Ravening Cohorts
N the English playwright, John Whiting, Kenneth White (1YC) was both stimulating and informative. The enthusiasm with which he spoke of the writer was quite infectious, and, although I had read Whiting’s plays, almost made me want to take another look. It was interesting to learn that Penny for a Song has been produced in New Zealand; I hope that Mr White’s talk will (continued on next page)
jostle other amateur groups to. tackle Whiting’s work. However, I did feel that Mr White’s talk did rather less than justice to his subject, in several waysfirst, in giving no clear idea what Whiting has written about; secondly, in defining "poetic theatre" so oddly and vaguely (something about "a fusion of meaning and mystery’) as to suggest a preciosity in Whiting which does not exist, but, most of all, by his references to "the critics’-not "some critics," mark you, nor "most critics," but "the critics." These ravening cohorts, according to Mr White, all "howled for Whiting’s throat.’ Yet I remember clearly the warm reception given to his work by several of them, and the later defence by others. Mr White’s mass condemnation carried just a hint of making a "corner" in an interesting dramatist.
J.C.
R.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19571115.2.44.3
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 953, 15 November 1957, Page 24
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206Ravening Cohorts New Zealand Listener, Volume 37, Issue 953, 15 November 1957, Page 24
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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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