lear was mooted, the Society’s application for the hall was refused. To make matters worse, the former theatre had been eliminated when the fire-dam-aged building was reconstructed. The homeless drama group now betook themselves to the earthern-floored shed of a rowing club’s boathouse. The joys of a series of Christchurch winter evenings spent on the, banks of the Avon have to be experienced to be believed. But strong youthful constitutions successfully staved off the onset of double-pneumonia, and Lear finally reached the boards, with cast well inoculated psychologically for the chilly scenes on the moor. The cast of the current play, Henry V, are a pampered lot by comparison. A fairy godmother disguised as the Christchurch Technical College Board of Managers has permitted rehearsals to take place in a former hostel for boys, in two adjoining rooms which formerly served as ballroom and billiard room. Earlier rehearsals were held in the attic of a malt-house-a low-roofed room with substantial beams. This was warmer than the rowing club, but the ever-present roof timbers took all the enthusiasm out of the battering-ram charge on Harfleur. However, headquarters were moved before any serious skull fractures occurred, and the players settled down to complete their rehearsals in the luxury of their new

home,

M.J.

G.