MIXED THEATRE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 944, 13 September 1957, Page 17

MIXED THEATRE

PLAYS OF THE YEAR, Volume 14, edited aoe C. Trewin; Elek Books, English price HE 14th volume of this series, edited, like the others, by J. C. Trewin, offers the same mixed grill as its predecessors: one good play, one rubbishy melodrama, one neat play of restricted area, and one historical pageant. The good play is The Strong Are Lonely, by Fritz Hochwaelder, translated from the German by Eva le Galliene. It is set in Paraguay during the later 18th century, when the Jesuit order ruled the State according to the highest ethical and spiritual principles. The unimpeachable integrity of the Jesuits brings thousands. of Indians, formerly at the mercy of slave traders, to Christianity, but it is a faith cherished because it lines their pockets and leaves them in peace, lulling them into a torpor as pleasant as it is unmindful of man’s last end. A legate is sent from Rome, disguised, to examine the Jesuits, and, as a result of his findings, the Order is commanded (continued on next page)

BOOKS (continued from previous page) to leave Paraguay, and the natives are left to the mercies, notoriously untender, of the Spanish traders. Whether the play be viewed as an indictment of Jesuit principles, or whether it expresses the central problem of life in societies, how far to organise and at what point social welfare becomes morally eroding, the reader, or viewer; must himself judge, With an all-male cast, it should make an ideal sixth-form production. One Bright Day, by Sigmund Miller, is an American play about business

ethics. Its last scene, where the pres dent of a large corporation confronts his stockholders with the news that their drug Trakone, marketed in millions, has proved to be noxious and must be withdrawn, has been compared with similar scenes in Galsworthy. This is rating it too high, but the piece is lively, never stuffy, and should prove attractive to repertory groups. The pageant play is Anne Boleyn, by Peter Albery. This tragic and enigmatic Queen has fascinated men ever since her death. She is the goose-girl of the old stories and rhymes, the deceitful usurper. Mr Albery sees her simply, as a wilful beauty whose head was easily turned. Somewhat too gusty for schools, it would make a good show piece for our more prosperous societies. The House by the Lake is unmitigated tosh, and I can find nothing to say a®out it

| at all,

Bruce

Mason